Lu was stumped for a reply.

“Morgan.” She approached with an outstretched hand, and stood waiting while Lu rose unsteadily to her feet. They shook hands—Lu tentatively, because she never touched without gloves—and Morgan nodded. It felt as if something had been decided.

“How’s it feeling?” Morgan jerked her chin toward Lu’s chest.

With a gasp, Lu remembered. Her hands flew to her chest and she looked down, tugging aside the Hospice jacket she still wore, pushing aside the tank . . .

Nothing. There were bloodstains on the shirt and jacket, bits of flaky dried blood still clung to her skin, but other than that, there didn’t seem to be a scratch on her. And, she noticed for the first time since awakening, she felt no pain at all.

She stared at Morgan. “I don’t understand. I was shot. I know I didn’t imagine that.”

“Of course you didn’t imagine it,” replied Morgan gravely. “And those weren’t just any bullets you were hit with; judging by the way you reacted, you were shot with a special T.”

In response to Lu’s blank look, Morgan said, “Toxin-laced ammunition. Powerful nerve agents, specifically. Anyone else would have been completely incapacitated for weeks.” Her smile was bitter. “They make those just for us.” Her gaze dropped to Lu’s neck, and her eyes darkened. “That will have to come off.”

Lu touched the cool metal links of the collar around her neck, but she was much more interested in what Morgan had just said. “Wait—why am I okay then? Did I have surgery? How did I heal so fast? Did you take the bullet out?”

As they had before, Morgan’s brows arched, two dark quirks that managed to convey she thought Lu’s questions were more than slightly absurd. “No, ducky. You took the bullet out. In a manner of speaking, of course.”

The two of them stared at one another in silence for a moment that stretched itself out until it was as cavernous as the room. The candles that had settled down after Magnus had stalked out suddenly flared up again, responding to the rising heat in Lu’s palms. She said quietly, “Okay, Morgan. I have questions.”

Morgan’s eyes didn’t miss the way Lu’s hands had squeezed to fists, or the sudden brightening in the chamber, but she merely nodded, watching her. Waiting.

If she was afraid, she was hiding it well.

Lu said carefully, “You’re an Aberrant, yes?”

Morgan’s eyes flashed. “I am most certainly not! There’s not a damn thing aberrant about me!” She paused to consider. “Well, I’m British so that’s not entirely true, we do have our little peccadillos.” She paused again, the blaze in her eyes undimmed. “But if what you’re really asking is am I human, the answer is resoundingly no.”

Lu digested that in silence, realizing she’d again been unintentionally rude. Another note to self: Other Abs don’t like to be called Abs. Good to know.

“How long have I been here, wherever here is?”

“Southern Wales. And about twelve hours.”

Wales. Lu saw a pre-Flash encyclopedia picture in her head, rolling green forests and craggy mountain peaks and crystal lakes tucked into valleys between.

“How did I get here?”

“Helicopter. Well, Magnus had to take you down the Danube out of the city in a coracle first to avoid the antiaircraft missiles, but you flew out somewhere between Bratislava and Budapest. I don’t know exactly where, but it would have been somewhere remote. The countryside is safer; surveillance is concentrated on the big cities.”

Coracle and helicopter were more words Lu wasn’t familiar with, but she guessed by context the first was some kind of small boat, and she knew what flying was because her father had once, after too many glasses of eiswein, mourned the loss of the freedom to travel between countries by air. The IF controlled all air traffic, and there were no longer any passenger flights anywhere. Only military or government planes were ever aloft.

Your father was a missionary before the Flash, traveling from country to country, trying to convert people to his faith. Were you aware of that?

Lu swallowed around the fist in her throat the thought of her father produced. She wouldn’t allow herself to cry in front of Morgan. She’d save that for later, when she was alone.

“What day is it?”

“December twenty-sixth.”

So from the time she was shot to now, no more than twenty-four hours had elapsed. Which meant that she’d been shot with some kind of super bullet and healed without a trace of injury in a day, a feat that, judging by Morgan’s tone and description, was highly unusual, even for Abs.

And what did she mean by, “you took the bullet out”? What could Lu possibly have done to remove a poison bullet while unconscious?

She could get those answers later, but right now there was one critical thing Lu had to determine in order to decide what she was going to do next.

Holding perfectly still, her attention honed on every tic and blink and telling twitch of Morgan’s muscles, Lu said, “My father died in my arms yesterday. I have no home, no friends, and I’m most likely the target of an international manhunt. I can honestly say I don’t care if I die because I have absolutely nothing to live for, so if you brought me here for something I’m not going to like, I promise you this: I won’t hesitate to kill you or anyone else who tries to hurt me. I won’t go down without a fight.”

They stared at one another while drop after drop of water fell with a melancholy plink from one of the longest stalactites above to a small pool on the cave floor below.

“So. Tell me, Morgan. Are we going to be friends or not?”

The oddest thing happened then. Morgan’s eyes misted, a little furrow appeared between her brows. She gave a small shake of her head, and her expression softened until Lu would have sworn what she was seeing was pride.

“You won’t remember me, of course,” Morgan whispered. “You were just a baby. But I never forgot you. I prayed every day, every bloody day that we’d find you. And we finally did. And Christ on a cracker if you aren’t just like her, all piss and vinegar and a giant set of steel balls.”

All the little hairs on Lu’s arms stood on end.

Just like who?

Morgan sniffed. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. She said, “I’m your godmother, pet. Yours and your sister’s. Welcome home.”

EIGHT

Godmother. Sister. Home. Those words crashed around the inside of Lu’s skull, pulverizing her ability to hold any other thought. For a moment her vision wavered, the edges of everything blurred, and she realized it was because of the moisture swimming in her eyes.

“And here I thought yesterday was eventful,” said Lu, numb with shock.

Morgan swiped at her eyes and gave Lu a brilliant smile. “Oh, thank heavens! How I’ve missed sarcasm! There’s a serious lack of snark in this colony, ducky. Everyone’s as dry as a nun’s snatch.”

With that unappetizing visual, Morgan crushed her into a hug.

After a moment in which Lu stood there stiffly with her arms at her sides, still dumbfounded, Morgan suggested, “Pretend I’m Magnus. You didn’t seem to have any trouble figuring out how to get your arms around him.”

Lu felt as if she were having an out of body experience as she slowly wrapped her arms around Morgan’s waist. She closed her eyes, rested her head on Morgan’s shoulder, and marveled at the insanity of life. One minute you’re being chased by assassins, the next you’re trading hugs with your new fairy godmother.