The two of us left the room, closing the door gently behind us.

Shayla breathed in deep before taking my hand and vanishing us from the spot. We reappeared in one of the apothecaries on the ground floor, where I spied the man’s blood in a test tube next to a myriad of other bottles of multicolored liquids.

“So?” I asked, raising my brows.

“I need more time to examine the sample,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “Hopefully I’ll be able to get a better idea of what the hunters were doing to him, and start working on a cure for his legs and memory… There aren’t a lot of other witches on duty right now, so I will be taking full charge of him for all medical issues. You, however, Grace, I would like to appoint as his caregiver for when I’m not treating him. He’s suffered a severe loss of memory, and likely a lot of psychological damage too. More than medical treatment, he needs mental and emotional support. You’ve been trained well by Corrine and me during your preparation for joining the League. I know that this is something that you can handle. What do you say?”

“Oh, um…” The truth was, the idea really excited me. I’d never been given such a big responsibility before. I’d merely been an assistant, both in medical matters and in caring for patients suffering from trauma. I’d never been appointed as a caregiver in my own right. “I would love to… but what about school?” Now that I’d returned, I didn’t have any reason not to resume my classes.

Shayla smiled. “I’ll talk to your teachers and say that I’ve offered you work experience. You can always work harder over the weekends or holidays to catch up on things that you’ve missed. I’ll volunteer Eli to help you, if you like.”

I grinned. “Sounds like a deal.”

“Good,” Shayla said, clasping her hands together “I’ll keep an eye on him for the rest of the day, and I’ll appoint Tom to check on him during the night.” Tom was one of the male human nurses who worked at Meadow Hospital. “And tomorrow morning, you can arrive here at, say, 7 AM?”

“Sure.” I usually woke up at around 6 AM, anyway.

“Then I suggest you return now and get some rest. It could be a long day tomorrow.”

We bade each other farewell. I headed to the washrooms and, after disinfecting my hands, left the hospital. I was practically skipping through the sunflower meadow as I made my way back to the Residences. It was cool to have a reason to skip school, but I was also genuinely excited about the challenge Shayla had given me. It felt like I was finally doing something truly of value, of impact, rather than always following in the shadows of others and being a perpetual learner.

This was a responsibility that I planned to take very seriously and give all that I had.

Grace

Before returning to my family’s treehouse, I decided to pay a visit to my aunts and grandmother on my mother’s side. Aunt Dafne was almost thirty years old in human years; she had been turned into a vampire at twenty-one. Aunt Lalia, in her mid-twenties in human years, had turned into a vampire only a couple of years ago. And my grandmother Nadia was frozen at forty-eight years old. She always joked that she would never reveal her real human age to me, although my mother had already told me her date of birth.

All three single ladies shared a penthouse, a few trees away from mine. Then there was Jamil, my vampire uncle, who lived a little further away with his human wife and five-year-old son. Nadia, Lalia, Dafne and Jamil had all been turned by my mother at their request.

My aunts and grandmother rushed to greet me as I arrived at their front door.

“How are you, Grace?” my grandmother asked, planting a big wet kiss on my cheek.

“How long have you been back?” Dafne asked.

“Fine, thanks,” I replied, stepping inside. “Just got back earlier today.”

“How’s it going with the others?”

I thought back to the bombing. God knew how many lives we’d taken, of both hunters and mutants. The destruction we’d caused. “It was going, uh, well, I guess.” I went on to explain what had happened as the three led me into the dining room. The table had already been laid with glasses of deep red liquid; they’d started their meal. My grandmother always kept her fridge stocked with human food for when she had visitors—specifically me as a visitor. She prepared some falafel before planting it down in front of me. Mmm. How I loved my grandma’s cooking.

“Do you know when they’ll return?” Lalia asked.

“No idea,” I muttered.

We talked almost exclusively about the trip over dinner, until eight o’clock struck and I decided to leave. I didn’t usually fall asleep until around 10 PM at night, but I had some preparation to do for tomorrow. So I bade them good night and left, returning to my treehouse.

I took a shower and washed my hair before slipping into my nightie and heading to my bedroom. I sat down at my desk and retrieved my brand-new, pink polka-dot journal from a drawer. Picking up a pen, I turned to the first page. This notebook had been a gift from my cousin Hazel on my sixteenth birthday, and I had just been waiting for the opportunity to use it. This new project I was about to undertake felt like the perfect excuse.

The witches’ training had been thorough and extensive when it came to caring for sick patients and sufferers of trauma. I turned my mind back to those lessons now. They had taught us to approach each patient individually and methodically. We would always start by taking a piece of paper and listing down everything and anything we knew about the patient—basically a character profile.