to static. Sound vanished, a high, thin hum filling her brain. She began to shake—not a ladylike trembling, either. Her head lolled back as her jerking knees rattled the table. All at once she was on the ground, her cheek pressed to the gritty sidewalk.
Blackness.
Hands gathered her up. Voices distant and muffled as if she was underwater. She was in the chair again, the cold metal beneath the seat of her jeans. Hard to stay in the chair because her limbs were like spaghetti.
“Miss? Miss?”
There was a sound like a bubble popping, and she could see and hear again.
“By the Abyss!” Clary gasped as the world smacked her like cold water. Sounds, colors, smells all seemed out of control. Clary blinked, wiping her eyes with the back of her good hand.
“Can we call someone for you?” asked a voice.
Clary squinted, recognizing the square, pleasant face of the woman who ran the coffee shop. She searched for the woman’s name, but it was gone. “Huh?”
“You passed out,” the woman said slowly and carefully. “You might have had a seizure.”
Goddess! She should probably be in the hospital, but then she’d have to explain the claw marks. Clary looked around. Her phone was still on the table. “Tamsin,” she said but couldn’t manage more. A wave of disorientation swamped her. Her voice sounded wrong, but she wasn’t sure why.
“Tamsin who lives in the apartment building down the street?” the woman asked.
Clary nodded, afraid to speak again.
“She ordered a birthday cake for the weekend. I have her number.” The woman bustled back inside.
Clary closed her eyes. Whose birthday was it? The name bobbed just out of reach of her thoughts. Facts and memories receded, as if her consciousness was a balloon that had come untethered. When she opened her eyes again, she caught sight of her reflection in the café window and froze.
Her face was familiar, and it was not. So this is what it’s like to be human.
Clary’s thoughts swerved. What the blazes?
She’d recognized the voice in her head. Cold needles of fear crept up her body, turning her fingers and nose so cold it felt like January. Something had been watching her, and now she knew it was Vivian.
Or what’s left of me after Merlin smashed his precious globe. Immortals are hard to kill, but I was vulnerable when he did that. I needed a safe harbor and your body was empty for a split second before he brought you back. Hope you don’t mind a roomie.
Clary sat up straight, fighting a sudden urge to scream. Her head, seemingly of its own accord, turned back to her reflection. She took in the mop of shaggy blond hair, the ragged, bloody clothes and her wide, frightened eyes.
It’s not the body I’m used to, but beggars can’t be choosers. Still, we need to do something about the wardrobe.
Surely it had all been a horrible hallucination. The next morning found Clary sitting at her sister’s kitchen table, a cup of black coffee before her. Everything seemed normal, and Clary felt as loved and cared for as Tamsin could manage. She’d slept in her sister’s tiny second bedroom and still had a crick in her spine from the lumpy futon.
“How are you feeling?” Tamsin asked, putting a hand over Clary’s. Gawain, Tamsin’s soon-to-be husband, had already left for the day and the two women were alone. Normally, Clary would have been disappointed. She liked Gawain, and he’d spent almost as much time teaching her self-defense as Merlin had spent teaching her magic—if there was to be a fight with the fae, she needed to be ready. But today she wanted alone time with her sister.
Clary looked up from staring into her cup. Like Clary, Tamsin was green-eyed and fair-haired, her long locks pinned up in a messy bun. The similarity in coloring was deceptive. Tamsin was actually a stepsister who had joined the family when Clary’s mom had married a second time. They had all been lucky—Stacy, the eldest, and Clary, the youngest, had readily accepted their new middle sister. Tamsin was easy to love and Clary adored her. She’d been the gentle hand that had led Clary through a rebellious adolescence when their mother had all but given up in despair.
“My wound feels better,” Clary answered, pulling up her sleeve.
Tamsin angled Clary’s arm for a better look. Besides working as Medievaland’s historian, Tamsin’s magical specialty was healing. After a round of smelly ointments and ritual, the wounds on Clary’s arm were now just scratches, as if Clary had lost an argument with an alley cat.
“I’ve met demons, but I’ve never treated any injuries they caused before now. I never knew they had poisoned claws,” Tamsin said, releasing Clary’s arm.
“Do you think that’s what caused the seizure?” Clary sipped her coffee, welcoming the caffeine as it hit her bloodstream. She hadn’t said anything about the hallucinations. She’d stopped hearing that voice in her head by the time Tamsin had finished doctoring her, and decided to keep the crazy to herself. “Maybe the infection was messing with my brain?”
She could hear the pleading in her voice. She felt okay now, and desperately wanted to put yesterday behind her.
“I’d bet the two are connected.” Tamsin picked up Clary’s hand again. It was a comforting gesture, but Clary could feel the faint tingle of Tamsin’s magic course through her. Tamsin leaned forward and kissed her forehead as if Clary was a little girl again. The gesture salved Clary’s hurts the way no medicine could.
“You’re still not a hundred percent,” Tamsin said, “but I don’t detect any lingering damage. Take it easy for a few days.”
“I’m supposed to be at Medievaland today.”
“In the office?”
It was a reasonable assumption. Clary handled pretty much all of Medievaland’s online presence. Since King Arthur and a handful of his knights had awakened to join the modern world, they’d become famous for the mock tourneys hosted by the theme park. The knights now had a rapidly expanding fan base, which Clary fed with judicious tidbits of insider knowledge—none of which included the fact that they were born centuries ago and had returned to save humanity from soul-sucking fae monsters. She tried to keep things upbeat.
However, today’s activities weren’t about posts and blogs. “Merlin’s doing the special effects at today’s show and he wants a second pair of hands.”
Tamsin frowned. “You should call in sick. Obviously, he’d understand.”
“Maybe, maybe not. I broke his ball.”
Tamsin arched an eyebrow. “Just one of them?”
Clary grimaced. “Crystal—stone—ball. His spy camera to the demon realms. He had to smash it to save me from Vivian.” She was feeling more than a little guilty about that.
“Yeah,” Tamsin replied, drawing the word out. “Those stones are expensive and rare.”
