I didn't know what the flowers meant. Nothing like that had ever happened when I'd meditated in the Thorn Land. Over the next few days, I just kept thinking about what Rurik had said, that no other monarch save my father had ruled more than one kingdom in recent history. It had taken great power and magic for me to exert my dominance over the lands.... Were they feeding it back to me in return? I certainly felt stronger with them, but I'd never expected any sort of unconscious physical manifestation. What else was I capable of? What could I make the land do?
I didn't mention the matter to anyone, not even Kiyo. He'd seen the red flowers but brushed them off. If I told him about the Thorn Land, I feared he'd grow upset about the thought of my magic increasing. He grudgingly accepted what I already possessed but still feared it would turn me into my father, no heir needed.
And although I'd felt physically better in the Otherworld, I grew weak again after a day or so back in Tucson. I didn't mention this to Kiyo either, but Jasmine was around enough to pick up on it.
"Are they calling to you again?" she asked over breakfast one day. She was devouring Pop-Tarts, another love we apparently shared. I was too worried to have an appetite and simply watched. "You look like crap."
"I don't know," I said, drumming my fingers against a glass of water. "There's no precedent for this - at least not anymore. No one knows what to expect from me having two kingdoms."
"I bet Dorian would know."
I bet he would too, but I shook my head. "He's not all-knowing no matter how much he wants to be," I countered. "And I'm done with him."
"Okay." She didn't fight it. For a while, she'd kept telling me I'd made a mistake in breaking up with Dorian, but Kiyo had been growing on her. I still wasn't sure if she approved, but at least I didn't have to listen to teen advice about my love life anymore. "But you might just have to go back soon. I mean, think about it. You're bound to two lands in the Otherworld. Aren't the lands and the monarch one? Part of you's there. It makes sense you'd have to be there twice as much."
I winced at the idea, though it had been on my mind too. "If I were there any more, I'd be living there permanently."
She swallowed the last of some crust. "You may not have a choice."
Her flippant tone irritated me. "There's always a choice. I rule them. They don't rule me." I stood up abruptly and briefly became dizzy. It felt like the lands were mocking me. Damn it, I thought. You will not call me back so quickly. I'm staying in this world for a while. I'll come and go when I please. "I just need to stop thinking about it. I'm going to see if Lara's got a job."
"Yeah," said Jasmine dryly. "That'll fix everything."
Lara did have a job for me, several actually. Even though she was all but living with Tim - in my house - she still kept meticulous records and took all my calls. She looked disappointed that I only accepted one from her growing list of jobs, a small one at that: a simple haunting that would probably take about five minutes. She said nothing, but I knew that she worried if I didn't make any money, she wouldn't either. So, remembering Enrique's comment about needing help but not being able to trust anyone, I gave her his card with the suggestion she call about part-time work.
"Are you firing me?" she asked.
I smiled as I gathered up all my weapons. "No, but I want you to have a backup plan in case you get laid off." Her eyes widened in alarm at the joke. Or, I suddenly wondered, was it a joke?
I brought Jasmine with me to the job because I still felt uneasy about leaving her alone. Besides, she was finally getting her fill of the human world, and I had a feeling her insistence on me returning to the Otherworld was partly selfish.
Later, after I'd finished the job, I kind of regretted bringing a witness.
"Wow," she said, as we drove home. "You got your ass kicked."
"I did not."
"Did too."
So. This was what it was like having a sister.
"I banished it, didn't I? You saw it go to the Underworld."
"Yeah," she admitted, "but it sure did take a long time. I felt like I could have done it, and I've never banished anything before."
I gritted my teeth, refraining from commenting that I still had her chains. The troubling thing was, I had kind of sucked. I'd been in no real danger - not with a ghost that minor - but it had beaten me up more than it should have. I was off my game, a little slower, a little weaker. I'd walked away with some bruises and now noticed as we drove that my shoulder itched. For a moment, I thought the ghost must have hit me there, but there was no pain. The stitches. I'd nearly forgotten about them, now that they'd finally been able to heal. My skin had probably started to grow over the threads. I needed them out.
No one was at my house, much to my disappointment. I'd hoped Kiyo had stopped by and could remove the stitches. Trying to be optimistic, I decided he must be pulling a shift at the veterinary hospital and wasn't with Maiwenn. Thus far, I'd heard no official word from her about my new double-queen status. Other monarchs had weighed in, though. Some had responded by showering me with congratulatory gifts and groveling. Others had let me know - in an amiable way - about other monarchs they were pals with, monarchs with big armies. It turned out everyone did fear the Iron Crown.
I called my regular doctor, hoping to get an appointment this week as backup, in case Kiyo stayed absent. To my pleasant surprise, they'd had a cancellation that afternoon and could remove the stitches right away. It was good news for me but an annoyance for Jasmine, who'd just gotten comfortable on the couch.
"Oh, come on," she said, stretching out. "We just got home. Can't you please leave me here? I promise not to conquer the world or get pregnant while you're gone."
"You know," I said, "Lara and Tim had sex right where you're lying." She jumped up.
A half hour later, we arrived at my doctor's office.
I left Jasmine in the waiting room, deeming her safe enough with her iPod and magazines for the five minutes it would take to remove my stitches. Maybe she'd read some contraception pamphlets to pass the time.
"They did this in the ER?" the doctor asked when I was admitted to an examination room and had taken off my shirt.
I'd been seeing Dr. Moore for a couple years now. She was a pleasant, mid-fortyish woman who had eventually learned not to ask too many questions about my injuries. She thought I was a "contractor" who practiced martial arts on the side.
"Not exactly," I said. "I tore the ones the ER did, so my boyfriend had to redo them."
She took hold of tweezers and a tiny pair of scissors and leaned over. "Well, his work's neat, and it didn't get infected. If I'd seen you when this happened, I would have confined you to your bed. I would have known better than to assume you wouldn't promptly rip these out."
"Yeah, I really pulled one over on the other doctor."
She snorted a small laugh and proceeded to pull the stitches out. They stung where they tugged the skin, but honestly, it was nothing compared to my normal wear and tear.
"There you go," she said, stepping back. "You'll have a scar."
I put my shirt back on and faced her. "Battle trophy."
She rolled her eyes, leaning against the wall with crossed arms. "You shouldn't joke about that."
"Sorry." I picked up my purse, but her expression said we weren't done.
"Eugenie ... I don't ask many questions, not any more than I need to treat you, but I'm worried about how often you come in with these kinds of injuries."
If only she knew how many I didn't come in for. "I - "
"No, no," she interrupted. "I don't need to know all the details of your life. I try not to judge - but you might need to. There are jobs out there that are physical in nature. That's life. But whatever you're doing ... maybe you should reevaluate it. To be blunt, you look terrible today."
"Oh, that." Crap. I could hardly explain that it was the residual aftereffects of a magical battle in the Otherworld, during which I'd fought for dominion of a fairy kingdom and become its new master, thus doubling my reign. "I'm just, uh, coming down with something. Just kind of tired, you know."
She arched her eyebrows.
Double crap.
"Then let's do some quick blood and urine tests," she said, straightening up. "Check your electrolytes, thyroid ..."
I fumbled for an excuse. I'd never been comfortable with those kinds of tests since discovering I had gentry blood. I was pretty sure human medicine couldn't detect that sort of thing, but I didn't want to take any chances. "I don't have time. My sister's waiting for me in the lobby."
"I'm sure she'll be okay," said Dr. Moore. "This'll take five minutes."
"Fine." I sat back on the table, defeated. "But can you send someone to make sure she's still out there? She's the sullen one."
Dr. Moore's nurse returned to send me to the bathroom and then drew blood when I came back. She was in the middle of telling me they would send the tests out to a lab, when Dr. Moore herself stuck her head back in.
"Can we talk for a moment?" she asked.
The nurse discreetly left, and once we were alone, I braced for another lecture about my lifestyle. "I really need to get back to my sister," I told her. "You don't know what she's capable of."
"Eugenie." Dr. Moore's voice was kind but firm. "Most of those tests we have to wait on, but there are a few we do right here with urine."
"And?"
"And, you're pregnant."
I thought about this for a moment and then enlightened her.
"No. I'm not."
Those eyebrows rose again.
"Your test came back positive. Now, we can't tell how far just from a urine test, but based on - "
"Your test is wrong!" I sprang up from the table. My world was starting to reel again. "I can't be pregnant!"
To her credit, she took my outburst calmly, but that was probably part of her training. "The test is very accurate, and it would explain why you aren't feeling well."
"I can't be pregnant," I repeated adamantly. There was a mistake here. A terrible, terrible mistake, and she needed to understand that. Until she did, I refused even to process what she was claiming. "I take my birth control pills. Every day. Same time. Just like I'm supposed to. I'm not going to lie: I do other stupid shit all the time. But not with pills. I take them perfectly. I did with the antibiotics too. I'm careless with stitches but not prescriptions."
That calm expression shifted to surprise. "Antibiotics? When were you taking antibiotics?"
I pointed to my shoulder. "When I got this. The ER doctor gave me a prescription." I frowned. "What? Why are you looking at me like that? I told you: I took them correctly, all of them."
"Antibiotics can negate birth control pills," she said. "Didn't you know that?"