They got to the house, and Valkyrie followed her little sister into the living room where Kes was waiting with her arms folded. She responded to Valkyrie’s look of delighted surprise with a glare.
Alice got halfway across the room when she froze.
Valkyrie frowned. “Alice? You OK?”
Alice turned slowly.
“What’s wrong?” Valkyrie asked. “Alice, talk to me.”
“I think,” Alice said at last, “that I need to pee.” She scrunched up her face, and nodded. “Yep.” Then she ran off to the bathroom.
Valkyrie breathed out. “For a second, I thought she could see you.”
“How awful that would be,” Kes said. “I’m alive, by the way. No thanks to you.”
“I knew you’d survive.”
“Yeah? Because I didn’t. It took everything I had to heal myself, and for the rest of the night I had to just lie there on the pub floor. The City Guard came and they kept stepping on me and through me and I wasn’t even strong enough to crawl into the corner.”
“Thank you,” said Valkyrie.
“Whatever.”