Tris & Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison

be, anyway. He’d spent a lot of money, just to show me he cared. I should be wowed.
    â€œI’ll go find out about Tristan,” Mark promised. He stood up and went to the door. Then he turned back and waved. It was very cute. I really shouldn’t care that he had no idea that daisies were my favorite.
    He went out into the hallway, and I was relieved.

Chapter 11
    T here was a knock. “Hi,” said Mom, walking in. “I saw Mark come out. Voluntarily. I figured that meant you must be awake. What did you need so badly that you sent him out to get it? I thought you would be glued to him for hours.” She made a kissing face.
    â€œMom!”
    â€œHey, I remember what it was like to be in love. Just because I’m old—”
    â€œYou’re not old,” I said. “You’re just …” She looked as bad as Mark, the lines in her face deep and dark. Her hair was mussed up, and Mom never goes out of the house without her hair looking perfect. Also, she had her shirt on back-ward, but I didn’t tell her that.
    â€œI’m just not someone you think about being in love. But I was, and I remember how all-consuming it can be.”
    I was hoping she would say something about Dad. It would be the perfect segue into the subject of the love philtre, and then I could find out once and for all if there was anything I could do to counteract it. I didn’t want to break things off with Mark unless I was absolutely sure.
    But Mom shook her head and didn’t say anything else about love. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
    â€œFine,” I said. “Do you know anything about Tristan?”
    â€œI saw him early this morning, about six. That was when he came out of the danger zone.”
    â€œWas he really in multiple-organ failure?”
    â€œYes. Last night.”
    â€œYou said something in the ambulance, about humans usually dying from slurg bites.”
    â€œThat’s why Tristan was in so much danger. Frankly, I was surprised that he survived long enough for the ambulance to get him to the hospital. If not for my potion and your … help, he wouldn’t have made it that long.”
    I held up my hand. “I got bit by the slurg,” I said. “Right there.” I couldn’t even see a trace of it now. “Why didn’t I go into multiple-organ failure, too?”
    Mom looked away. “You must have a really good immune system.”
    And Tristan didn’t?
    Then I thought of something. “Mom, I thought I was running a fever that day. Maybe a cold or something. Wouldn’t that have made my immune system worse and not better?” Tristan hadn’t shown any of those symptoms as far as I’d seen. And I had felt the first sign of a fever early that morning, when I met him.
    â€œThat’s interesting,” said Mom.
    â€œDid you give me a different potion from the one you gave him?” I asked Mom.
    She shook her head. “I gave you both the same strengthening potion.”
    There was something going on here. Mom was avoiding my eyes.
    Was it possible that Tristan had magic and Mom didn’t want to talk to me about it? His sword might have been magical. And having magic might have caused a different reaction to the potion Mom had given us both. Or to the slurg. I just didn’t understand magic well enough to make guesses.
    I would have to think about this later, when I wasn’t in a hospital bed. “What about the school? Did anyone else see the slurg, with its two heads? Did they ask questions about magic?”
    Mom shook her head. “As far as I can tell, no one saw the two heads. The hospital staff assumes the slurg was just a rabid dog, although the results of their tests on it were rather odd. Hopefully nothing will come from that and we can avoid any direct questions about magic.”
    I thought that we were safe when it came to Tristan. After all, if his sword did have magic, he