An entire four hours passed after his last examination before Cordray was given the all-clear from the doctor to walk around. “Apparently, they take bumps on the head pretty seriously around here.”
“Doctors are funny like that.” Remus remained by his side through all the exams, making sure his student was given gloves until two pills could be procured to numb his magic. “You feeling alright?”
“I’m feeling like I need to get to Rory. Tell me where she is, Remus. I followed the doctor’s orders, now tell me where she is.”
Remus scoffed. “If you call trying to escape your hospital bed too many times to count ‘following the doctor’s orders,’ then sure. You were the model patient. Or impatient, as it were.”
“Hilarious. Don’t you have a Foundation to run?”
“That’s the thing about family emergencies. They sort of trump all the other things that once seemed so important. My team can handle things without me.”
“Tell me where she is, Remus. We all know I’m the only one who can wake her.” Cordray hung his head. “Seven months! I can’t believe she’s been in that bed for seven months.”
“That’s how long you were in captivity, Cordray. As much as I’m glad you want to get to her, the doctor showed me your scars. The Lethals really did a number on you.”
Cordray frowned at his tutor. “I thought those files were confidential. What ever happened to the patient’s privacy?”
“I told them I was your uncle.” Remus met Cordray’s gaze with a note of a promise blazing through. “When you were gone for so long, your friend wanted his condo back, so we moved all your things into my home. We have the same address now.”
There were so many details Cordray hadn’t thought of while he was locked away. “I didn’t realize. Thank you.”
“It was only a matter of time before you moved in. Benjamin doesn’t do stress all that gracefully. Watching you and Rory is just easier if you’re under the same roof. Rory stays at my house most weekends, so it just made sense.”
Cordray frowned. “I don’t need someone watching me. I’m a grown man.”
Remus put his feet up on the mattress and leaned back in the bedside chair. With his posture relaxed as it was, he looked far younger than his thirty-six years. “Ah, but that’s where you don’t get much choice in the matter. If you’re with Rory, you’re associated with the Chancellor, which means that if they want to get at him, they can use you to make him bend. A guard comes with the territory once you’re in the family.”
Cordray’s mouth went dry at the very permanent role he’d somehow woken up in. “I can take care of myself.”
“Benjamin will be thrilled to hear that, I’m sure. But it doesn’t change the fact that you need a guard.”
Cordray sat back down on the bed. Though he’d been anxious to get out of it to go see Rory, his body felt weighted all of a sudden. “There’s no one left to come after us. I killed all the Lethals. Every last one of them.”
Remus quirked his eyebrow. “If only that were true, and if only the Lethals were our only problems. You killed the Lethals who worked for Malaura who were there at that time. She’s got sects of them all over the place. And there are ones who are just like you – Lethals all over who haven’t sided with her. They might be totally fine out there on their own, or they might decide that they hate the Chancellor’s encouragement for Lethals to take the pill, and come after him. It’s an ongoing struggle, being in the family of a politician.”
Cordray pursed his lips, and then jutted his chin out at Remus. “You aren’t attacked.”
Remus put his feet on the floor and leaned forward. “Our community fears me. I’m the only one who was able to counter Malaura’s curse. Even so, I’ve still been attacked eleven times over the years because of my brother’s position. It is what it is. I believe in the chance my brother is trying to give people who’ve been marginalized by their Pulses. I know what I’m up against, and I watch out for Rory, who’s always been in far more danger than me. Still, you should know what you’re getting yourself into. They will come for you again.” He tented his fingers in front of his chest. “And when they do, I’ll be there.”
Cordray’s gloved fingers tightened on the edge of the bed. “Malaura’s been confirmed dead?”
Remus nodded. “That’s the thing about having people in high places on your side. My brother’s quite thorough. Four coroners confirmed her death after I did.”
Relief flooded through Cordray as he let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in for who knows how long. “Thank you. I don’t want Rory to have to worry about that witch for the rest of her life.”
Remus tilted his head to the side. “You really love her, don’t you. I mean, you just got out of a seven-month-long torture-fest, and all you’ve been able to talk about is getting back to her.”
Cordray flexed his fingers inside of his gloves, looking down at the self-made prisons that brought him freedom and comfort. “Nothing else makes sense. I feel like I’ve changed so much that I barely recognize myself. I need her to recognize me, Remus. If she can still see me rattling around in here, then maybe parts of me still exist.”
Remus bowed his head to respect the brokenness that a man goes through when he endures too much duress. When he lifted his head, Cordray didn’t bother to hold back the hollowness In his eyes, and the bags beneath his lashes that made him look haunted and on edge. Remus leaned forward and handed Cordray a clean set of clothes he’d brought from home. “Get dressed, and I’ll take you to her.”
For the first time in over half a year, Cordray felt himself breathe. He was muscling through a broken rib, a fractured wrist, a headwound, dehydration, undernourishment, and too many old wounds to count, but now that he was allowed to see Rory, he convinced himself that he was a new man. Nothing would stop him from getting to Rory, to see if she could love the broken man he now was.