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Death was ely predictable except when it didn&039;t feel like behaving and decided to exercise its bizarre sense of humor

An hour later, as Xhex opened her eyes a crack, she realized she was in fact not in the foggy folds of the Fade but in the clinic at the Brotherhood&039;spulled out of her throat And her side felt like someone had parked a rusty spear in it And so snapped off

Doc Jane&039;s voice was low "She coded twice, John I got the bleeder in her gut but I don&039;t know--"

"I think she&039;s awake," Ehlena said "Are you co back to us, Xhex?"

Well, apparently she was She felt like hell, and after having sliced open a variety of stomachs over the years, she couldn&039;t believe she still had a heartbeat but yeah, she was alive

Hanging by a thread, but alive

John&039;s pasty white face entered her line of vision, and in contrast to the ill cast of his skin, his blue eyes were like fire

She opened her s She didn&039;t have the strength to speak

Sorry, shehis head, he took her hand and smoothed it

She must have passed out, because when she woke up, John alking beside her What the hell--oh, she was beingsoiven the long, black braid that swung off the side

The word pain came to mind

"Pain is in here," Xhex murmured

John&039;s head whipped around What? he mouthed

"Whoever&039;s there is pain"

She passed out again and caain

In her drea all the way back to a tihtThere were too s should have been different, where fate had been e of ti and uninterested in the personal opinion of those who breathed

And yet as her ht and still surface of her unconscious body, she had the sense that everything had worked out as it was supposed to, that the path she had been set upon had taken her precisely where she was supposed to go:

Back to John

Even though that made no sense whatsoever

After all, she&039;d o Which hardly justified the sprawl of history that seemed to unite them

But then, maybe that did make sense While you were unconscious on s looked different And time, like priorities, shifted

On the other side of the door to Xhex&039;s recovery room, Payne blinked hard and tried to ascertain where she had been ht to inform her, however The cha fixtures and storage casings abounded But she hadn&039;t a clue what it all meant

At least the transport had been slow, careful, and relatively co had been put into her veins to calrateful for whatever potion it was

Indeed, the specter of her dead wasthan her discoood doctor truly spoken the nament of her scattered, reat deal

In the periphery of her vision, she sawthe doctor and the Blind King There was also a blond fee and a dark-haired warrior who people were calling by the name Tohrment

Exhausted, Payne closed her eyes, the patter of voices carrying her off into a drifting sleep She did not how long she was out but what brought her back was the sudden awareness of a new arrival within the hushed space