The rush to the hospital after she’d powered down was a pained, vague blur. Daisy knew that the ER nurse had taken one look at her as she’d stumbled through the electric, sliding doors and turned white. She sort of recalled a frantic voice demanding to know what had happened and mumbling something about a violent mugger.

Which wasn’t completely inaccurate. Maybe forty percent. Maybe.

But for the life of her, she simply could not remember what happened after. She knew that there had been a sudden, sharp pain followed by a blissfully cool numbness. And after that… nothing until she woke up in a hospital bed with half her face wrapped in bandages. And everything above the neck ******** hurt. For the first couple of days, she’d simply pretended to be asleep in order to avoid talking to the doctor and learning just how bad, well, whatever it was actually was. By the third day, the doctor seemed to have caught on and didn’t leave. Instead, he’d pointedly cleared his throat and spoken to the space somewhere above her head.

“I know you’re awake, Miss Grace. And I know you can hear me since I have the charts to show that your attacker didn’t harm your hearing. This is hard, I understand, but we do need to talk.”

The gentleness in that last made Daisy sigh in mingled depression and anger. She did not want to talk. She didn’t want to hear platitudes and empty promises about how things could only get better. And as she opened her mouth to tell the good doc where he could stick those charts, she was interrupted before a single word could pour out.

“Look, I know you’re angry. Anyone in your position who wasn’t angry would be getting a rapid referral to the psych team. But I’d like to remind you that you are alive and remarkably healthy. Would you at least like to have the bad news laid out plainly?”

A pause and Daisy opened the eye that wasn’t covered in bandages and stared at the doctor for a moment before giving a sharp nod.

“Might as well,” she rasped. “I’ve always liked honesty.”

“Good girl. I dislike prevaricating and trying to honey up diagnoses, so I’ll get to the point. You still have your eye, it’s still somewhat functional insofar as you haven’t got a lazy eye. But the vision is gone. And there will be some slight visible scarring on the eye itself. Some minor facial scarring as well around the eye.”

The doctor paused and Daisy bit her lip to keep from screaming. Okay, so half blind. Got it. Great. But you’re alive, she whispered to herself. That was better than the fate of that poor ******** whose starseed had been eaten in front of her.

“Obviously, your depth perception will be affected, so I would like to get you into therapy to help you adjust to that. The quicker the better as far as I’m concerned. Now, it’s possible that the eye will be able to still pick up light and dark, but we won’t know until the bandages come off and I don’t want to move that too quickly and risk what chances you might have. So. Now that you’ve had the bad news, do you have any questions? Can I get you anything?”

Shaking her head, though mustering a very faint smile of gratitude for his honesty, Daisy considered what she’d been told. This wasn’t going to be something she could just bounce back from. Learning to compensate for a loss in depth perception was going to take time. And she rather thought that when she started on that, she wanted to go back up to Bestla for a while. Being there would be a lot more helpful than sitting on her cough moping.

“Nah, I think I’m good for now, doc. Thanks for telling me.”

For a moment, she wondered if he would try to argue and press her. Then, she saw a faint shrug.

“All right. Myself or one of the other floor doctors will come by later to check on you. And I’ll have a menu sent up to you so you can pick out what you want for lunch. Get some rest, Miss Grace. We’re going to do our best for you.”

As he walked out, Daisy tracked him as best she could with only one working eyeball.

“Thanks, doc.”