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awake, and found a furry face with a pointed nose and a black mask inches from mine. The shout on the tip of my tongue came out a fuzzy, “Howza-wha?”
    The raccoon standing on my lap was considerably smaller than Sister. I guessed he was a boy, because his collar was blue. He blinked bright black eyes at me, reached over, and started investigating one of the zippers on my jacket.
    Low laughter drifted my way. “Do you often attract woodland creatures?”
    “Yeah. Just call me Dr. Doolittle.” I glanced around the raccoon and found Ian shirtless, bandaged and splinted, seated upright on the couch with his singed jacket and vest folded beside him. “How long’ve I been out?” I asked. “And where’s Mercy?”
    “Nearly an hour, and she has gone to pour out the water.” He nodded at the open door. “I am sufficiently recovered,” he said. “We can leave when it is … socially acceptable.”
    “I’m surprised you know that term.”
    A brief, bitter smile surfaced. “Well, I am a prince.”
    I grimaced in sympathy and looked away. It couldn’t be easy for him, being the prince of a murdered kingdom. What the Morai had done to his clan, they’d done thoroughly. Ian was the last of the Dehbei.
    Hence his relentless pursuit for revenge.
    The little raccoon had gone from checking out my zippers to plucking at my shirt. I watched him for a few seconds, and tried to shift straighter in the chair. He flinched, freaked out, and grabbed handfuls of shirt—and hair—with a frightened bleat.
    “Ow,” I squeezed out, suspecting a yell would get me bitten. “Ease up there, little guy. That’s quite a grip you’ve got. If you let go, I promise not to move anymore.”
    “Ernest. Behave y’self.” Mercy’s voice from the doorway sent the raccoon chittering again. He released my hair, settled down in my lap, and sent a hopeful look at the lady with the food. “You wanna feed him?” she said.
    “Me? Uh, sure.”
    She came toward me, a hand in her pocket, and pulled out a few chunks of dog food. I held out my good hand, and she dropped them in. “Here you go, Ernest,” I said, pinching one between thumb and finger and offering it to him. “Dig in.”
    He took it, blinked at me, and jumped down to saunter off to the back room.
    I laughed. “What’d I do?”
    “He’s gone to wash it. The little ones wash just about everything they eat. Make a right mess of things.” Mercy opened a plastic tackle box on the low table. She must’ve brought it out while I was sleeping. It was full of medical supplies—bandages, ointments, pills, a few disposable syringes, and a bunch of stuff I couldn’t identify. She picked out a tube and a plastic-wrapped roll of white gauze. “Let’s see that hand.”
    I held it out and tried not to wince while she smeared gunk all over it. “Nasty job you did here,” she said. “Your friend’s worse.”
    “Yeah.” I forced myself not to babble on about campfires and falling off cliffs. The less I said, the easier it’d be to keep straight.
    She put the tube down, opened the gauze, and started wrapping. “I know you’re full of shit, you know. About fallin’.”
    Crud. My gaze flicked automatically to the shotgun. Still hanging by the door. I swallowed, but didn’t say anything.
    “Ernest likes ya, so you can’t be too dangerous. Don’t you worry none.” Her hands flew with the gauze, wrapping individual fingers with ease. “I know what it’s like. I got secrets of my own.”
    I managed a grin. “I bet you do. There’s gotta be a reason you live up here in Nowheresville by yourself.”
    “You mean outside my dazzling beauty?” She tied off the end of the gauze and looked up at me with a smile. “Yeah, I got reasons. Wanna know why my name’s Mercy?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “It’s the first word my momma said when I popped out.” Uncertainty flickered through her smile, and for a moment it was bitter. “First and last one. To me, anyway.” She stuffed the