Chapter 14 begins with Merry panicking over how they could ever possibly find Doyle inside this huge hospital. I’d suggest, you know, asking? But instead her stupid little moth tattoo on her stomach starts pulsing when she’s facing in certain directions, so she decides to follow that. Tattoo GPS.
If Doyle had been well, I could have simply called him to me, but I was afraid to call him. If his injuries were life threatening, then getting out of his sickbed to come to me might kill him.
But you want to take him from his sickbed to travel on Sholto’s weird faerie magic that he literally said MERRY WASN’T STRONG ENOUGH TO ENDURE to go heal in a magical faerie garden. Sure.
I glanced down at the pristine floor and realized we were leaving a trail of blood drops. My hand didn’t hurt anymore, wound with his. It was as if the pain had already become familiar, but we were still bleeding. I could see the blood drops clearly, but the humans walked in it and left tracks, as if they could not see it.
The hospital was no longer a sterile environment. Was our blood a problem? Magic was often like this. It worked, but it could have unforseen consequences. Were we contaminating everywhere we walked?
YES. YES YOU ARE. Sholto is hiding their presence but apparently they’re just leaving blood everywhere, and the magic Sholto is using to hide them might just have the tiny consequence of KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE IN THE HOSPITAL. JFC.
As Merry gets closer to where Doyle is located, her moth tattoo thing starts pulsing in pain. Merry doubles over, describing the pain as if the moth is trying to rip free of her body. Oh yeah, the tattoos can come to life, I forgot about that. Merry realizes that the pain is so intense because they’re right outside Doyle’s room. Sholto opens the door, and although they’re being hidden by his magic, everyone in the room notices the door just swing open on its own accord. They enter the room and let the door swing closed behind them. The doctors and cops in the room don’t notice them.
“His vitals just keep going down, Doctor,” the nurse said.
I am getting so sick and tired of constantly typing out “he said” “she said” “the cop said”. I really wish LKH was better at dialogue. This scene is so stupid.
The doctor had turned from the now-closed door and was looking at Doyle’s chart. “We’ve treated the burns. He should be improving.”
“But he’s not,” the nurse said.
The doctor snapped at her. “I can see that.”
The uniformed policeman was still looking at the door. “Are you saying that someone’s using magic to kill Captain Doyle?”
“I don’t know,” the doctor said, “and I don’t say that often.”
“I know,” I said.
They all turned toward my voice, frowning but still seeing nothing. If it had been my glamour hiding us, my speaking would have been enough to break the spell and reveal us, but Sholto’s power was stouter stuff.
“Did you hear that, Doctor?” the nurse asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“I heard it,” the cop said.
“I can save him,” I said.
“Who’s there?” the cop asked, and he was standing, with his hand going for his gun.
“I am Princess Meredith NicEssus, and I have come to save the captain of my guard.”
Sholto releases the glamour magic and he and Merry instantly appear in the room. The cop starts pointing his gun at them again, because it’s all cops know how to do apparently, even a stupid fucking faerie sex novel can point this out. Merry orders the doctor and nurse to remove Doyle from the machine’s he’s hooked up to, because they’re “using man-made medicine on him, and it’s killing him” but YOU’RE THE ONE WHO LEFT HIM THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE, ASSUMING THE MEDICAL STAFF COULD HEAL HIM.
The doctor refuses to let them unhook him from the machines, as he rightly should. It’s Merry’s stupid dumbass that left Doyle to try to be saved by the human medical staff and now she’s making a huge deal over how they’re actively killing him because he’s not human enough for human medical treatment.
Anyway, Merry asks the cop to help them disconnect Doyle from the machines, and the cop somehow obeys her orders without question. As, you know, the rest of her men should do. The nurse eventually starts helping as well. Once Doyle is disconnected from all the machines both Merry and Sholto touch him, and he instantly wakes up. The doctor is astonished how quickly Doyle starts bouncing back, and asks them if their magic would help save human lives. Of course it would but the fey are selfish and so Merry tells the doctor that human medicine would work on humans while it does not on faeries.
Merry starts wondering where the other guards are, and the humans tell them that they left, riding shining white horses, to bring the body of Merry’s grandmother back to faerie. Merry is mad that the magic took them and made them forget their other duties.
So they start heading to the door to get Doyle back to the faerie garden and the bed. Sholto needs to find another patient that is “betwixt and between” but, like, isn’t Doyle? Couldn’t they just immediately magic themselves back to faerie because Doyle’s between life and death? Anyway, they apparently find out immediately and poof, they’re gone and back to the garden where the doctor, Henry, is now standing inside the garden to open the bone gate to let them inside. The gate shuts before Henry could follow them inside.
The chapter ends with them laying Doyle in the bed next to Mistral, and Merry and Sholto laying down on on the opposite sides of them, their hands still bound, which just has to be awkward and painful. Merry’s men aren’t exactly super small bodied waifs. They’re all usually described as being 6′ tall or more with big barrel chests and muscles that would make your average bodybuilder blush. But whatever, story magic has them falling asleep immediately. Get excited, you guys, because the next chapter is a D R E A M S E Q U E N C E.
IMPORTANT
Breonna Taylor was murdered in her house by police who raided the wrong house and was shot 8 times while she was sleeping. Call or E-mail the Louisville Mayor’s office and demand that the officers involved be charged!
Louisville Mayor, Greg Fischer
– (502) 574-2003
-Text “ENOUGH” To 55156
“ENOUGH” to 55156
Trailer Park of Emotion 