Things got patchy for a while. I have some vague recollection of Jessie talking on the phone, telling someone she had the kid and not to come yet because he wasn’t stable enough to travel any distance. I remember someone coaxing me from the back seat and what felt like a long, agonizing marathon before I was allowed to collapse onto something soft. At one point, I heard two women talking.

“It’s a wonder he survived at all,” said an unfamiliar voice.

“He must be tougher than he looks,” said Jessie. “There’s a lot of internal damage. I did what I could to stabilize him, but that’s not really my thing. Can you help?”

“I suppose we must,” said the woman, “but for his sake, not yours.”

“Jesus Christ, Annie, are you ever going to let that go? It’s been years.”

“You sell your magics to the highest bidder. You kill. I’ll give up my grudge when you cease to be a mercenary, Wormwood Witch,” said Annie with so much disdain it’s a miracle the living avatar of disdain didn’t materialize on the spot.

“Glad to see things don’t change. You never did let little things like facts get in the way of being a holier-than-thou hypocrite.”

They kept arguing, but the words warped and flowed around me like dark waters in the night. Sometimes, I dreamed about that metal frame, about endless beatings, and about searing hooks tearing at my flesh. I screamed in those dreams. Maybe I screamed in the real world too. I couldn’t tell them apart. Mostly, though, there was empty darkness. It was warm and comforting and, when it took me, I didn’t hurt anymore. In the end, though, darkness gave way to a light that flooded through me. I felt hands on me. I thrashed against them in the panicked certainty they were the hands of the Raven’s Council come back to finish their grisly work on me. Someone made soothing noises and stroked my forehead. Calm slowly overtook the fear and I sunk down into the light.

There was music in that light, older than humanity and eternal. It called to me like an old friend who I hadn’t seen in years. It spoke in the voice of the wind, light and free. It spoke in the voice of mountains, dark, deep, and slow. The music rose like a tsunami wave and fell with the weight of a butterfly’s wings. It was the song of creation, and it knew me. It washed away agony I’d become so used to I’d forgotten to notice. It calmed the troubled sea of my mind. It carried me up and up and up until I opened my eyes. I blinked a few times. The room was dim, with only a little light seeping in around the drawn shades, casting the room in strange sepia tones. I looked around and saw someone sitting nearby. At first, I thought it was Jessie Wood, but a closer look told me I was wrong. There was a resemblance in the shape of the face, in the set of her jaw, but it wasn’t Jessie. This woman was a little older, weighed down with the luggage of time and experience. She noticed me looking at her and came over to the bed. It was hard to judge for sure in the dim light, but she looked taller and a bit slimmer than Jessie.

“Welcome back,” she said, pressing the back of her hand against my forehead with the efficiency of long practice. “You’re a lucky young man.”

She handed me a bottle of water without needing to be asked. I took it in my left hand and winced. My index and middle fingers ached enough to bring tears to my eyes, but at least they worked. They weren’t entirely healed, but they weren’t broken anymore. I opened the bottle and restrained myself to a couple of controlled swallows. I closed my eyes and let the water work its magic on my parched mouth and throat. I looked up at the woman standing there and made a guess.

“Annie?”

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She gave me a bemused smile. “Most people call me Miss Mathers, but I think Annie will do. How did you know? Some magical insight?”

“I heard you and Jessie arguing. Educated guess.”

Her smile faded, but she nodded. “We should have known better than to drag out family business with someone in the room. Although, you were on the verge of death, so perhaps we can be forgiven. How do you feel?”

I moved my arms and my legs, wiggled my fingers and toes, and eventually sat up. I still hurt absolutely everywhere, but I didn’t spit up blood or pass out. “Everything seems to be working.”

“Yes, but how do you feel?”

“I hurt,” I admitted.

“Yes, I imagine you hurt quite a lot at the moment. You probably will for the next week or two. We mended your broken bones, mostly, and the internal injuries. Most of your internal organs were in a terrible state. We shaved some of the healing time off of the muscle damage, but there are limits. We risked doing more harm than good if we’d pushed it any harder.”

I thought of the countless blows that I’d taken and shuddered. “I’m surprised you could save me at all.”

She gave me an odd look and frowned. “The truth is that you did most of the hard work.”

I blinked at her. “I don’t understand.”

She started to speak, but the door swung open to let Jessie clomp in with her big combat boots. She and Annie traded barbed looks and familial hostility without saying a word. Annie sniffed and looked at me again.

“Make sure you get plenty to eat for the next week or two. Lots of protein and high in fat. Think fast food unhealthy. For once in your life, your body actually needs all those calories.”

“I will,” I said.

She gave me a little nod and left the room. She did spare a moment to give Jessie a nasty look, which seemed a touch spiteful to me. I pushed it out of my head. I had enough family problems without borrowing someone else’s. It only occurred to me after Annie was gone that I’d never bothered to ask just who she meant when she was talking about the “we” who helped me heal. I could make some guesses, but I hated guessing about those kinds of things. They led to assumptions that were likely to be proved wrong because life loves to dropkick an assumption. I glanced at Jessie who was staring after the departed Annie. I saw regret and heartache on her face, if only for a moment, before she turned her attention to me. That brief flash of emotion was replaced by a puckish smile.

“Well, it looks like you’re going to live after all. Your Uncle will be pleased.”

“Uncle Bill?”

“How many uncles do you have?”

“Right,” I said, trying to shake off the cobwebs of sleep. “Oh hell, I need to call Gran.”

Jessie snorted. “Do you honestly think that woman hasn’t been demanding updates on the hour, every hour, since you arrived? She only calmed down when I told her Annie was looking after you.”

I gave Jessie a questioning look.

“Annie’s probably the best healer in the western hemisphere, when she can be bothered with it, which mostly she can’t. She's concerned with,” Jessie threw up some finger quotes, “higher things.”

I considered that for a moment. “Like what?”

“Communing with Gaia or universal consciousness or something equally stupid.”

“Those don’t seem like such bad things to me,” I ventured.

Jessie sighed a little. “Maybe not, but she ignores the rest of the world. Keeps herself cloistered away most of the time. She could change the world if she tried, but it doesn’t mean anything to her.”

I grunted. “Well, I’m grateful to her. Those Raven’s Council assholes did a number on me.”

She gave me a wicked smile. “I bet they’re wishing they hadn’t.”

“Why’s that?”

“Your Uncle Bill has been on a rampage. He’s gone full Keyser Soze on their asses, single-handedly taking the Court of Unkindness apart at the seams. The way I hear it, the punishments he’s doling out are,” she paused and thought, “epic.”

“Sounds like Uncle Bill. He never was a halfway kind of guy.”

I swung my legs out of the bed and, after taking a few deep breaths, I made myself stand up. I was still in enough pain that I gasped as my body straightened, but I managed to stay upright. I turned to face Jessie, who gave me an openly appraising look. She grinned at me in a way that made me blush a little.

“You’re kind of cute when you aren’t dying,” she announced.

Then, she very deliberately walked to the far side of the room to pick up a pair of pants from a chair. She held them out to me. I looked down at my very naked self and blushed a little harder. I gave her a look. She just grinned even wider and waggled the pants in the air. Cheeks burning, I walked over to get my pants with all the dignity I could muster.