XVIII
JezebelJesus, her head hurt.
Her tongue felt like cotton and her throat was dry. She tried to rub her forehead and discovered with sudden alarm that she couldn't. Lakota Grae was aware of voices, of muffled sounds in the background, but she had yet to open her eyes to see where she was. A kaleidoscope of images swirled through the fog in her mind before sharpening to her last clear memory of an acrid smell she was forced to inhale.
Ether.
She remembered her last conscious thought had been of that particular substance, just before it had all gone dark. Lake tried to speak, but the words came out of her throat as a muffled groan. For some reason she had difficulty focusing her thoughts and everything seemed sluggish and far away. The physician in her knew the cause, of course; she
