The Silenced Tale, стр. 59

What a character development, Elgar thinks dazedly. Forsyth would never have been comfortable doing that without the mask on before. And then his bruised brain catches up to what Forsyth actually said.

“He what?” Elgar splutters, stunned and horrified and suddenly feeling so very guilty. Here’s another person who has suffered simply because they’re part of the loose orbit of people Elgar has in his life.

A flash of green eyes over her shoulder, he remembers, as she went back into the kitchen. And the vague thought that her eyes were supposed to be blue. God, he really is an idiot. Ten thousand kinds of idiot. Moron. Imbecile. Witless.

“Yeah,” Riletti says. “There was a report from her father. He hadn’t heard from her in a few days, was concerned about her, about her new boyfriend. Says that he’d given her a black eye and maybe a burn, and when a duty cop went over check on her, the guy took off. Apparently, straight here. The CCTV cameras caught him out in the hall, and at one of the stop lights outside Miss Garcia’s house. It was a match. I’m sorry, Mr. Reed.”

“Was that yesterday night?” Elgar says, risking the pain of the stitches pulling on his right forearm to scrub his hands through his greasy hair, only to be met with another wad of bandage behind his right ear, and another patch of extreme tenderness. Dammit, he’d forgotten about that.

“Indeed. It was lucky that I booked so early a flight,” Forsyth says quietly.

“Yeah, it is,” Jackson says, equally soft, still looking sideways at Riletti, like he hasn’t quite figured out how to feel about her apparent nonaction just hours earlier. Elgar bets that she doesn’t even remember she’d just stood in the hall, doing nothing but trying to stop Forsyth when he entered the room. “The detective says that he doesn’t think this is the kind of stalker who kills his target—just everyone close to them, so they’re the only ones left, you know?”

On the bed beside Elgar, Juan whimpers, covers his face, and looks away.

“Sorry,” Jackson says softly as Khouri straightens and glares at the sergeant. “But we’ll keep you safe. We don’t know how he got in last night, but we’ve bumped up the security detail on you.”

It won’t matter, Elgar thinks, but doesn’t say. Put a hundred cops with a hundred guns in this hospital. Magic can get past them all.

A glance at Forsyth tells him that his creation is thinking the same thing. And, knowing Forsyth, he’s also starting to figure out how to stop even that. God, Elgar’s glad that Forsyth Turn is here. He wishes Lucy was here, too. Lucy Turn Piper understands his work, and his creations, better than even Elgar himself. She’d know what to do next, where to turn, what trope to use, or spell to invoke, or quest to undertake, or . . . or something. Not that Forsyth won’t figure it out, but if Lucy was here, it would just . . . make Elgar feel better. Okay, all right, he’ll admit it. He wants his whole family around him—Lucy, and Alis, as well as Forsyth and, yeah, Juan—because he’s scared. He wants their comfort, and to see with his own eyes that they’re safe.

Eventually, the nurse chivvies everyone out of the room so Juan and Elgar can rest. Forsyth, as Elgar knew he would, slips back in with three cups of coffee as soon as the nurse is gone long enough to let her guard down. She’s been fierce about protecting Elgar since the incident, and he thinks she’s probably feeling guilty about letting the Viceroy slip by her. Elgar has a short, sharp moment of resenting her for it—Good! She should feel guilty!—before he beats it back. It’s not like she could have helped it.

Juan accepts his cup of black coffee from Forsyth, but says nothing else. Forsyth snags a chair with his foot and pulls it into the space between their beds so he can see, and presumably address, both of them at once. But Juan keeps his face turned away.

Elgar manages only a few sips of the wretched hospital coffee before the nausea robs it of its admittedly meager appeal. He shifts in the bed, waiting for Forsyth to say . . . something. Anything. But Forsyth seems just as lost in thought, going round and round things in his head, as Juan is.

Annoyed by everything that’s hanging in the air between them, Elgar finally sets his coffee aside and says, “You know, you’re allowed to be angry with me.”

Juan gasps, as if Elgar has slapped his face, and whips around to look at him, though he winces and has to shuffle to do so. “Angry with you?”

“It’s my fault,” Elgar says, remembering at the last second not to jerk his head at Juan’s arm; he gestures with a weak finger instead. Even that hurts. He lets his finger drop.

“Elgar, of course it’s not your fault—” Forsyth begins, even as Juan interrupts with:

“It’s not your fault! But I . . . god, I just . . .”

Both men trail off, staring at one another, tense and unsure of what should be said next. Or not.

Man up, Elgar chastises himself. Go on. Admit it. “I’m scared, too,” he eventually whispers.

“What that cop said!” Juan blurts. “About him going after the people close to you. I can’t. . . . Boss, I can’t. I . . . I mean, I don’t want to . . . to abandon you, but—I can’t stay!” The wetness in his eyes spills over, spiking his lashes and leaving wet trails on his cheeks. “I’m sorry. I can’t stay.” It’s clear that the accident has frightened him deeply, and opened his eyes to the reality of working for what amounts to a celebrity, to all the danger that a position like that can sometimes entail, whether he’s working directly in security or not.

“No,