Conjured

This isn’t a hospital, she realized.

She’d never left the agency.

Eve followed Malcolm into the elevator. He punched the button for the garage, and the doors slid closed. The elevator lurched down. She’d been on level four. The offices were three. Level five had the room with the silver walls.

“How many times?” Eve asked dully.

Malcolm raised his eyebrows.

“I was at the pizza place with Aidan, Topher, and Victoria. You brought me here. How long have I been here?”

“Seven,” Malcolm said.

“Days or visions?”

“Days,” he said as the elevator opened. “I don’t know how many visions.”

Seven lost days, she thought. Numbly, she followed him out of the elevator and through the garage to yet another black car. She climbed into the passenger seat, snapped on her seat belt, and rested her head against the window as Malcolm drove out of the garage.

“You need rest,” Malcolm said. “I told Lou this was too intense. You need the memories to return more naturally—through association or memory prompts, not self-inflicted comas. But Lou’s under pressure with the latest incidents—” He cut himself off.

“Tell me more of your memories,” Eve said. “You told me about your mother singing. Tell me about your father. Nice memories. I only want nice memories.” Nice memories to scrub away the smoke and blood inside her.

He drove out of the parking garage. “My memories?” He sounded relieved, as if he’d expected other questions, but Eve couldn’t bring herself to ask the real questions or hear about “incidents,” not when she felt as if she’d been scraped raw inside. “Okay … um, let me think … My dad and I used to play basketball. When I was a kid, he’d lift me halfway up to the basket. I’d dunk it in, and he’d cheer and shake me in the air like I was a trophy.” Taking one hand off the steering wheel, he demonstrated the shaking. “But I’d never made a basket on my own until one summer, when my father was away for two weeks. Every day of those two weeks, I practiced for hours. And the next Saturday, when Dad asked me to shoot hoops with him, I shot the basket from the ground by myself. My dad lifted me up and shook me like a trophy.”

Eve closed her eyes. “Tell me more.”

“My father was a cop, and he hoped I’d follow in his footsteps. Have a son on the force, you know? On the day I told him I was a US marshal … I swear he wanted to lift me in the air and shake me like a trophy. Only reason he didn’t was that I outweighed him by then. Also because my mom cried.”

Eve opened her eyes. The sky was cloudless blue. The trees were heavy with dark-green leaves, motionless in the still air. She watched the telephone poles pass. “Why did she cry?”

“She didn’t want me to be in any kind of law enforcement. She wanted me to be something safe like a veterinarian, even though I’m not good with animals. Hate cats. Okay with dogs. Don’t see the point of goldfish.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “Five years in, I was recruited for WitSec. Two years after that, a routine case proved to be anything but routine, and I came to the attention of the paranormal division. Para-WitSec is always looking for new agents. Since this is the only known nonmagical world, we are in high demand as a safe haven for witnesses of magical crimes. I was immediately assigned to multiple cases. All of it was classified, but I always wished I could have told her. As it was … she didn’t understand that my job is to keep other people safe. I’m doing what she—what both of them—taught me, what feels right and natural.”

Malcolm parked the car in front of the drab yellow house. She watched him get out, check the area, and then open her door. She stepped onto the sidewalk next to him.

“Was that the kind of thing you wanted to hear?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Good.” He slid on his sunglasses. “Because that’s as much sharing as I do. Go on in.” He nodded toward the house as Aunt Nicki swung the door open. Eve headed toward her, then glanced back over her shoulder at Malcolm.

Unmoving, he watched her from the sidewalk.

* * *

Inside, Aunt Nicki put her hands on her hips. “You look exhausted,” she pronounced. “And too thin.” She picked up Eve’s wrist and wrapped her fingers around it. “You’re wasting away. I don’t care how much pressure Lou is under. We can’t have you wasting away. Are you eating?”

Eve shrugged. She didn’t know how many of the seven days she’d spent in the hospital bed and how many in Malcolm’s office. “Intravenously, I think.”

“Doesn’t count.” Aunt Nicki bustled into the kitchen, and Eve followed. “Soup? Sandwich?” She checked the refrigerator. “I’ll make you a grilled cheese sandwich with microwaved tomato soup. Serious comfort food. You look in need of serious comfort food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Did I ask if you were hungry?”

“Will you tell me your memories instead?”

Aunt Nicki slowed. She stared at her, blinked once. “Excuse me?”