My chest constricted as I watched the physician, Dr. Lowe, and his assistant help Addison onto a gurney. He'd had a heart attack. They were taking him to the hospital to recover.

I squeezed Addison's hand. His grip was weak and sweaty. He looked almost like a corpse with his eyes sunken in. It was unreal, seeing him this way. Addison was supposed to be strong. He was a magic-user, for crying out loud!

"It was the doughnuts," I tried to joke. My voice was thick from the giant lump in it, though I held back tears. "I told you they were gonna give you a heart attack."

"Coralie, the pendant," he mumbled. "Get the pendant, hide it."

"What? Where?" I asked. Of all things, he was worried about the pendant!

He attempted to wave his hand, but it fell limply to his side. "The spell, it worked. Hide the pendant until I can come back. You're in charge. Be safe."

Somehow, he looked grayer than ever. I'd never seen him look worse, not even during a bout with pneumonia a few winters ago.

"Mr. Addison, don't overexert yourself," warned Dr. Lowe.

My tears threatened to spill out everywhere.

"I'll take care of it," I said, but I had no clue where I was going to put it. And how could I possibly oversee this whole place while he was gone?

Addison closed his eyes and didn't say anything else. He looked like one of those wax mannequins of historical people they had at the museum downtown.

"We need to hurry," said Dr. Lowe to his assistant. They loaded him onto the ambulance.

I went with them to the hospital but they didn't let me go past the big swinging doors that led to the surgery rooms.

I waited alone for hours in a tiny, cold room that stank of antiseptic and puke, reading stupid romance paperbacks that someone left there until Dr. Lowe could come out to tell me what was going to happen next.

How bad was the heart attack? Would Addison still be able to do magic? Did the spell cause it?

I must have glanced up at the double doors five thousand times, bracing myself for the devastating news that Addison wasn't going to make it, the damage was too much, that he was going to die if he wasn't dead already, and that I'd be left all alone again.

My mind raced back to the pendant, still sitting in the burnt metal box. Where was I going to put it? Was Addison sure it was safe for me to touch? What if Rufus called?

The doors swung open. Dr. Lowe wore a billowy, white surgery gown. With his wire-rim glasses, he resembled a nearsighted ghost. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

I jumped up. "How is he?"

"The good news is that Addison is going to pull through," he said. "He was very lucky you got help as fast as you did."

I was so happy and relieved I could have hugged him. "Can I see him?"

"He's been given an antibiotic injection and some drugs that will help his heart. He's resting right now, but I can take you to visit. He'll be glad to see you."

My skin crawled at the thought of Addison being stuck with a gigantic metal-and-glass-barreled syringe. Hopefully he'd been unconscious during that part. "Will he have to have an operation?"

"It doesn't look like it," Dr. Lowe said. "He's stable for now. We're keeping a close eye on him to see how he does."

I sighed with more relief. "When can he come home?"

"Well," he said, "possibly soon. A heart attack is very serious business." His eyebrows dipped behind his wire frames. "Is there anyone at home who can help you while he's recovering here?"

"No, it's just me."

"That's not the answer I was hoping for," Dr. Lowe said.

"I can take care of myself! I'm not a baby."

He chuckled in that condescending way that grownups have when they think something a young person says is amusing. He had no clue what I'd been through before Addison found me.

"I didn't say you were. Are you in school, Coralie?"

I crossed my arms. "Addison teaches me at home." What business of it was his?

Dr. Lowe looked strained. "I don't doubt you're quite capable, but it's a shame when adult responsibilities fall on a young person. And he'll need you more than ever when he comes home."

"I don't care. Addison took me in without even thinking about it. And I was a pain in the ass who tried to steal from him."

"Of course," he nodded, cracking a real smile.

"Well, can I see him?" I asked, looking past him to the double doors.

He sighed. "Right this way. Remember, he's still very weak and his heart can't be over-excited."

I rolled my eyes as I followed him out of the waiting room. Did he think I was going to make a scene when I saw him?

We stopped in front of a door at the end of another hall. Addison was propped up in bed on a couple of pillows. He like a deflated version of himself. At least he had his own room and he didn't have to share with anybody.

"Just a few minutes with him, okay?" Dr. Lowe said. He closed the door behind him.

I sat awkwardly on a chair next to the bed. "Hi, Addison." I tried to keep my voice as quiet as possible.

He smiled at me. Not a big smile, but I knew it was all he could manage, and I didn't care. He was alive. "How're you doing, my dear?"

I started crying. I hardly ever cried but this was different. I'd lost my parents already. Addison was all I had.

"I'm supposed to ask you that," I sniffled.

"C'mere," he said. "It's okay, Coralie. I told you those doughnuts wouldn't be the death of me."

"Well, you're not allowed to eat them anymore." All I could give him was a blubbering half-smile.

He chuckled softly. "I promise to clean up my diet."

I grimaced. "It's not funny, Addison. I don't want you to die."

"It'll take more than doughnuts to kill me off."

"How can you joke about this?" I said.

"Would you rather I lay here and be depressed?"

"No," I said. "Of course not."

"I might have been dead if it wasn’t for you," he said. "They said you ran to get help."

"Lucky break he was close by."

I tried not to think about how I stood in the middle of a busy street filled with vendors and shoppers and temporarily lost my mind. Thank the gods Dr. Lowe happened to be nearby treating a kid who burned himself on a hot pastry.

"Are you feeling better?" I asked.

"I suppose this is better than being six feet under," he said. "I'm not looking forward to the hospital's food, though."

That was just like him. He found the humor in everything.

I had a million things I wanted to ask him about the spell and the pendant, but he was too exhausted for more questions. I lay my head next to his on the scratchy pillow. He took my hand in his.

We were still like that when he fell asleep a little while later. I hated to leave him, but I'd promised to hide the pendant.

I lurked in the doorway of Addison's office for twenty minutes, psyching myself up to cross over the threshold. It had a strangely forbidding atmosphere without his gentle presence around. His brown plaid armchair was sad and empty.

Hours earlier, I'd found him unconscious. I'd never shake the awful sensation of not being able to wake him, and seeing his cold, sweaty face.

What was wrong with me? Addison had given me permission to hide the pendant. An order, even! I had every right to be here. Why was I suddenly too timid to enter a space that I'd walked by a hundred times a day since I'd moved in?

All I had to do was go in, grab the pendant, and leave. He assured me that as long as I was wearing the gloves, I'd be safe.

There was a painting on the opposite wall of a group of black-robed sorcerers performing a ritual. They were standing in a circle with their arms raised and there was one guy in the middle who looked like he was getting tortured. Addison told me once the painting was called The Darkening.

The sorcerers' leader had eyes that seemed to follow you everywhere. It never bothered me in the past. In fact, I found it bizarrely fascinating and creepy, and liked to make up stories about the people in the painting.

But now, the leader's eyes bored right through me, as though daring me to set foot inside. I desperately wished that Addison could do a spell that would automatically make the pendant hide itself on its own, instead of me having to grab it.

Suddenly, Clyde streaked by my legs in a gray blur, causing me to stumble back into our old grandfather clock. The collision caused faint clanging from the clock's mechanism.

"This is ridiculous," I announced to the office. "I'm coming inside, once and for all."

I looked right at the creepy-eyed sorcerer in the painting. "And you can't stop me!"

I'll admit it was a very silly thing to do, raising my voice to a painting.

"Just go in, grab the pendant, get out," I said, imagining myself as an adventurous Recoverer of Lost Artifacts.

Breath in, breath out. That was how Addison taught me how to calm down when I was scared or upset. It wasn't helping. I had a severe case of the creeping willies about this, more than my normal creeping willies. But Addison was counting on me.

I took a step, then another, and another. His desk seemed so far away. The pendant lay coiled like a snake in the blackened box. The burnt smell had long since faded.

I flexed my fingers in the gloves. Slowly I reached in to take it, expecting to get zapped or killed. But none of that happened. Instead, the pendant dangled innocently from my outstretched fingers.

"Phew," I said. "Addison is going to be so proud!"

A shrill HEEHAW broke the silence. I almost hit the wall in a panic. HEEHAW brayed the Chimbrelis again. I froze, the pendant swinging in my clenched fist.

Crap. Of all the times for Rufus to call.

For the next minute, I stood there like that, waiting for the Chimbrelis to stop making noise and wondering what in the names of the gods I was supposed to do. First I was too scared to come in. Now I was too scared to leave. Just as I was about to make a break for it, the Chimbrelis rang again.

"Rufus. He knows," I said. "I'll bet anything he does."

That was probably impossible, but I didn't put it past magic-users to have secret knowledge on anything, even what I was doing by the soft glow of a coluire globe in Addison's small office. Especially Rufus.

What if he kept calling all night? I'd be able to hear it all the way upstairs in my bedroom. I had to do something, even if it meant answering just to shut him up.

It probably wouldn't work anyway. Everything in Addison's place was practically Coralie-proofed. But what if it did? Plus, I did have the joke book in case I needed to crack it.

I tiptoed to the Chimbrelis. Every part of me shivered. Addison could never find out what I about to do, if I was successful.