“Ezra,” I breathe, panic already knotting in my stomach. “What happened?”
He looks up. There’s no alarm in his features, no outward panic. but the tension in his shoulders speaks enough. “The fever came on yesterday evening.” He wrings out the cloth in a basin tinged pink with herbal tincture. “Quickly. Fiercely.”
My gaze drops to my uncle. His skin is flushed deep red, mottled and glistening with sweat. His jaw is tight, teeth grinding in unconscious torment. One of his arms twitches, and a low groan slips from his throat. Not coherent. Not present.
I step closer, unable to keep the fear from my voice. “He’s gottenworse.”
Ezra’s gaze flicks to me. “But this was expected.”
“‘Expected’?” My voice rises. “He’s burning alive.”
“This is the turn,” Ezra says gently. “There’s a reason the elixir is controversial, Celeste. It’s brutal. It stirs what little strength the body has left and forces it to fight. But it’s a knife’s edge. Either the fever will break, or…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to.
I worry my lip as I fight off the overwhelming feeling that my knees are about to give out. My eyes well up, but I sniff back the tears.
“There’s another aspect to it, I’m afraid,” Ezra says.
I’m not sure how much more I can take, but I nod for him to continue.
He dips his head and inhales deeply. “I believe his healing magic might be fighting the elixir.”
“‘Fighting it’?” I shake my head. “But aren’t the two trying to do the same thing?”
“Yes, but magic doesn’t behave like science. Magic has its own rules, rules we may not even understand.” Ezra folds his hands together. “I suspect the two properties, so to speak, may be at war inside his body.”
“So the magic is fighting the elixir, and the elixir is trying to overcome the magic?” My knees weaken, and I find the edge of the nearby chair before I collapse onto it. I press a hand to my mouth, watching as another tremor ripples through my uncle’s body. “Did I make a mistake?”
“No.” Ezra’s voice is firm. “You made a choice. A hard one. And now… we wait.”
Uncle Kormak lets out another hoarse, strangled sound, his back arching slightly off the bed before collapsing back with athud. My chest aches with helplessness.
“I can give him something to ease the worst of it,” Ezra adds. “But it won’t wake him. Only his body can do that.”
I grip my knees, nails biting into fabric. “He’s in pain.”
“He is.” Ezra doesn’t sugarcoat it. “But pain isn’t always a sign of loss.Sometimes it means there’s still fight left.”
I stand and hover near the bed. I want to comfort my uncle, to use my healing power to ease his pain, but at the same time, I’m afraid anything I do might stop the elixir from working.
His eyes soften. “You’re not going to help him by unraveling.”
I swallow hard. “I know.”
He nods. “You’re still in your uniform. Maybe you should freshen up, take some time to clear your head.”
I exhale shakily. “Yes. Okay. I’ll clean up and get some air.”
Ezra places a hand on my shoulder. “Good. Go find Nadya, perhaps. I imagine she’s worried about you.”
I move in a trance toward the door but pause at the threshold to glance back once more. My uncle shifts under the blankets again, teeth bared, sweat trailing along his temple.
“Send for me,” I say, my voice hoarse, “the moment the fever breaks.”
Ezra doesn’t hesitate. “You’ll be the first to know.”
I force myself to walk away. But the weight of the room sticks to my skin like steam. And I don’t know if I’m walking toward clarity or abandoning a man I cannot bear to lose.
