Renegade by Nancy Northcott Page B

heavy, but he hardly noticed. “How is she?”
    “So you heard about this morning’s little problem.” Stefan sounded bone tired, and no wonder. His medical team couldn’t magically heal large numbers of severe injuries at one time. They would’ve had to stabilize the worst, operate, and then do a partial healing, with more rounds of magic work to follow.
    “We lost twenty-three,” he said.
    Twenty-three dead? Griff’s breath froze in his lungs.
    “But the patient you’re worried about,” Stefan added, carefully avoiding names, as usual, “will recover.”
    Griff’s breath rushed out of him. He dropped down to sit on the concrete steps. “From…?”
    A pause, as though Stefan debated with himself. “Multiple rib fractures. Impact damage to internal organs, though the vest diffused the force. Face and body contusions. Torn ligament, left ankle. Bad abrasions on the hands. She’s asleep, and I’m keeping her that way until morning.”
    Griff stared across the street at the weekly Wayfarer Oracle ’s plate-glass front window. All that, and she’d lived.
    But twenty-three dead? Holy hell.
    If only he could see her. Touch her and see for himself that she’d recover.
    “The thing is,” Stefan was saying, “the Council didn’t know about that ghoul nest. Before she left, she refused to say how she’d heard of it, so they’re gunning for her.” His voice hardened. “They may replace her as reeve.”
    “The hell they will. I’ll…Shit.” Griff could do nothing, as they both knew.
    “Exactly.” Stefan paused. “Once I’m out of the way, they’ll hammer her.”
    While Griff sat here, feeling helpless. He had to do something.
    “She may have to give you up to save herself,” Stefan said. “Go to ground and stay there.”
    As if he could do that with her in trouble because of him. She might blame him, understandably. “Admitting she talked to me and didn’t kill me outright would only make her problems worse. She’ll hold.”
    What would that cost her, though? The Council wouldn’t accept silence from her, not with so many dead.
    “Maybe she’ll stand firm.” Stefan yawned. “Either way, don’t get it into your head you can help her, Sir Galahad. If they have any idea you’re involved, that you give a damn, she’ll go from victim to bait in a heartbeat.”
    Stefan was right.
    “I know. Thanks, Stefan. Get some rest.”
    “Eventually.”
    They said good night. Griff leaned back against the warm brick wall. His brain churned like the Chattahoochee in flood season. Valeria was in the Council’s crosshairs because of him. If she continued to protect him, would they put her under ritual questioning? Would she resist?
    If she did, and they forced her, that would leave her worse than dead.
    His jaw tightened against a curse. He couldn’t help remembering how bravely she’d confronted him at his loft. How she’d rushed into a battle armed with only a kitchen knife and saved his life. Little Molly’s, too. How she’d embraced him after the fight, as though no cloud lingered over his name.
    He’d gotten her into this mess. Somehow, he had to help her out of it. Even if that meant taking her place in the crosshairs.
      
    It hurt to breathe.
    Trying to keep her breaths shallow, Val opened her eyes. Pale blue ceiling. Pale blue curtains walling off a narrow space. Beeps and clicks. Monitors. Soothing violins playing softly. Antiseptic smells. The Collegium clinic.
    But how?
    The explosion. A tree coming at her, and before that—
    A sob welled in her throat, scalding her chest. She gulped it back but couldn’t stop the tears trickling from the corners of her eyes. Her deputy reeves, so many blown to bits. She’d led them into a fucking trap.
    Dare had marked that side of the compound as vulnerable, hadn’t given any warning of those defenses. Magically screened defenses, magic that must’ve caused the tingle she and Harry— Oh, God! Harry. His poor face blown off.
    The sob this time