I try to answer. My jaw works, but what comes out is a low, scraping sound with no words in it. The grimace that follows is involuntary, and I watch her expression change. The color drains from her face as she steps closer.
“What happened? Are you all right?”
I shake my head. The movement is barely there, but she sees it.
Irrva moves fast. She puts her hand on Sorina’s shoulder.
“Go get him a glass of water,” Irrva says.
Sorina hesitates, looking between us, then turns and disappears into her room.
The second she’s out of sight, Irrva hooks an arm under my shoulders, braces her legs, and hauls me up. I lean into her, most of my weight on her body, and my legs cooperate just enough to shuffle forward in stiff, grinding steps. She gets me down the hall and into my bed, and once my back is against the pillows she leans in and whispers:
“You need to tell her, Korr.”
“No.” The word is a scrape through my locked jaw.
“She deserves to know what’s happening to you.”
“If she finds out I’m dying, she’ll stay because she thinks she has to.”
The effort it takes to speak in a full sentence makes me sweat harder. I’m burning up.
“Anyone can see she cares about you. Tell her the truth and let her decide.”
“I’d rather turn to stone than make her feel like she owes me.”
Irrva goes quiet, and I can see how affected she is after the visit to the Stillhalls. She goes to see our mother every week. Now, she’s witnessing me going through the same ordeal our mother went through and has to respect my wish to keep silent and let it happen.
“You’re not protecting her,” she says. “You’re protecting yourself. You’re afraid of what she’d choose if she knew.”
I don’t answer. She might be right, and we both know it, and the argument ends there because Sorina appears in the doorway carrying a glass of water.
I’m in bed, Irrva is smoothing the blanket over me, making it look ordinary, but Sorina doesn’t look relieved. I’m soaked in sweat and completely rigid. I try to shift my body so I look less stiff, but the effort doesn’t fool anyone.
Sorina comes over and sits on the edge of the bed, and my heart kicks hard enough to send a wave of nausea through me. I can see the bracelet I made her catching the light filtering through the sheer curtains.
“Here,” she says. “Drink a little.”
She tips the glass to my lips, and I sip. The water is cool as it runs down my throat, and the relief is small but real. A drop runs down my chin, and she reaches up and wipes it away with her fingertips.
The tension in my body lets go. Her fingers on my skin ease the panic that’s been clamping around my organs, and I feel my muscles unclench the way they do when a cramp finally passes.
“I should go,” Irrva says. “Jarrvik is probably back from his shift.”
I thank her, my voice rough but audible.
Sorina thanks her too, then turns back to me.
“Don’t worry,” she says to Irrva. “I’ll take care of him.”
I lie there and let the words settle over me. She wants to be here. She’s sitting on my bed, in my bedroom, and she just told my sister she’d take care of me. This woman who flinched when I moved too fast, who kept her door shut for days, who almost refused my gifts… She’s choosing to stay.
She presses her hand to my forehead.
“I didn’t know golems could have a fever,” she says, and before I can answer, she’s on her feet. “I’ll get cold water and a cloth.”
She disappears into my bathing room, and I hear her opening cabinets, filling a basin from the tap, moving through the space with purpose.She comes back and sets the basin on the nightstand. She dips a cloth in the cold water, wrings it, and presses it to my forehead.
