I went cold.

“Devin . . .”

“Iron poisoning. You’re lucky it passed straight through; you’d be dead by now if it hadn’t,” he said, reaching into the first aid kit and coming up with a bottle of something green. “Drink this. It should help with the dizziness.”

“Do I want to know where you bought this?” I asked, taking the bottle. The liquid inside smelled like wasabi and pineapple.

“Probably not,” he said, beginning to rub a thick purple cream around the wound in my thigh. I gritted my teeth against the stinging. The cream sank into my skin, leaving a cool numbness in its wake. “Try not to get shot again. You can only have one dose this month.”

I looked at the bottle with new respect. “Or what?”

“You melt.”

“Got it.” The liquid tasted like it smelled and tingled all the way down. I handed the bottle back to Devin, not terribly surprised when I realized that my dizziness was gone. “So, iron poisoning. How long am I going to be reduced to living by my wits alone?”

“A few days. You’ll need to guard against infection, but it won’t kill you.” He gave my thigh a critical look. “This needs stitches. I can do it, or you can. Whichever makes you more comfortable.”

“Go ahead,” I said, closing my eyes again. “You’ve had more practice.”

“You should’ve stuck around, instead of running off to play with the purebloods,” he said, chiding lightly to distract me from the feeling of the needle biting through my flesh. “I told you you’d get soft.”

“I wanted to see what getting soft was like,” I said, digging my fingers into the cushions and forbidding myself to move. It wasn’t easy.

“And the verdict?”

“It was nice. You should try it sometime.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He pressed on the edges of the wound, forcing them closer together as he worked. After five stitches, he pulled his hand away. “I need you to lie down on your stomach so I can take care of the back.”

“Am I going to get a lollipop when you’re done?” I asked, scooting over so that I could lie down on the couch, eyes still closed. “I like the grape ones.”

“Hush,” he said again, going back to work. First the cream; then the sharp bite of the needle, and the feeling of thread pulling flesh back together. “Is being the one to find Evening’s killer really worth all this, Toby?”

“She was your friend, too.”

“She was a noble. Isn’t that what we have a queen for?” A hint of bitterness crept into his tone as he tied off the last of the stitches. “Let the nobility take care of their own, and get your ass out of the line of fire.”

“Not an option.”

He sighed. “You always were a stubborn little fool.”

Lifting my head, I twisted around and smiled at him. “I learned from the best.”

“I suppose you did,” he said, reaching out to cup my chin in the palm of his hand. “I wasn’t a very good teacher.”

“You were good enough,” I said. He moved to let me push myself upright, hand still cupping my chin. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

“Yes, but at this rate, for how long?” Devin was kneeling, the first aid kit still open beside him. “I want you out of this.”

“That’s not an option,” I said softly.

It wasn’t often that I got the chance to see Devin outside the carefully constructed confines of his office. His hair was mussed, hanging to half cover one eye. I reached out to brush it aside, and he caught my hand, expression grim.

“Don’t make me beg, Toby. Please. Walk away from this. Let the Queen’s Court deal with it.” He squeezed my hand. “You just came back to me. I’m not ready to let you go again.”

“I never said . . .”

“You didn’t have to. You came Home.” Hand still cupping my chin, Devin leaned forward and kissed me.

I worked for Devin for years; he’d had his hands over every inch of my body for reasons both sexual and practical, from pulling my clothes off to bandaging a wound. In all those years, he’d never kissed me with so much urgency or such a feeling of need. I found myself responding despite my injuries, first returning the kiss, then sliding down off the couch to kneel beside him. His stitches were good. They didn’t even pull as I knelt.

Devin was the one to break away, releasing the hand he was holding as he said, “I need to look at your shoulder.”

“Wow,” I said, dizzy now for reasons that had nothing to do with blood loss. “Way to kill the mood.”

He smirked. “No, darling. The amount of blood you’ve decided to accessorize with could do that quite admirably without my help.”

I glanced down at myself as I slid back onto the couch. The robe I’d borrowed from Lily wasn’t pink anymore. Dried blood had turned it a mottled shade of brown, with a brighter streak of red over my left shoulder where exertion had reopened the gunshot wound.

“I need a shower,” I said.

“We’ll get to that in a minute,” Devin said, reaching up to peel away my robe.

Lily’s carefully constructed poultice had pulled away during the fight and was dangling loose against my collarbone. Devin tugged the last of the bindings away, dropping the whole bundle onto the floor. “She does good work,” he admitted, almost grudgingly. “It looks like she even managed to wash most of the iron out before it could really work its way into your body. That probably explains why you’re still conscious.”

“You really are a happy little ray of sunshine today, aren’t you?” I was looking at the exit wound, and the visible damage still looked about half as bad as my thigh, despite having been made with the same caliber bullet. “Does it need stitches?”

“To be on the safe side? Yes.” Devin picked up the cloth he’d used to clean the blood off my leg. “I don’t think I need to worry about disinfecting this.” More quietly, he added, “It’s going to scar, you know.”

“Iron always does.” I watched him wash the blood away, considering the severity of the damage. Lily really did an amazing job. My arm wouldn’t be up to my normal standards for a while—probably several weeks, if ever—but it wouldn’t be useless, as long as I could take things easy.