"I'll keep that in mind."

Linnea chuckled as she helped Quinn sit back into the pillows.

"So, you've had to have stitches before?" Quinn asked him, probably bored and trying to keep her mind occupied as he worked on her arm.

"Oh yes." He'd lost track of how many times now, although, unlike his brother, it never seemed to get easier for him. "It kind of comes with the territory, since I spend so much time riding around the kingdom on horseback, visiting clinics. We are often in rural areas, and there are many times we have to hike... Besides, I'm usually with Thomas. You see where that's gotten you already."

Quinn laughed; her irritation with him seemed to have faded now that her arm was numb.

"I am a walking hazard zone," Thomas said. "But I know how to have fun."

"Fun is one word for it," Linnea chided.

"You're just mad that you don't usually get to come."

"It's hardly fair. You two are always getting to have fun adventures without me."

"Here, you can have my adventure," Quinn told her, brandishing an empty syringe she'd picked up from the bedside table.

William actually snorted.

When they had finally all recovered from the laughing fit, he looked up at his siblings. "This is going to take a while," he said. A long while, probably. For every splinter he pulled out, he seemed to find three or four he hadn't seen before. "You should go check on the horses maybe even go take a peek at the market stalls. I'm sure the vendors would be happy to have a prince and princess stop by."

Linnea's eyes lit up at the idea he knew she'd seen the jewelry stands as they walked by but she looked down in concern at Quinn. "We aren't going to leave when you need us," she said.

Quinn shook her head. "I'm fine now. I can't feel anything. You should go, this has to be about as exciting as watching paint dry in here."

"Are you sure, Quinn?" Thomas was more reluctant.

"I'm sure. Go."

"We won't be long," he promised.

She shrugged, though only one shoulder actually moved. "From the sounds of it, you have plenty of time."

"Is there anything you'd like?" Linnea asked.

Quinn chuckled. "Do they have books?"

"I'm sure someone does," Thomas said, brushing the girl's hair back from her forehead. "We'll bring you something."

William saw Quinn begin to object, which didn't surprise him, but his brother and sister disappeared, likely intentionally avoiding hearing her.

After Thomas and Linnea were gone, William worked in silence for several minutes before he looked up. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah. I don't love it, but you numbed it up good. I can't feel anything. Right now, my leg is hurting worse than my arm."

"I'll bet." He rubbed again at the taped cotton, trying to disperse the medicine more, but he stopped quickly when she winced. "That'll be sore for a bit, I'm sorry."

She shrugged with her good shoulder.

"So, later, when your arm is feeling better, you can punch me. I know you wanted to."

She chuckled. "You were not my favorite person there for a minute. But I'm over it now ... mostly."

He grinned. "You'll be grateful later. The scars on your arm would have been a lot more visible than that one on your leg."

"I didn't even know you'd noticed that." She surprised him when the base of her neck began to glow a soft red.

He shrugged, catching her gaze trying to convey with his expression that he hadn't meant to embarrass her. He actually kind of liked the distinctive little scar on her leg. It was so ... Quinn. "It's not that bad, I just notice things like that. Nathaniel and I both spend a lot of time practicing doing stitches well. It's not so important on a leg, but for a cut on your face there are no plastic surgeons here. You can't tell me that Nathaniel ever saw that injury and let it heal like that."

She shook her head.

"What are we going to do with you, Quinn?" He wanted to lighten the mood.

It worked. She smiled.

"So, Nathaniel isn't really your uncle?" she asked, changing the subject just a little too casually. Although she tried to hide it, he could see the burning curiosity in her eyes. He'd become all too familiar with that expression of hers lately.

"Yes, he is my uncle. In every way possible other than that his parents don't happen to be my grandparents."

The understanding in her eyes as she nodded caught him off guard. "Does that make sense to you?"

"Very much. It's kind of like Jeff. I had a dad before him, and I know that he loved me very much, and that I loved him, but he died when I was three and I don't really remember him. Jeff adopted me when I was six, and he is my real dad. I don't like when people say he isn't. Even if he wasn't there when I was born, he has chosen to be. I just have two real dads."

"Yeah, it's kind of like that with Nathaniel."

He could see that she was still curious, though. "So who are his parents, then?"

"That I don't know. He doesn't talk about it, and I've never heard it discussed at all. He came to live with my grandparents when he was a young teenager, and from that point on, he was raised with their children, with my father. I don't know why he came to live with them. I do know he is family, related somehow. He's a fourth-born royal, with the gift of healing, but I've never been able to figure out what line he's from."

He tied off one line of stitches and taped a clean piece of gauze over it before he continued.

"He started living in your world most of the time, though, when he was my age. He was gone for a number of years while he went away from Bristlecone to go to college, and medical school, and complete his residency. Even now, he doesn't come here as often as I do, and when he does, he's usually away at one of the other clinics, training those who have served as his apprentices, stocking and helping at the clinics."

"If he's a fourth-born royal, doesn't that mean he has an older brother who's a king or something?"

William smiled. He often forgot how foreign all of this must be to her. "No. The gifts pass through every royal bloodline. The firstborn child is always given the gift of leadership, but only the first-born of the king becomes king. My own first child will have leadership, but would be far from first in line for the throne, because I'm a fourth-born. Simon's son will be the heir once Simon becomes king."

"I guess that makes sense."

"Very different from your world, I know. Okay, a few more splinters, and I'll be just about done here. I'm going to look in my bag for some ibuprofen."

"I'm okay," she said. "It's not hurting."

He rolled his eyes. "Quinn, I know that you think everything is fine and that you didn't really hurt yourself, but your arm is torn up. It is going to be hurting tonight. If you take some ibuprofen now, and keep up with it every six hours, you might and only might not be asking for something stronger before you go to bed tonight. And," he added, staring her down, "if you do need something stronger, you'd better ask."

She nodded, subdued.

"You're going to need to be really careful with this for a few days. Let Mia or Linnea help you with getting dressed, because this is right where it's going to rub against the sleeve of your shirt all the time." There was a definite downside to the fact that the injuries were on the outside of her arm. "I don't want to be putting these stitches back in anytime soon, okay?"

She nodded again. "William?"

"Yes?"

"I'm already grateful."

* 11 *.

Frustrated

AS WILLIAM HAD EXPECTED, his mother was beside herself by the time he walked into the dining room with Quinn. Thomas and Linnea had gone in a few minutes before them to explain, and now they were sitting together at the far end of the table, looking guilty. Good.

Queen Charlotte flew across the room as soon as they entered.

"Quinn! Are you all right sweetheart?" Her forehead creased as she appraised Quinn's bloody shirt and bandaged arm. "Is she all right?" she turned her gaze on William before Quinn even had a chance to answer.

William sighed. "She will be fine. She's banged it up pretty good. She'll be pretty sore for a few days, but it will heal. Some of those stitches will still have to be in when she goes home, though."

Quinn's eyes popped wide at that news. Good, he thought again. Let her think about that. Choices have consequences. Let her explain that one to Zander Cunningham. He'd had plenty of time on the ride home for his irritation to build again. The danger that girl had put herself in ... she just didn't think. She treated his whole world like it was imaginary ... she could step in and have fun, and then just go home as if it had never happened. He wondered exactly what she'd told her boyfriend she was doing this weekend.

"What were you thinking, Quinn? You could have been seriously injured. Or worse!"

William's shoulders sank at the tone in his mother's voice, so he nearly choked when Quinn looked her straight in the eye. "I wasn't thinking about anything except that little boy."

"I know. And I ... both Charlotte and I are very proud of you for that." King Stephen had joined them. "From what Thomas and Linnea say, you probably saved that child's life today, and for that we are grateful. Our entire kingdom is grateful." His father paused; emotion had crept into his voice. "But to put yourself at that kind of risk while you are under my care, away from your home, when I think about what could have happened to you today... Your poor mother..."

"I'm sorry I frightened you, Your Majesties. Truly. I didn't mean to worry you, or put your family at risk. But if I had just stood there and watched..."

William's jaw dropped when had the shy and quiet Quinn turned into someone who would talk to a king that way? He watched several emotions flit across his father's face before his expression suddenly softened. Stephen exchanged a wordless argument with Charlotte, which, from the look of acquiescence in his mother's eyes, his father won.

Stephen cleared his throat. "We'll settle on grateful then, Quinn. We're grateful to you for taking such a risk to rescue that boy, and to the Maker, for protecting you both today and returning you to us."

William looked on as his parents simultaneously wrapped Quinn in a hug. There was moisture in his mother's eyes.

"And William," his father said after a moment, "we are, as always, filled with gratitude and pride for your skills and your willingness to share them. The Maker has blessed us indeed, to have given us you for a son." The tears ran freely down his mother's cheeks as his parents embraced him tightly.

William escaped the dining room quickly, without having eaten. He would ask someone to bring him up something later. Linnea had been sent upstairs with Quinn, to help her get cleaned up and changed. He knew he would have to check on her later but for now he needed some time to himself. Besides, his own clothing hadn't fared too well with all of the tree-climbing and blood, either. A hot shower would clear his head.

What was it with that girl? The whole scene with his parents had renewed his frustration from the afternoon. Why didn't she or anyone else see how dangerous this was? First, she came strolling through the gate behind him, and now she was running carelessly about the place. She had nearly poisoned herself the first time, and today ... an image of that tree house crushing her kept playing in his mind. No, it hadn't actually happened, but what if it had? She was running back and forth between the two worlds like it wasn't a big deal, as if there wouldn't be any consequences to the choices she made.

Did she realize that this was real? That something could really happen to her while she was here? And what exactly were her intentions here, anyway? This wasn't her world. She was building all of these relationships here, and she was just going to leave. Soon enough, she would go off to college in her own world, and marry Zander Cunningham, or someone like him. What was the point of her getting involved here? He sighed. Thinking about this was only making him more tense, so he decided to concentrate on clearing his head.

After the hot water had finally unknotted most of the muscles in his shoulders, William put on clean clothes and wandered down the hall. He ended up, as he often did, in the room of his little sister, Alice.

Technically, she shared the room with Emma and Sarah, but he could hear them running and screeching in the playroom across the hall. Alice was in here alone, sitting at a little table, contentedly coloring with the colored pencils and sketchbook he had brought back for her from Bristlecone.

He sat down next to her in an undersized chair. "Hey, precious girl, what are you doing?"

She looked up at him, all wide gray eyes behind her wire-rimmed glasses, but she didn't dignify his question with the obvious response.

He smiled. Even at only four, Alice was easily the most serious of his siblings, and he loved her for it. "Can I draw with you?"

She pushed the box so that it sat between them and pulled a blank page out of the notebook.

They sat there like that for quite a while. He watched as Alice drew a very detailed picture of the swing set in the play yard. He mindlessly sketched a picture of Skittles; she would like to keep it when he was finished. "What did you do today?"

She didn't look up; she was carefully outlining a red flower. "I played outside with Emma, and then Mama had a tea party for just the little girls."

"That sounds like fun."

She nodded. "We had cookies shaped like flowers."

He smiled.

"How did Quinn hurt her arm?"

"I didn't see exactly how she did it, but she scraped it somehow when she was getting a little boy out of a tree house that was about to fall."

"Is the little boy okay?"

"Yes, he's fine. He didn't even get hurt."

"Is Quinn okay?" Alice looked up at him now, concern in her wide eyes. He knew all of his little sisters liked the girl.

"Yes, she'll be fine. Her arm will probably hurt for a few days."

"I'll tell Emma not to hang on it then." She blinked before turning back to her paper. "I'm glad Quinn got the little boy out of the tree house, aren't you?"

"Yes, I suppose I am."

"And I'm glad that she's okay."

"Me too."

She was silent again, concentrating on her picture. Finally, she looked back up at him; he could see his own eyes reflected in hers. "Were you scared?"