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– hell, he’d hunted most of them down only because their ’mancy rebounded. He had to get out before anyone got hurt–
    The children–
    The flux leapt from his body, darting into the janitor’s closet. Paul lurched forward, unsteady on his artificial leg – too late. There was a gurgle, a hiss, then a choked shriek as one of the orderlies stumbled out, wreathed in green smoke, blisters bubbling on his lips. A bleach bottle tumbled from the orderly’s hands as Paul’s eyes watered, the children’s ward filling with the hot scent of chlorine gas…
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    H e must not sign a form .
    Paul tended to Aliyah: he ensured that her saline bags never went dry, her dead tissue was debrided twice a day, her sleeping form was flipped every four hours to keep clots from forming. He brought every change in Aliyah’s symptoms to the doctors so nothing would go overlooked.
    Aliyah’s charts offered to grade the doctors’ performances. He didn’t dare accept their help.
    No one blamed him for the orderly’s mistake. They called it an accident: a clogged drain full of ammonia that had reacted with a bucketful of discarded mop bleach. A freak event that had created a cloud of deadly poison and sickened eight kids.
    Only Paul knew how close he’d come to killing children.
    He’d been trying to help . But he’d flipped competencies: once a master of red tape, now a fumbling ’mancer. Worse, the world wanted magic. The letters fidgeted under his gaze as he glanced at insurance forms, eager to act at his behest – and yes, the burn ward ran more efficiently, but he remembered the children coughing as the nurses clapped oxygen masks over them and he must not let that out –
    If he focused on Aliyah, he could do no ’mancy. He’d hurt her too much already. But magic, he discovered, now squirmed effortlessly out of his daydreams…
    Imani sat next to him.
    She frowned, looking him up and down. Paul felt suddenly shabby – his suit, once crisp, was stained brown with sweat. Whereas Imani, stylish as always, wore a long tan coat with seven onyx-black buttons, splitting at mid-calf to reveal a black skirt. It looked both businesslike and regal, which suited her – an Egyptian princess’s stiff bearing.
    Imani reached out to place her palm against her daughter’s ankle, a perfunctory but firm touch, enough to let Aliyah know she was here. Then she brushed a greasy lock of hair away from Paul’s forehead.
    He froze at her touch, as always. There was something so transcendently beautiful about her that he’d always believed she might vanish with the dawn.
    “You stink, Paul.” Her voice was blandly factual. “Have you been home since Aliyah got here?”
    He smiled ruefully.
    “I haven’t had a home since the fire.”
    She sighed. “Don’t tell me Samaritan Mutual is refusing you replacement housing…”
    “No, Kit found me a place.” His boss and best friend Kit had pressured Samaritan Mutual’s notoriously stingy claims department until they had grudgingly checked Paul into a no-tell motel. “It’s just… easier to sleep here.”
    Imani’s face went slack; she picked out appropriate expressions for every occasion but had never quite mastered polite regret.
    “Paul.” She placed her palm against his ankle in what she’d meant to be a caring gesture, but her hands touched cold metal. She flinched back, wiping her fingers on the hem of her dress.
    “You’d better learn to quash that reaction,” Paul snapped.
    She blushed. “It’s just – just still a surprise, that’s all.”
    He jerked his chin towards Aliyah’s bandaged face. “That’s what they’ll say.” People always winced when his pants leg fell open to reveal his black carbon shin… then their faces softened into sickening pity. Bad enough enduring that sympathy with a deformity you could hide under a pair of slacks – but a face?
    You saved her , he told himself, for the thousandth time. She’d be dead without you . But scarred as she was,