That same day; Day 1 (Friday, April 29, 2022) Upstate University Hospital, Syracuse, New York, United States

Charlie sat at Ella’s bedside. She was bandaged, and there was a tube going down her throat. The respirator was loud, but Charlie didn’t hear it all.

“You look like a mummy” Charlie said with a half laugh, “a big dummy mummy.”

“I was thinking about the time at Karaoke Heroes, remember you were threatening to tell people about it? We were just dumb new freshmen, and I was drunk. And I got up on stage and started singing We Built This City.”

Charlie reached out to hold Ella’s wrapped hand, gently.

“I was terrible. You know I can’t sing. My mother paid for years of lessons, and I can’t hold a note worth a damn. Like I knew it was bad. And I couldn’t stop singing though. I was up there, you know?”

“I was about to cry. Right there on stage, in front of the all these freshmen I hadn’t met yet. Then I heard another voice start singing with me on the mic. You had grabbed a mic, stone cold sober, and helped me out there. By being worse than me.”

“I didn’t know who this hot, brown girl was. Hell, I didn’t know what you were, I thought you were Mexican or something. I didn’t go to too many debutante balls for Indians.”

“But you saved me.”

Charlie wiped away a tear even though she had a faint half smile on her face.

“I decided we were going to be best friends. It took me a month to find you again on campus, you nerd. Spending all your time studying in the library. Nobody uses the damn library.”

“And it came true. We are best friends. And sisters.”

Arcsa arrived at the hospital along with a massive contingent of Aqrabuamelu.

“How many did you bring?” Bahu asked.

“A battalion. We were complacent and fools.” He was so angry, he wanted to spit like Zaidu.

“Zaidu was the best soldier of us, he should have been enough. The cohort was strong.”

“But to pin our future on so few. We had faith, and our faith blinded us to wisdom. We even know our prophecies are fake. And we still let our belief lead us into destruction.”

“She’s not dead yet. And…” Bahu hesitated, “I believe she is Innanaa Reborn, all the way through.” She pointed to her heart and then to her head.

“Bahu the Believer,” Arcsa — Prophet of the false god Innana, a made up whimsy of an orc with too much magic and power — smiled at the nickname, and confided, “I believe too.”

Arcsa felt something loosen. That intellectual dissonance with his programmed faith was gone, replaced with just belief. It was strange, like a knot in his heart had loosened.

“You know she will still try and free us,” Bahu said.

“I know. I told her I would kill her for trying. Now, it won’t matter for me nor you. She will be surprised when nothing changes for us.”

They held each other’s hands, facing one another. Both with a bit of a smile on their face.

Isaac sat in a chair, sweating.

Ella’s parents sat across the table from him. “Just call us Navneet and Henry.” As if that was going to happen.

“Professor Jindal-Witten, your daughter and I, we just went on a few dates. Nothing happened.”

“A couple of dates, and you come up here in a helicopter with Charlie and Jade?”

“Ummm… yes ?” What was he going to say? That his magic spirit bird told him to go. Peelatchachía was in the ICU next to Ella. He said it was weird and uncomfortable around Ella, but couldn’t explain why. Isaac felt naked without him.

They both just regarded him. Dr. Jindal-Witten scared the pants off of him. Ella’s parents were both a bit too physically attractive, but the woman in front of him was no-nonsense, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, immaculately dressed, and severe expression all the time. In just a few hours, she had completely cowed the attending physician and residents at the hospital. They jumped first and then asked how high while in the air. And mostly hid from her when they could.

“You are lying,” she said.

Isaac had interrogated people in his previous job. He thought he wasn’t bad at it. This woman could give a masterclass in bad cop.

“Ma’am,” and how he wished he had his hat on so he could tip it at her and hide his eyes, “I ain’t lying. But anything else I might say, well that is Ella’s to tell. Not mine.”

They both looked at him blankly.

“Is she pregnant?”

“What!” Isaac stood up, “No… we never…”

Henry put his hand on Navneet’s arm, reigning her in.

“You know she isn’t. You read her labs. Leave the boy alone. If those secrets are Ella’s, then they are hers.”

Not mollified, but too exhausted to keep going, Navneet Jindal-Witten looked at her husband. “Why do we only meet her boyfriends in hospitals when she has been hurt?”

Ella dreamed. Of being stabbed by Ekerri, but this time it was Charlie stabbing her with a pickle. That was strange: Charlie would never stab her with a pickle, she would use a banana.

Then her pickle powers came to the fore, each finger a pickle, and anything she touched became a pickle. Her parents were walking, talking pickles, her brothers, Jae-Young, the list went on. All of them were straight out of a 1930s animation.

She wished it had been a banana.

“Report, soldier,” Arcsa said. The papers were stacked neatly in piles across the hotel room. Soldiers come and go but the administration was forever.

The Aqrabuamelu saluted smartly, “Team of two assassins, eliminated by two of our operatives dressed as orderlies.”

“Very good.”

“We have placed several teams around the hospital. Here is the list. sir.”

Arcsa scanned the list. Many were good choices, Hazi had been a bodyguard many times - to Phiops II, Bonaparte, Taft, and most recently Bush Senior. He had done other bodyguarding stints with private contractors between and served two tours in Vietnam and done counterintelligence work during World War II. Good man to lead the guard detail.

“Why Zana? I do not know her.” Her file was almost empty.

“She just transferred from Kazakhstan. She has extensive experience in Egypt spying for the Hebrews on Jericho, serving as a mstovaris under King David IV, and Mazarin, and so on until most recently the Committee of State Security and Federal Security Service.”

“Why is her file so thin?”

“Well, you know…” And here the soldiers discomfort became obvious. Aqrabuamelu reluctance and disdain for spies. Bahu worked in military intelligence, but was only a liaison from the more martial branches and wasn’t tainted by that association.

Something that left them weak against the drow. And here was an Aqrabuamelu who had defied the social mores and become a spy for centuries. She had emptied her file, no doubt. Arcsa spent all his time making up for their lack of capabilities here, his title as Prophet giving him a pass from the stigma of being a spy.

“I want to speak with her.”

“Sir, she can’t extract.”

“Why not?”

“She got herself admitted as a patient near to the ICU.”

Interesting.