“ASH!” Magdala shrieked. She leaned over him. He sounded like he was inhaling through a narrow, hollow reed.
“I’m going for the physician,” she said. “I will bring him here at the end of a shotfire if necessary and then tie him in the barn until we are safe.”
Seamus stood heavily. “We cannot bring him here, but I will go to the apothecary and bring back a tincture.”
“I don’t trust you,” Zephyr snapped.
“Then come,” Seamus said.
Zephyr hesitated, gazing at Asherton. “I cannot leave him …”
“I’ll look after him,” Magdala said. “But someone must go. And quickly. And you are right not to trust my father.”
His eyes welled. “Then you go.”
“He is my father, Zeph. If he turns against us, I fear …” She swallowed. “I fear I won’t have the courage to do what needs to be done.”
He nodded. “Alright. But he would be wise to pray Asherton lives until we return.”
Chapter 45
Zephyr carried Asherton back into the bedroom and settled him in the bed while Magdala ran to the kitchen to mix a plaster. Searching for mustard powder, she snatched bottle after bottle, uncapping them, sniffing and clinking them on the counter. Sage, rosemary, pepper, thyme. Growing more frantic with each failure, she emptied the whole cabinet before she turned away, empty-handed.
Zephyr and Seamus passed her, glaring at one another. The second the door shut behind them, Magdala swept the spices off the counter. They shattered in a fragrant scatter on the floor. Pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, Magdala stood frozen in the gray morning light.
Coughing rattled in the bedroom again and Magdala wiped her brow with her arm and hurried back, her dress smelling of nutmeg and basil.
Asherton was sitting on the edge of the bed, his arms braced on the mattress, preparing, it seemed, to stand.
“There you are,” he rasped. “I was about to come after you.”
“Lie down,” she ordered, sitting beside him and drawing him with her onto the bed. “Zeph and my father have gone for medicine.”
“We can’t trust the physician,” he said. “We need to get back to Elegy quickly. Before Huxley …”
Magdala pulled the covers over him. “I’ve got everything in order. You just get better, and then we can go.”
Asherton hacked, leaving specks of blood on the pillowcase.
“What will you do,” he asked, “if I don’t make it through this?”
Magdala scowled at him. “I refuse to entertain that.”
“I mean it. I don’t want you to go on the rest of your life being miserable. And yesterday, you called Elegy home. I want you to go home to Elegy.”
“It’s not Elegy, Ash,” she said with an incredulous laugh. “It’s you. I don’t care about Elegy unless you’re there, and you will be there, because you’re going to be fine.”
“If we were married, you could get the house when I die.”
“I don’t want the house and you’re not going to die.”
“But would you marry me, Magdala? If I asked you to?”
She laughed again, assuming he was joking. “Right now? In this silly bed, dressed like this?”
But Asherton’s eyes were earnest, his mouth set in a grave line. “It’s a magical bond. We could do it right now. We could say the words, forge the bond, and then you could have the house.”
“I don’t want your blasted house, Ash.” She wiped spots of blood from his cheek with her sleeve.
