Luin

Healing used to seem like such a nice magic to have access to. I used to be jealous of Arrowan being able to help people like that and thought I would happily trade one of my own affinities for it. The ability to manipulate people and animals, maybe – I had never much liked that particular magic, anyway.

Now I was grateful that healing was an Unseelie magic. I would never be jealous of Arrowan again.

When the severed leg patient came in, I truly thought that would be the worst we saw. I should have recognized the odds that the worst case would come first. It was just the beginning.

Over the next several weeks, I was subjected to nightmare fuel every single day. It didn't help that my job was to help keep Arrowan's magic up, and he was given all of the worst cases. Anything particularly grisly or dire was sent directly to his office, to the point where he and Jaron started sharing the room just so Jaron could offer some relief when needed. When only one of them was on shift, the other slept in a room just a few doors down. Arrowan and I were woken up almost every night as patients came in beyond everyone else's healing capabilities.

And through it all, I had absolutely no idea how we were faring in the war. Everyone who came through the hospital was too far from the planning to be able to tell us more than how the current battle was going. I knew we won more than we lost, which was comforting, but were we showing ourselves to be enough of a threat for the other parties to agree to a treaty with us? It was truly bizarre to be working so hard and putting ourselves through such trauma without having any clue how things were going.

Until...

Until five weeks later. We were worn ragged and seriously contemplating going home for the first time since all this started, hospital be damned. Arrowan and I talked every day about wanting to go home just for a day, to get a full night of sleep and to check in with the people in our lives. They had known we were coming here to work at the hospital, but we hadn't prepared them for the possibility that we might not be home for weeks. They probably thought something had happened to us, but we were so tired at the end of every day that going to the portal, then teleporting to someone's house and going through what was bound to be a long conversation (no way would Magnus or Safiya let us get away with a quick chat) never seemed worth it. And besides, if we left the hospital even for a short amount of time, it could mean the difference between life and death for who knew how many people? How could we go when Arrowan was so badly needed here?

So we kept putting off leaving.

We were reaching a breaking point, though, and I didn't see how I could possibly go on without a break. There's only so much gore and hurt you can see before you're forced to take care of yourself first, and the instant I hit my fast-approaching breaking point, I knew Arrowan would get us home, consequences be damned. I would do the same for him, but he was holding up better than me.

When we laid down at night to snatch whatever sleep we could, Arrowan fell asleep within minutes. He had disturbed dreams, but they weren't enough to keep him up at night and he was still functional enough during the day. I, on the other hand... I had terrible nightmares, and the dread of what the next one would bring made it feel impossible to fall asleep. Sometimes I laid there, eyes wide open because when I shut them, I saw the parade of terrible injuries that had somehow become my life.

When Arrowan suggested we join the war in this capacity, I really believed that we were getting off easier than the people doing the actual fighting. Now, I wasn't so sure. Neither of us had to deal with the trauma of actually hurting people, but we dealt with the aftermath of the hurt other people inflicted, and we saw the absolute worst of that.

So, when we were five weeks in, I was starting to truly feel like I needed to go home for a day or I risked madness. In the afternoon, absolutely no one came in who was hurt enough to need Arrowan's help. When we checked in with the office, we found out that only a few people had trickled in looking for help with old, minor injuries they hadn't had time to seek attention for sooner. Maybe this was a battle-light day? Or maybe our side had just been lucky?

I didn't care. I was so exhausted I was swaying on my feet, and I honest to goodness was at my breaking point.

I pulled Arrowan aside. "Can we go home?" I pleaded. "Just for a day?"

His eyes were instantly concerned, and they swept over me. His brow furrowed deeper the longer he studied me, and I knew how bad I must look to put that expression on his face. "Yeah, let's go home."

Arrowan started tugging my hand toward the door right away, but I wasn't broken enough yet that I forgot we couldn't leave just like that. I pulled away for just long enough to sprawl a note saying where we'd gone and leaving my phone number in case of emergency, then I took Arrowan's hand again and we headed for the portal. The time it took someone to get through the portal to call us, then for us to make it back to the hospital, would probably be too much for us to be any help in case of emergency... but it was all I had to offer.

It felt forbidden to leave, and I had to keep reminding myself that we were volunteers, and that we couldn't keep helping effectively when we were this exhausted. Arrowan had already saved so many lives that would have been lost if we never helped at all. At some point, didn't that have to be enough? Certainly, it didn't seem physically possible for us to work harder or longer than we already had been.

My mind wouldn't stop thinking of all the people who were alive now because of Arrowan. I was so selfish, pulling him away from the hospital when I knew it might cost someone their life. Arrowan glanced down at me as we walked and kissed my temple. "None of that," he said. "Anyone else would have taken a break long before this."

I didn't know if I believed that, but even if it was true, that didn't mean a break was the right thing to do. I didn't argue, though.

We turned a corner before I could think of a retort, and the new street was congested and full of people. Some wore armor and were obviously involved in the war effort. Others, though, looked like they were going through their normal routine. It was jarring, and seeing the soldiers made my stomach turn. Any one of them might die or be left horribly maimed because we were leaving.

I suddenly longed to return to my early days with Arrowan, when we were shut away in our home for weeks straight. Those weeks had been hard, sure, but at least they hadn't filled my head with terrible images I knew would haunt my nightmares for years to come. They hadn't included decisions like this, where I felt like I was doing the wrong thing. And back then, things had been harder and more dangerous, but I'd had time for Arrowan and for our friends. And I certainly got a lot more sleep.

The portal came into view. Arrowan shoved his way through the crowd and I kept myself tucked right behind him. The walk that should have taken less than a minute took several because the town square the portal was in was so congested, but we finally made it. I sighed in relief as Arrowan and I stepped through. From there, I teleported us back into our living room and could have kissed the ground we landed on, I was so relieved to be home.

I might have actually done it, too, except that we weren't alone.

"LUIN!"

A body slammed into mine and I stumbled back from the force of it. Arrowan kept me from falling down. It took me too long to realize that I knew the person who was clinging to me. Part of that was because his face was tucked against my chest, and part was because I truly was exhausted.

"I thought you were dead!" Magnus wailed dramatically against me, and I would have thought he was exaggerating, except that his shoulders were shaking.

I held my arms out for a few awkward moments while I tried to remember how people were supposed to handle situations like this. Eventually, I settled for lightly patting his back. "There, there."

Magnus straightened and separated himself from me to glare. "There, there? Are you kidding? Luin, I thought you were dead!" Magnus scolded. His voice went up in pitch and volume as he spoke, and I cast my eyes around, desperately hoping Lachlan was here to rein him in.

Footsteps came running down the hall and I exhaled in acute relief to see my friend. Only, Lachlan didn't try to calm Magnus down at all. Instead, he threw himself at me in yet another awkward hug. He pulled back enough to free his arm, then punched me in the chest and threw himself back into the hug. "Where have you been?" he demanded.

I looked to Arrowan in a last bid for help, but he was watching with a faint look of amusement. I pouted at him and he actually laughed a little before abandoning me to sit on the couch.

"I told you, we were going to Faerie to run the hospital," I said.

Lachlan finally separated himself from me, but I think it was only so he could glare. "Yeah, weeks ago. And we had no way of checking in to make sure you were okay. We even had Safiya check in with Fen, and he had no idea how to get in contact, either."

It was true that I hadn't had a chance to show Fen how to get to Faerie yet. He was too busy with his teaching job and with pursuing his bond mate, and I hadn't pushed the issue. No need to drag him into a war, especially since the only positions he would have been suited for were fighting and transport. Those were both much more dangerous than what I had been up to.

"Sorry," I said, but the apology only seemed to make things worse.

Lachlan threw his hands up in the air and whirled around to Magnus. "Sorry, he says, as though that can remotely make up for this," Lachlan complained.

"I'm truly sorry," I said, understanding how inadequate my words were for how he was feeling.

Magnus fixed a melodramatic pouty expression on his face and stared at me with puppy eyes. Lachlan just looked exasperated, pinching the bridge of his nose. When that didn't help, he massaged his temples and groaned.

"You know why we were here?" he asked rhetorically. "We were here to look, again, for some hint you were alive or had come back at all in the past few weeks. Glenna, Safiya, and Roderick have all been casting scrying spells every day on the off chance you showed up. You can't go traipsing off to war without a proper explanation or any checking in like this."

When Lachlan said the word "war," Magnus flinched and his eyes filled with tears. He flung himself onto me again and said, "I was so worried!"

In that moment, Magnus seemed more barnacle than wolf, with the way he clung to me so tenaciously. This time when I looked to Lachlan for help, he rolled his eyes and smiled a little. "Just hug him back," he said. I did, and Magnus released me after a very long minute.

I slipped back into Arrowan's arms, shamelessly leaning against him so I wouldn't have to work quite so hard at standing. This was probably the most exhausted I had ever been in my life, but I didn't want to kick out Lachlan and Magnus, not when they were so understandably concerned for me. When I explained what things had been like and how it felt like leaving Faerie even for a few minutes would cost someone their life, I knew my friends would understand. But they still deserved some reassurance.

Thankfully, Lachlan's eyes raked over me. I could only imagine the details he was picking up. I had stopped brushing my hair sometime last week, so it was scraped back in a sloppy ponytail. My clothes were rumpled and had dark blotches on them, unspeakable stains no amount of washing had been able to remove. These would go straight into the trash as soon as all this healing business was over. I slumped against Arrowan, and I knew there were deep purple bags under my eyes. In short, I looked like the "before" image in what would be a very successful campaign to sell coffee.

"We'll leave you two to get some rest, okay? And I'll keep my phone handy for when you want to catch up," Lachlan said.

I must look as bad as I felt, for him to take such pity on me. He didn't even demand that I call him when we woke up, just gently suggested that I could. "Thanks," I said. "And I really am sorry."

He smiled softly. "I know. It's okay."

Lachlan and Magnus let themselves out while Arrowan and I staggered down the hall and groaningly climbed into bed. I had my first night of sleep without nightmares in weeks.