But I would be able to enjoy regular alcohol again soon. On my return to Bastian’s rooms, a message waited from Elthea, summoning me for another appointment. So soon after that checkup—this had to be a cure, or at least progress towards one.
That hope still buzzed through me later as I squared my shoulders and left Dusk’s side of the palace with Rose. She walked me to the Hall of Healing, but even if she hadn’t, it felt safer on the streets with the yew bow on my back and the boot pistol at my thigh. I waved her off to wait for me at Ariadne’s shop and headed inside.
Elthea sat me in the sparse treatment room I’d woken up in. A thin mask of the same material as the gloves she wore around me covered her nose and mouth. But I knew her well enough by now to know she didn’t smile in greeting.
“I have a theory.” Straight to it, no niceties.
It was actually refreshing in a way. I knew where I stood with Elthea. I was her patient. That was all. A set of notes in her neat book, a lump of matter to be theorised about.
And she was my healer. The person who could rid me of this accidental magic that left me poisoned and poisonous.
I canted my head when she said nothing more. “Does that theory lead to a cure?”
“If I’m right, yes. I need to know how this affects your body.” She nodded at the purple stain on my fingers. Today it had receded to barely lick at the first set of knuckles.
“How do we find out?”
“I need to see.”
I bit back an impatient sigh. “Meaning?”
She turned a pointed glance to the low table beside the bed. An array of sharp instruments gleamed upon its surface and a chill as cold as steel whispered through me.
“You need to… cut me open?” I swallowed. I would do it. No doubts there. I would do anything. But that didn’t dull the fear.
“That isn’t how I would put it, but I suppose in a layperson’s terms, yes.” She rolled her eyes and motioned for me to place my hands on the bed. “Ready?”
“Aren’t you going to… knock me out or something?”
She strapped my wrist to the bed. “That will stop you from moving.”
“That wasn’t my concern.”
“It’s better if you’re awake so you can tell me what you’re feeling. I need to understand how the poison travels through you. If your nerves are the problem, that’s different from if it’s your veins.”
“And you can’t tell that with your magic?”
“Not clearly enough. I need to apply this dye”—she held up a small vial of silver liquid—“and see how it travels through your body.”
“Fine. Do it.”
She acknowledged me with a soft sound as she turned to her tray of blades. “I’d recommend lying down. My magic will prevent you dying from blood loss, but you’ll probably feel lightheaded.”
“Comforting.”
She selected a small scalpel and I lay back. I didn’t want to look too closely at the other blades or the strange little clamps.
“Do try to stay awake,” she said, as though me passing out would be a terrible inconvenience to her.
She ran a gloved hand over mine and the vibration of magic in the air intensified. “That should numb some of the pain.”
Should. Really comforting.
I watched as she pressed the scalpel to my forefinger and blood welled. The pain streaked through me an instant later. My nerves told me to pull away, but I held still, not even straining against the straps.
I’d endured worse.
Long, slow breaths got me through the incision from fingertip to palm, keeping the worst of the nausea at bay. More magic hummed against my skin, and I dimly registered that there wasn’t as much blood as I might’ve expected, though it felt like I watched from the other side of the room.
She took one of the tiny clamps and used it to hold the cut open.
I caught a glimpse of something yellow and faintly lumpy and something else red and stringy. That was when I decided to lie back and look at the vaulted ceiling.
The pain was bad, though not as bad as I might’ve expected, but I could feel her poking around and pulling. At one point, I glanced down and found that she’d peeled the skin of my finger back completely.
Nausea lurched through me.
“There’s a bucket on your left.”
I barely grabbed it in time to throw my guts up.
Panting, I collapsed back onto the bed and tried not to think about what’d I’d just seen or the continued prodding inside my body.
“There. Now we’re ready to begin.”
“You haven’t even started?”
Above her mask, her eyes barely crinkled. “That was just the preparation. Now for the experiment.”
I stared up at the ceiling.
This wasn’t me. Not my hand. I wasn’t here.
It would be fine. Cutting me open had to be the worst part.
Flaying you alive.
I shoved the thought away.
Out the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of silver. The vial of dye. Just a couple of drops and—
My whole body went rigid. The blood roared in my ears. Every instinct yanked on my arm, screeching that this was me and that I needed to get away.
Pain scraped along my nerves like a rusted razor.
I gritted my teeth as a scream scratched at my voice box, aching to be let out. Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes. I tried to breathe—in out, in out, calm and relaxed. Breathe through the pain.
But it was impossible.
“Interesting. Just a little more.” I caught her voice between the thundering of my heart.
I wanted to tell her I couldn’t take any more, but I had no command over my mouth or my grinding teeth. It was this shaking tension or a terrible scream. There was nothing else.
Over soon. Over soon.
Sentences withered in my mind. There were only those two words.
Over soon. Over soon.
“I wonder…”
Something lanced up my arm, searing and bright, making everything else dim in comparison.
Just breathe. Keep breathing.
Endure.
18
Kat
“There,” she said at last.
I blinked in that bright and terrible light and promptly threw s up. Bile and blood coated my tongue where I’d bitten my lip.
Somehow, I got it all in the bucket, and as breaths heaved through me, I realised my arm was free of the straps. Not a mark on my fingers, save for the purple stain.
But I could still see my skin pulled back, nerves and veins exposed. With a gasp, I flinched from the cruel trick my mind played on me. Some things were best forgotten.
Calm as ever, mask gone, Elthea handed me a glass of water. She cocked her head as I gulped it down and washed away the mingled bitter and coppery flavours. “Did that hurt?”
“Of course it bloody hurt.” I clenched and unclenched my trembling fist. No pain. Truly, no sign of what she’d done. If not for her question, it was like I’d imagined the whole thing.
She scribbled in her notebook. “Then why didn’t you cry out?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it when I found my spinning mind had no answer. “Because… Because…”
Obedient. Dutiful. Silent.
“You just pulled a face.” Her pen hovered over the page. “What are you thinking?”
“I was taught to keep quiet.”
“Hmm. By who?”
“My father.” I cradled the glass against my chest and shut my eyes against the room’s aching brightness. He’d told me to be quiet. And my mother had modelled it perfectly—the silent ghost in her own house.