Dearest Ivie

Couldn’t be a member of their family admitted. Ivie’s mom was the clearinghouse for their bloodline’s news, and God forbid if it was her mahmen? Ivie’s father would have shown up, not her cousin.

Plus, hello, none of her family would be admitted with the rich people.

Maybe it wasn’t a VIP issue—nope, they were entering the unit now, pushing their way through the mahogany doors that were marked with the family seal of Havers’s bloodline.

Just as with luxury hotels, there was a front and a back side to the high-rent district, the latter being a series of hidden, utilitarian halls that were conduits for quick access to the fancier, formal treatment rooms and ORs. Once inside, Rubes hooked them up with the main staff corridor, using her pass card to unlock the steel door so they could hurry down the bald passageway with its linoleum floors and fluorescent ceiling lights.

One way you knew you were in the VIP area was that the scent of fresh-cut flowers overlaid the antiseptic smell of the cleaning agents used. And as Ivie rushed along after her cousin, she breathed in deep.

“Rubes, you want to give me a quick briefing on this? So I know what I’m walking in on?”

As they continued onward, they started passing by a long series of doors that opened on both sides of the corridor. These were the back ways into patient rooms, the discreet entrance/exits provided so medicines could be delivered or food brought in without undue disturbance to the rest of the ward.

While they went along, Ivie nodded at the other staff they encountered. Rubes, on the other hand, just kept her head down—which was also not like her.

They were quite a ways along when the female slowed and then stopped. Looking left and right, she waited as an orderly pushed a laundry cart past them.

She didn’t say anything until he was way out of earshot.

“Look, I could lose my job for this,” she said in that strange tone. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

Ivie put a hand on her cousin’s shoulder. “Listen, whatever it is, you and I will deal with it, okay? Don’t worry, Rubes. We can handle this.”

Rubes knocked softly, and when a muffled voice answered, she pushed her way in. As Ivie entered behind her cousin, she tugged her uniform down and smoothed her plastic credentials as they hung from a zip cord off her lapel. These patients could be tough to deal with, their sense of entitlement allowing them to channel reasonable anxiety into unreasonable demands and critiques of staff.

And she didn’t want to complicate her cousin’s problem by—

Ivie’s body caught on before her head did, her feet stopping, her breath sucking in, her heart jumping. Yet her mind lagged far behind, her thoughts going into a confused chaos even as her senses grounded her in an inscrutable yet undeniable reality.

The suite was as grand as anything you’d find at the Four Seasons, the hospital bed fitted with satin sheets and a monogrammed duvet, the bureau an antique, the monitoring equipment hidden by a silk screen with a French courtesan scene on it. The marble bathroom was off to the side, and there was a formal sitting room out front, with a decor and accoutrements worthy of a Vanderbilt estate.

But none of the luxuriousness registered.

The patient was across the way, pulling on a shirt. “I have to be somewhere in twenty minutes. So yes, I’m leaving—”

That was when he stopped.

And slowly turned around.

Silas froze as their eyes met. And Ivie was the first to break the connection—because her stare swept over his torso. The gap between the two halves of that button down showed her the feeding tube that had been surgically implanted off to one side, as well as the port up by his chest, and the drain on the left.

There were scars, too, evidences of surgeries that should have been well healed, but were lingering.

Because he was clearly very, very ill.

“Rubes,” he said roughly, “not fair.”

“You’re not well enough to go and you know it. I did what I had to do.”

Ivie covered her mouth with her palm. She didn’t want the shock to show. Too late for that.

And then things got worse.

A female burst into the room from the front of the suite, her gait like that of a drill sergeant, her attitude one of total superiority.

She was a stranger, but Ivie recognized her immediately.

It was the retainer who had turned her away at that mansion. The one who thought she was too young to help a dying male find his way unto the Fade.

“Sire,” the female said, “I came as soon as they called. One mustn’t be rash. You shall stay herein and receive the—”

“Leave us,” Silas snapped without looking at her.

The female glanced over at Ivie with hauteur. “Yes, do give us some privacy. This is a private matter—”

“Not her. You.” His head shifted over. “You, too, Rubes. You go as well.”

The retainer recoiled as if he had slapped her, and then clearly wasn’t having the dismissal. “Now, sire, one must be reasonable—”

“GET OUT!” he screamed, his face going red, his voice booming. “Get the fuck out of here right this minute or you’re fucking fired!”

Rubes took that opportunity to disappear out of the staff door. The retainer wasn’t as smart or efficient in her exit.

The female seemed to become suspended between the direct order and her inner convictions. But when Silas just glared at her like he was prepared to throw her out of the suite himself, she cleared her throat.

“I do wish you would reconsider,” she said tightly.

“Duly noted and declined.”

Squaring her shoulders, she didn’t retreat so much as un-advance, if that made sense, her regal carriage and clipping, short-heeled shoes, like a string of curses left in her wake.

And then Ivie and Silas were alone.

Chapter Ten

“If you’ll excuse me,” Silas said tightly, “I have to sit down.”

His gait was stiff as he went over to the bed, and he lowered himself onto the mattress like every bone in his body hurt. With hands that shook, he slowly did up each button of the shirt, covering himself.

As he worked to close the two halves, snippets of memories flashed through Ivie’s mind: him not really ever eating; him not removing all his clothes those times they’d been together; the sudden burst of energy he’d had from feeding; his need to go home at dawn each night; the fact that he never dematerialized, but drove.

But all of that was kind of hard to track.

There was a silk-covered armchair over in the corner by a brass lamp and an Old Masters painting of a vase of flowers. Ivie went across and sat down because she didn’t trust her legs.

Any more than he seemed to trust his own.

Just for different reasons.

“Needless to say,” he murmured, “my upcoming trip is not to the Old Country.”

Ivie dropped her arms and let her head fall back. There were no tears for her, and she was glad that she had always reacted to situations of high emotion with a lack of drama as opposed to a surplus.

She wiped her mouth even though it was stone dry. “I, ah…” She cleared her throat. “So, um, I guess I went to your house, didn’t I?”

What she really wanted to know was what the hell was wrong with him, but demanding that information seemed a violation of his privacy—especially given that she was in uniform and at work.

“I’m sorry,” Silas said as he stared at his hands. “It was wrong of me not to come clean about my condition.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Fine, that’s true enough, she thought. But compared to the ramifications of your being this ill?

Harping on him because he hadn’t admitted he was…

She couldn’t say the word, even in her head.

And then something came back to her. “My cell phone number. I never did give it to you, did I. I never…I just picked up your call. I didn’t tell you my address, either. How could I have missed that?”

Then again, she’d been gob-smacked that someone like him had just shown up in her life. Tangled in fantasies, she had missed the reality in front of her.

Guess that theory also covered the other clues she’d overlooked.