Easy for him to say. I bit my lip as he continued. He was using antiseptic to clean the places Nanette had cut me. Necessary, as he'd said, but God, did it hurt.

"Talk to her," Hugh said to no one in particular. "Distract her."

"What happened?" asked Peter. "Who did this to you?"

"Nice distraction," said Hugh.

"Nanette," I said. Saying her name made my stomach turn, and I hoped I wouldn't have to go back on what I'd said to Hugh about throwing up. "She was…mad."

"I guess," said Peter.

"Mad I told Cedric about her…"

"Doesn't this kind of confirm your suspicions, then?" asked Cody.

Yeah, if beating up the person who'd ratted out your secret plans didn't sound suspicious, I didn't know what did. But if Nanette really was behind Jerome's summoning, why not just kill me outright and leave no witnesses?

Explaining that would take too many words and too much effort, so I just said, "I don't know."

"There," said Hugh, straightening. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

I tried to glare, but I don't think he noticed. He rummaged in his kit once more and then leaned back over to start bandaging up the wounds. With as much as he was piling on me, I had the feeling I was going to look like a mummy.

"Why didn't Dante stick around?" asked Cody.

"Huh? Dante?" The bandage pressure wasn't as bad as the cleaning, but it was still uncomfortable. I wondered when those goddamned drugs were going to kick in.

"He was here," said Cody. "He called Hugh and told him to come over."

Some of the exact details of what had happened with Nanette were foggy, but I felt pretty confident, head trauma or no, that I would have remembered Dante being around.

"Dante wasn't here," I said.

Hugh paused and looked me in the eye. "Then who called me? It was a guy, from your cell phone. Said to get over here and bring medical supplies-that you'd been hurt."

I frowned, and it came back to me, a shadow in the pain-filled haze of my memory. The strong arms and gentle voice.

"There was someone here…" I began slowly. "Not Dante. Someone else. He put me to bed."

Silence fell. A slight fuzziness was starting to tingle the edges of my senses, which I took as a good sign. It was more of a pleasant, dreamlike fuzziness-not the I-can't-handle-this-pain-anymore kind. There was still a fair amount of that, though.

The guys exchanged puzzled looks. "Are you sure it wasn't him?" asked Cody.

"Why would Dante leave her, though?" asked Peter.

Hugh snorted. "No telling with him."

"Stop," I mumbled. "It wasn't him."

"You can't remember a face or anything?" Peter asked. "Was it even someone you knew?"

I thought again, desperately trying to dig out the memory. There was nothing, though. Only that he'd been someone familiar.

"I knew him…" That pleasant drowsiness was growing stronger. I wished it would hurry up.

"There," said Hugh. "All bandaged up. Help me move her so I can look at her ribs."

That was not fun, and the discomfort of the three of them turning me over-no matter how gentle they tried to be-was enough to momentarily break me out of the drug's soothing embrace. They managed to flip me over, putting moderate pressure on my back when I rested back against the bed, but allowing Hugh to examine the rest of me. He poked and prodded and had me take deep breaths. His final analysis was that I had a couple of broken ribs and a lot of bruising and pain that would just go away with time.

"Great," I said. I was so loopy by that point that I didn't even know if I was being sarcastic or not.

Cody was still unable to give up my benefactor. "But who was here?"

"The man…" I said.

"You aren't going to get anything else out of her," said Hugh wearily. "Not for a while. She's going to be in Dreamland any minute now."

"Dreamland. The man…" I repeated. Suddenly, I giggled. "The man in the dream…"

I saw them exchange pitying looks, just before my eyelids drooped closed. They thought I was talking nonsense. None of them knew about the story of the man in the dream, of that alluring and improbable alternate life that Nyx had shown me.

But as I drifted off to Dreamland, it wasn't Nyx's vision I saw. It was more of that same, painless black…at least, it was until I got jolted by a million volts of electricity.

I let out a small cry of surprise, my eyes popping open. It felt like hundreds of icy needles were dancing along my body, piercing every nerve. The room's details, as well as my friends, came to me in sharp, crystalline detail. No more fuzziness. Turning my head slightly, I saw a fourth person.

Mei.

She stood beside my bed, face blank and emotionless, arms crossed across her black silk blouse. "What happened?" I asked. My words were still thick, but my speech capabilities had improved by leaps and bounds.

"I healed you," she said flatly. "Inasmuch as I can. You're still going to hurt."

Demons, though once angels, didn't possess that power to heal that their heavenly counterparts had. They could do it in small bursts, however, and in expanding my senses to assess my body, I could feel how she'd gotten rid of the worst of my pain. I still ached in some places, and even bandaged, my back still stung. I no longer wanted to die, however, so that was definitely an improvement.

"Thank you," I said.

Mei didn't look particularly compassionate or benevolent. Her expression darkened. "They say Nanette did this?"

I hesitated. I'd already gotten in enough trouble with the archdemoness for telling on her. Of course, my friends had undoubtedly already told Mei the truth, and anyway, she was the closest I currently had to a boss. I wasn't entirely sure if I could trust her, but if I had to place my money on the demon most likely to have my back right now (no pun intended), it was her.

"Yeah," I admitted. "I told Cedric that Nanette had met with Jerome. She'd met with Cedric too, so it seemed kind of like she was manipulating both of them."

Mei's face grew harder still. Whether she agreed with me or not, she didn't reveal. "Nanette won't bother you again."

And with no more than that, the demoness vanished.

"Girl fight," said Hugh, looking the happiest I'd seen him today.

"I don't think it's going to be in creamed corn or anything like that," I remarked dryly.

"Her sense of humor returns," said Peter. "Definitely on the road to recovery."

I tried to sit up and winced. "Or not."

"Don't push it," warned Hugh. "Mei can only do so much-"

"What the hell's going on?"

We all turned. Dante stood in the doorway to my bedroom. His face was a mixture of incredulity and utter confusion. Without waiting for an answer, he hurried over to the bed and knelt down so that he was at my level.

"Are you okay? What happened?"

His expression was so tender, so full of concern that I was momentarily taken aback. Dante was indeed selfish and arrogant, but he did care about me, no matter what my friends thought. And in dire situations-like now-that bitter façade of his fell, revealing someone whose soul hadn't turned completely black yet. He tried hard to hide this side of himself, but I knew it was there.

"I had a run-in with a demon," I said. I gave him a brief explanation of what had happened.

He grew more and more incredulous as I spoke. When I finished, he glanced around the room, studying everyone accusatorily. "How does something like this happen? I thought demons couldn't go around roughing people up. Aren't you under some kind of protection?"

"Technically Jerome's," I said. "But he's kind of busy right now."

"Maybe you're under Grace and Mei's protection now," mused Cody. "Mei looked pissed."

"She always looks pissed," said Hugh.

"I should hope so," snapped Dante. "Are they going to go kick this other demon's ass?"