At first, the light was too much, though she’d taken care to face him toward a dark corner of the herbal and not looking toward the hearth or even any candle flames.
His eyes teared, but he blinked and cleared them. Slowly, things came into focus. Both eyes or just the good one? He closed that lid and found he could still make out objects in front of him with the healing eye. The relief that filled him was so profoundthat it made his chest heavy, his arms leaden weights he couldn’t lift.
“I can see with the injured one.” He turned to her where he’d last heard her voice. “I see ye. A little blurry?—”
“That is to be expected.” She pointed across the chamber. “Tell me what ye see on my table over there.”
“Two pots, three piles of green herbs. Rose petals. Pink.” He turned back to her in time to see her expression lighten into a smile.
“Do ye still have pain?”
“Only a little.” She meant in his eye. His hearing was sharper since she removed the wadding in his ears. The headaches he had continued to suffer were diminishing. He’d kept them from Mhairi, not knowing what foul-tasting potion she’d force on him if she knew he still had them.
“Good. I am not surprised the light seems strong now. Ye will adjust to it as yer vision clears.”
“Ye are certain that it will,” he said, his words heartfelt. He desperately wanted them to be true, to relieve the weight smothering him since he woke up blind in his own bed.
“I’m certain ye have a good chance, if ye do as I say.”
A good chance was better than nothing. “I’ll do the best I can.”
“Calum.”
Her tone held a warning, so he relented and nodded. But he had to know something else, too. “Now, tell me the truth before I have to see for myself,” he demanded, but lowered his voice when her eyes widened. He was not here to frighten her, but he needed answers. “Ella and Janet are the same person,” he declared softly. He didn’t make it a question.
The healer’s cheeks pinked, and she glanced aside. “Ye suspected so.”
“I did, though not right away.”
Her reluctance to answer told him everything he needed to know. She had lied to him. So had Ella. Fury sparked, choking him. He fought it down. The anger twisting his gut told him no matter how much he condemned what they had done, he had allowed himself to be deceived. He hadn’t believed what his senses told him. He couldn’t accept what his mind knew to be true, or thought to be false. In some fashion, he’d known all along that Janet was Ella, so he could not be angry with them alone. Most of his ire he must direct at himself. And he didn’t know what to do about any of it.
