MAJOR WALTERS, THE POLICE, THE CSU TECHS, AND DR. POLASKI, the medical examiner, had nothing but complaints. Their laptop computer wouldn’t work. Their cell phones didn’t work. Nothing they had with them that used electricity, or even batteries, worked. Was that me screaming earlier, and why had I been screaming Galen’s name? Glamour hides a multitude of sins, and both Galen and I were good enough to hide the blood. As long as no one touched us, and found that the cloth felt tacky with blood, we were fine.
“We weren’t certain what would happen to your modern tech down here. I’m sorry it’s not working,” I said. I wanted to avoid the screaming issue altogether, but I didn’t want him angry at me. Police do not like to be fucked with, especially if they’ve just, maybe, pissed off all the local feds on your behalf. No matter how much Walters had enjoyed my handing Marquez his hat, it still might make life difficult for him.
“There are things inside the sithen that are frightening. One of them almost attacked Galen. It scared me, that’s all.” I turned, hoping to get away from Walters and his questions. I just wasn’t up to word games at that moment. Melangell’s face kept coming back to me. Frost’s assurance that her eyes would grow back if she were allowed to be in faerie and not in the Hallway of Mortality was small comfort if she couldn’t be cured of a hopeless obsession with Aisling. We had stolen something from Melangell if she couldn’t cure herself of the love.
Walters grabbed my arm. I hadn’t expected him to touch me. “Princess Meredith, what aren’t you…” His voice trailed off because the arm he grabbed was tacky with the blood that covered it. He jerked me nearly off my feet, and my concentration was simply not good enough. Frost moved in to protect me, but the glamour slipped. Walters got a flickering look at what I was hiding.
He looked past me at the others, and they were all busy trying to do their jobs, collecting evidence with none of their gadgets working. He didn’t let go of my arm. “We need to talk,” he said, his voice surprisingly calm.
“In private,” I added.
He nodded.
Frost said, “Let go of the princess.”
“It’s all right, Frost.” I led the way around the corner and a little way down the hall. Shiny white marble with veins of gold and silver was replacing the grey stone where Mistral and I had made love. It was as if something that we had done was changing the very nature of the sithen. The queen would not be pleased, but one problem at a time.
When we were alone except for my ring of guards, he said, “Show me what I’m feeling, Princess, because it’s not the same thing I’m seeing.”
Should I have tried to trick him? Maybe, but I was tired of games. We still didn’t know where Amatheon had disappeared to. The chalice had gone AWOL, and who knew when and where it would reappear. The only reason I had had Frost with me when I suddenly materialized in the other hallway was that he had grabbed me when I started to fade. But for that, I would have appeared alone, unguarded, in the middle of the fight.
I dropped the glamour, and had the small satisfaction of watching Major Walters’s eyes go wide before he found his cop face. But I’d seen the moment, and knew I must be even messier than I thought.
“What the hell happened to you?” He had let me go and now had some of the drying blood on his hand.
“There was another assassination attempt,” I said, leaving out that it wasn’t aimed at me. “Galen was injured in the fighting.” Truth, as far as it went.
Walters looked at Galen. I nodded, and Galen dropped the glamour. He even turned around so Walters could see the worst of the blood.
“How is he up walking around?”
“The sidhe heal faster than mere mortals,” I said.
“He lost that much blood and he’s healed?”
“I’m a little light-headed,” Galen said, “but give me an hour or two, and I’ll be good as new.”
“Jesus, I wish we could heal like that.”
“So do I,” I said.
He looked at me. “I forgot, you’re mortal, like us.”
I shrugged. “That’s the rumor.”
“You don’t heal as fast as the rest of them.”
“No.”
“Your arm isn’t in a sling anymore,” he said, and motioned to it.
“No, it got healed in a ritual.” The sex with Mistral had healed it, but I didn’t need to overshare that much.
He shook his head. “Is any of this blood yours?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“His last time,” he pointed at Frost, “now his,” he pointed to Galen. “You’re going to get one of them killed.”
“I hope not.” I let my voice show how tired I was, how unhappy I was at the thought.
“Go back to L.A., Princess. Take your men and go.”
“Why?”
“Because there have been two assassination attempts in two days, plus a double homicide. Someone wants you dead, and doesn’t care who gets hurt. If they want you dead bad enough, they’ll succeed. Maybe not tonight, or tomorrow, but if you stay, they will kill you.”
“Are you trying to scare me, Major Walters?”
“I’m trying to have you not die on my watch. I agreed to come into your murder scene partly to help my career, I admit that. But if you die with me inside your faerie land, I will never live it down. I’ll always be the one who let you die.”
“If they kill me, Major Walters, the only thing you could do to stop them would be to die before me. I don’t think that’s very helpful.”
“Are you making a joke?”
I sighed, and rubbed my forehead, fighting off an urge to scream. “No, Major, I am not joking. What hunts me here is nothing you can stop or protect me from. I need your help to solve these murders, but truthfully, if I’d known it was this dangerous in faerie right now, I wouldn’t have brought you in.”
“We’re police, Princess Meredith. We’re used to taking our chances.”
I shook my head. “Do you have enough evidence? Do you have what you need?”
“Dr. Polaski wanted to know what would happen if we gave you evidence that pointed to someone.”
“Did she find something?”
“She wanted to know what—” He paused over his words. “—use you would make of any evidence we gathered.”
“We’d use it to hunt down and punish the murderer,” I said.
He shook his head, wiping his big hand on the side of his jacket. “What about a trial?”
I smiled, and knew it wasn’t pleasant. “There are no trials inside faerie, Major Walters.”
“So you’ll use our evidence to kill someone?”
“The punishment for murder among us is usually death, so execute them, yes.”
“Then we’ll have to go back to the lab and contact you later.”
“You did find something,” I said.
He nodded. “If this was going to trial we’d want to run it through a computer. If what we’ve found is going to be used to execute someone without a trial, we want to be even more cautious.”
“What did you find?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“You do realize that the murderer could be the one behind the attempts on my life. By not telling me what you suspect, or who you suspect, you could be signing my death warrant. By the time you’ve analyzed your data, it could be too late for me.”
His hands made fists, and he closed his eyes. “I told the doctor that in so many words. She won’t budge.”
“So you don’t know either,” I said.
“I know it’s a print of someone we took samples from, and the only ones we had access to were the ones in the hallway.”
“The guards,” I said.
“And the kitchen staff,” he said.
I looked at him. “One of the royal guards, that’s what you think, isn’t it?”
“It’s who I’d be afraid of, if I were you.”
“I could compel her to tell me what she knows, or have one of my guards do it.”
“Using magic on anyone connected with the police is a felony, Princess.”
“I’m immune to prosecution.”
“You’d never again get help out of my office, or anyone else on our side of the river. You might never get help from anyone. No other human law enforcement agency would trust you. Bringing us in here and mind-raping us.” He shook his head. “I may not agree with Polaski, but I’ll fight to keep her free will and choice.”
I looked into his pale eyes, and knew he meant it. I could maybe get something useful out of Polaski and never be able to trust or be trusted by the police again, or I could let them go and hope that the doctor knew what she was doing. If I hadn’t wanted their expertise, then why had I brought them into the sithen in the first place?
“I trust Dr. Polaski’s judgment, and your stubbornness. I’ll abide by the rules.”
Frost moved beside me, as if he would have disagreed. “We will all abide by the rules of my agreement, is that clear?”
Some nodded. Ivi was smiling as if he couldn’t quite believe me. Or maybe he was just amused at some private joke of his own. You never knew with Ivi.
“I understand,” Frost said. “I do not agree, but I will abide by it.”
Walters nodded. “I’ll try to hurry the doctor and her techs and get it to you as soon as I can, but a print out of place isn’t proof of murder. It isn’t proof enough to execute someone.”
“Not in a human court,” I said.
“See, talk like that will make Polaski sit on her evidence. You’ll never get it.”
“But I’m not saying it to her, am I.”
“You think I’d give it to you, if I had it.”
“I think you understand, more than she does, how dangerous things are right now for me and my guards.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “Maybe, but I agree with Polaski on one thing: I wouldn’t want to be the person who gave you just enough evidence to get the wrong person killed. Once someone’s dead, Princess Meredith, there’s no fixing it. No going back. I’d want to be dead certain that I had the right person before anyone got the ax.”
“So would I, Major, and I’ll push to see that we get more proof.”
“You said they’d use the evidence to simply execute.”
“I said they could and probably will, but I, like you, want to be sure. Fairplay and all, but more than that, Major Walters, once someone is executed for the crime the investigation stops. If we execute the wrong person, then the murderer is still free to kill again. I don’t want that.”
“So it’s not about executing the wrong person for you but about letting the guilty go free.”
“A guilty murderer that gets away with it once may try again.”
He nodded. “If they get away with it once, most of them seem to get a taste for it.” He looked at me. “If everyone but you is supposed to be immortal down here, then how did this Beatrice die?”
“That is another problem, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps…” Aisling said.
I didn’t want to look at him. I realized I was angry with him. Angry about what he’d done to Melangell. Angry that he didn’t seem to feel bad about it. His tone of voice had sounded almost as if he had enjoyed it.
Mistral suddenly joined our group. “Excuse me, Princess. Queen Andais longs greatly to speak with you.” His face was utterly neutral as he said it. Too neutral. Something was wrong.
“Princess Meredith, why not appeal directly to this doctor?” Aisling said.
I took in a lot of air and let it out slow, then I turned very deliberately and looked at Aisling. “It’s not a bad idea,” I said, my voice sounding more matter-of-fact than my face felt.
Aisling smiled. I could see just enough of his face through the gauze to know that.
I looked away from him. I tried to make it casual, but I don’t think he, or any of the other men, was fooled. Maybe Mistral wouldn’t understand why I didn’t want to see that ghostly smile, but then he didn’t know that I’d unleashed Aisling’s smile on someone else.
“No,” Walters said.
We all looked at him. “Why not?” I asked.
“I shouldn’t have told you.”
“You’re in charge here, right? Of the human side, at least.”
“Technically, but she’s the chief medical examiner, and she’s in charge of her people. If I were the chief of police, yeah, but I’m not.”
“So you cannot make her cooperate,” Frost said.
Walters shook his head. “She’ll be pissed if she knows I told you as much as I did. If she gets pissed, she’ll be even less likely to share.”
“Then why did you tell us?” Aisling asked.
I kept my gaze on Walters this time as he said, “Because it’s got to be one of the people who were here in the hallway with us. Because they’re the only ones we took prints from. I won’t give you a name just because their print was where it shouldn’t be, not if you’re just going to kill them. But I don’t want you getting killed either.”
“Why, Major Walters, I’m touched.” I didn’t smile when I said it.
“Give me your word that the suspect won’t be harmed in any way, and I’ll help you talk to Polaski.”
“I give you my word that I will do everything within my power to keep whoever it is safe from harm.”
“Doing everything in your power isn’t the same thing as promising that they won’t be harmed,” Walters said.
“No, it isn’t, but I’m Princess Meredith, not queen. I am not absolute ruler here. You can promise me things, but if the chief of police overrides you, then where does that leave me?”
He shook his head. “Fine, talk to Polaski, but she’s not going to be happy with either of us.”
“Why should she be any different?”
“What?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Just ignore me, Walters, I’m not feeling my best.”
“If I’d had two assassination attempts on me in two days, I’d be pissed.”
I thought about that. It wasn’t getting myself killed that bothered me; it was getting everyone else killed. There’s a reason why the president and his family aren’t supposed to date the secret service agents who guard them.
There was still blood on Galen’s hand, his blood, dried, a little tacky still. Too much blood. Too much was happening in too small a space of time. Holding Galen’s hand made me start to tremble. I realized in that moment that I was going to break down.
“Can you give us a few minutes, Major, please?” My voice was only a little shaky.
He started to argue, but something in my face made him simply nod and walk back down the hallway. I fought it off until he was almost out of sight, then the first sob came. I clung to Galen, felt the glamour slip away, and lost it. I cried and sobbed until I started to hyperventilate. I couldn’t breathe, and my knees started to buckle. Galen took me to the ground, put his back against the wall, and let me wrap my legs around his waist, let me hold him as close as I could short of sex.
Galen stroked my hair, and said, “It’s all right, it’s all right.”
“Long, deep breaths, Meredith,” Frost said, kneeling beside us. “Slow your breathing or you will pass out.”
I fought the wordless, screaming panic. I fought to breathe, and couldn’t do it.
Galen stroked my hair and lied to me. “It’s okay, we’re safe, I’m safe.” Lies, all lies. My body was screaming, “Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe.”
Frost grabbed my face between his hands, held me so tight it hurt. He made me look at him. “Meredith, Meredith!” He kissed me. Maybe simply to stop the noises, or because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. The Queen’s Ravens are trained in weapons, hand-to-hand combat, battle strategy, even politics. Hysterical women are not on the list.
His mouth closed over mine, and I struggled against it. There was no air. I fought free of Galen’s arms and clawed at Frost. He breathed a cold wind into my mouth. The moment the cold touched me, I stilled, as if my body just stopped. I think even the blood in my veins stopped. A moment of nothingness, silent, still, cold. It was like being thrown into freezing water; the shock of it stopped the hysteria, stopped everything for a moment.
Frost drew away from the kiss, and my breath rushed back in a huge, chest-hurting gasp. I took several deep, painful breaths in a row, while he held my face, and stared into my eyes, as if searching for me. His grey eyes held that tiny snowscape in them again, and I felt as if I were falling forward, falling forward into Frost’s eyes. He blinked, and the sensation stopped, but some night I was going to have to see what would happen if I kept looking into those snowy eyes. But not tonight. Not tonight.
“Princess Meredith,” a woman’s voice said, “I’m sorry to intrude.”
I wiped at the tearstains on my face, which didn’t help, since all I succeeded in doing was putting more of Galen’s blood on my face. I must have looked a horror when I turned around to face Dr. Polaski.
Her breath came out in a gasp, which let me know just how bad I looked. You don’t get people who work in forensics gasping much. “Major Walters filled me in on some of what’s been happening here today.” She shook her head and took her glasses off, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.
“We do not want the general public to know what is happening inside faerie,” Frost said.
“I can keep my mouth shut.” She looked at me, and I saw something in her face that was almost pity. “Are you able to talk to me, Princess Meredith?”
I took a deep breath, and it shook a little. My voice sounded hoarse, and I had to clear it, but I finally managed, “Talk to me, Dr. Polaski, I’ll listen.”
The guards parted for her to come closer to us. I was still sitting in Galen’s lap, my legs wrapped around his waist. If the intimate position made her uncomfortable, she didn’t show it. I stayed where I was because I still wanted to hold Galen as close as I could. It was a way of clinging to him without looking like I was clinging to him. Galen’s hands rested at the small of my back.
Polaski knelt down beside us so we were eye level. “I need to know a few things, and you are the only one I can ask, but by asking, I will give away the suspect I’m most interested in.”
“Understood,” I said.
She put her glasses back on and shook her head. “I don’t think you do. Walters told me that you won’t put whoever I find on trial. You’ll torture them or just kill them. Is this true?”
“Yes,” I said.
She waited, as if she expected me to say more. Then she smiled, and said, “No human I know would have just said yes to that. They would have felt they had to justify taking another life. They would have felt so many things.” She looked at me with those long-lashed eyes. “But you don’t feel what we would feel.”
“It isn’t fey versus human, Doctor, it’s cultural. I was raised in a world where torture is the norm for crimes, and execution is used when necessary, though it’s rare. We do not keep someone on death row for twenty years while they search for legal loopholes.”
“I’ve seen some awful things in my job, Princess Meredith, and there are a handful of people who I would sleep easier knowing they were dead.” She sighed. “I need your word that you will not execute the person I’m about to reveal.”
“I can’t promise that, not without lying.”
“Your word that they won’t be executed until I have processed the evidence we’ve collected.”
I looked at Frost, and Mistral beside him. “Do you think I can promise that and not be forsworn?”
“I think the queen would put weight to your word of honor, and not offend the human police,” Frost said.
“That wasn’t a yes,” I said.
“A simple yes might not be true,” he said; his face was its arrogant best, empty, careful. I thought it was more for the doctor’s benefit than mine.
“Mistral?” I asked.
“She is very interested of late in courting good public relations. The reporter’s death is bad enough. She won’t want it bandied about that we executed someone without proof.”
“So that’s a yes,” I said.
He looked at Frost, they both looked back at me. Mistral said, “She’s Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness.” He shrugged.
“Your word that you won’t let them execute anyone until I have processed the evidence,” Polaski said.
I thought about what I could promise Polaski, and finally said, “My word that I will do everything in my power to see that no one is harmed irretrievably before you have contacted us again.”
“Harmed irretrievably.” She almost smiled. “I’ve never heard anyone say it like that before.”
I just looked at her, willing my face to show nothing.
“All right, I’ll take your word. Don’t disappoint me.”
“I’ll try not to,” I said.
“Can the little faeries change shape?”
“Many of the fey have more than one form.”
“Can the little ones be big, like human size?”
“When you say ‘little,’ do you mean the small, winged fey, the demi-fey?”
She nodded.
“Some of them can change form to be almost human in size. But it’s rare among them.”
Galen started to massage my back. I wasn’t sure who he was trying to comfort, himself or me.
“How rare?”
“Rare enough that until recently we thought they’d lost the ability.”
“We know of only one demi-fey who can do it now,” Frost said.
Polaski glanced up at him. “Here’s the other question. Could some spell or bit of faerie magic interfere with what I’m seeing?”
Frost, Galen, and I exchanged glances. Frost said, “I trust Rhys to have done everything possible to protect you from overt spells.”
“But could someone have magically imposed one handprint on another?” she asked.
“They would have to understand how prints work,” I said, “so that leaves out anyone who hasn’t watched television, which is most of the guard. But if they understood how prints worked, they might be able to make one print appear to look like another.”
“Would they be able to switch prints?”
“I don’t believe so, but I cannot be certain,” Frost said.
Mistral said, “I do not know how these prints work, exactly, but they seem to be like tracks of an animal.”
“Not a bad analogy,” Polaski said.
“Then I agree with Frost, it would be hard to change them in reality.”
“So they’re more likely to mess with what I think I’m seeing than with what I’m actually seeing?”
We all agreed on that.
“Then I need to get out of here and check my findings with a working computer outside faerie.”
“Your early questions point at one of the demi-fey on the kitchen staff,” I said.
She nodded. “But only if they can change shape so that they are as big as you. The handprint is about the size of my own hands, but matches one of the demi-fey.”
“Which one?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I won’t tell you that.”
“If you don’t tell us, we’ll simply imprison all of them.”
“All of them?” she asked.
I nodded. “Careful for you is not falsely imprisoning someone. Careful for us is imprisoning too many to make sure we get the guilty one behind bars.”
She sighed, then nodded again. “All right, Peasblossom.”
The surprise showed on my face before I could stop it.
“Why the surprise?”
“Because she and Beatrice were very close. I’ve known her a long time by human standards. I can’t imagine Peasblossom hurting Beatrice.”
“Then someone’s messing with me because I got a handprint on Beatrice’s back.” She looked up at the men. “Can I use someone as an example?”
Aisling started to step forward but I said, “Ivi.” He stepped forward with a teasing look in his eyes that I didn’t like.
Aisling stepped back with a smile.
“If you could turn around, please?” Polaski said to Ivi. The man turned without a word, giving her his back. “Could you remove the cloak, please?”
“With pleasure,” he purred suggestively. He undid the neck of his cloak, and let it fall to the floor to lie across Dr. Polaski’s feet. She was now looking at the full fall of his hair, medium and dark green with its pattern of white vines and leaves like his namesake.
She reached to move his hair back, but the moment she touched it, she froze.
“Stop it, Ivi,” I said.
“I have done nothing,” he said, but the smile was satisfied now, as if he was happy with the effect he was having on her.
“Step away from her,” Frost said.
“I obey the princess, not you.”
“Step away from her,” I said.
He put on his mocking smile, but his green eyes held some fierce knowledge that I did not understand. But he obeyed. The moment Polaski wasn’t touching his hair, she seemed to blink awake. “Sorry, what were we saying?”
“What’s happening?” I asked Frost.
“He has regained some of his old powers.”
“And that would be?”
“To say someone was like Ivi’s hair was to say that they were compelling, whether you willed it or no. To be caught in ivy meant to be entrapped. To be ivy climbed meant that your lover was destroying you in some way,” Frost said.
“I don’t remember any of these sayings,” I said.
“You would have no reason to know them,” Hawthorne said. “It has been centuries since we spoke of Ivi in this manner.”
“No wonder you look so terribly satisfied,” I said.
“I have gained much simply by being in the hallway with you while you…”
“Enough,” Frost said, “we are not alone.”
Ivi dropped to his knees in front of me. “I would do anything to be in your bed for a night, for an hour.” His eyes weren’t mocking now. His face was as serious as he ever got.
“Get up,” I said.
“The queen likes us on our knees.”
“Well, I don’t.”
I looked at Frost. “Who can she touch without a problem, just in case?”
“Hawthorne will do as he is told, and his enchantment is more active magic,” Frost said.
I nodded. “Hawthorne, go help the doctor demonstrate.”
He went to her, having to walk around the pool of hair that had spread around Ivi’s kneeling body.
“You must choose two of the green men, let me be one of them,” Ivi said.
“Don’t make the princess ask you twice. Get up,” Mistral said.
Hawthorne gave his armored back to the doctor. “I guess the armor doesn’t make a difference for this.” She touched the smooth crimson armor tentatively, then with more assurance, as if she’d expected something to happen. “Beatrice was stabbed here.” She pointed to a place on his back where you’d be almost certain to get the heart. “The knife went in deep.” She left two fingers at the spot where the knife went in, then placed her other hand flat alongside it. “I have an almost perfect handprint right here, where someone braced to take out a deeply embedded blade. I have almost the same print pattern on the second victim. But I also have partial fingerprints where the knife was wiped clean of blood. They may or may not be Peasblossom’s.”
“If we are sure it is her print, then she would be our murderer,” I said.
“Yes, but if she is, then where’s the blade? Rhys traced it to your bottomless pit. The other kitchen help say that once Peasblossom found the bodies, she didn’t leave the area. She didn’t have time to go all the way to your pit to dispose of the knife.”
“Someone else did it for her,” Mistral said.
“We found one good, clear handprint on the wall near the reporter’s body. It doesn’t match any of the guards in the hallway, but the hand is of a similar size.”
“Sidhe,” Adair said.
“Probably,” she said.
“So either Peasblossom is a ruthless killer and had an accomplice, or the killer is imposing her print over his to hide his guilt.”
She nodded.
“Can’t we check her for spells?” Galen said.
Frost shook his head. “We have no one with us who is good enough at subtle magic. Humans tend to reek of magic once they’ve been in the underground for an hour or more. To differentiate between the things that might simply cling and those that are deliberate we would need Doyle, or Crystall, or Barinthus.”
“I could do it,” Aisling said.
“No,” I said.
“Don’t you trust me?” he asked, with that ghostly smile.
“Not around Dr. Polaski and her people, no.”
“You were able to gaze upon my naked body and not be bespelled. Perhaps I have lost some of my allure for mortals.”
“Or perhaps Meredith is a sidhe princess,” Mistral said, “and not mortal.”
“Using your powers has made your tongue bold, Aisling,” Hawthorne said.
Nobody seemed to like him much. Had everyone been as shaken as I had been by his little show?
Aisling looked at Hawthorne. “You gazed upon me without anything between my face and your eyes. That is a hero’s task, or was it harder to resist my beauty than you let on?” He sighed, and the teasing left his voice, replaced by sorrow. “After going so long with our needs unmet, there is no shame in being attracted to what you once would not have been. We all crave the touch of another sidhe. Sometimes I think I will go mad without the touch of another being.”
Hawthorne did a brave thing then, clasping Aisling’s shoulder in a brotherly way. I wondered if he would have risked it if the man had still been shirtless. “We have a chance to break our long fast.”
“With the princess,” Aisling said.
Hawthorne nodded.
Aisling stepped away from Hawthorne’s hand and moved to me. It took a great deal for me not to flinch away from him. He knelt beside Galen and me.
“There will be no princess for me,” Aisling said. “She will not risk it now.” He looked down at me. “Will you, Princess?”
I didn’t know what to say because he was right. I did not want him touching me. I said the only thing I could think of: “I will not rule it out, but I fear you now, Aisling, where I didn’t before.”
“I’m missing something,” Polaski said.
“Be happy you missed it,” I said.
She walked toward me. “No, you’re hiding too many things from me, Princess. I need to know what is happening here, or you get nothing from me and my people.”
As she came to stand over us, she brushed against Aisling and started to fall. Galen and I reacted, knowing that Aisling must not touch her with his bare skin. I stood between them, pushing Aisling backwards. Galen came to his knees and caught Dr. Polaski before she could hit the floor.
The doctor was safe with Galen, but I was in Aisling’s arms, and I wasn’t safe at all.