The ride home is slower than I’d like, but we still must pause so I can vomit twice. On the first occasion, I realize that I have not checked whether the steel box is still in the satchel. I feel inside my bag, exhaling a sigh of relief when my hand brushes the cold metal. On the second stop to purge my innards, I realize that I have surely accidentally done the work of removing Isabeau’s romantic interest. Seeing me injured, bleeding, and vomiting seems to be the rare thing that stills her tongue.
My head injury is more severe than either of us mentions, but I do notice her worried looks each time we pause, so I endeavor to not stop a third time. In truth, I’m not sure if I am successful by my efforts or if I simply have nothing left in my body to expel. I feel dismal.
We reach the edge of the village, and I slide off the horse into a semistanding position. Both my head and arm thump in pain, and the myriad aches from my fall are steadily announcing their presence. The quiet clatter of my empty sample vials sounds loud to me, and I wonder if I ought to have taken more samples frommyattack site. Thinking to do so was not on my mind. All I have is the faery blood, but I suppose clarity is different when you are the victim.
Isabeau still has not remarked on the clattering of my overstuffed pockets. For that, I am grateful. I cannot fathom telling her that mypockets carry the empty vials, but in my satchel I have also the vitreous humor from a dead man’s eye or the skin from his death blow—both of which I collected. I cannot imagine telling her that I worry that the killer is something unknown to our world.
“Please take care in the forest,” is all I say.
“I can see you to the physician and—”
“I am capable.” I don’t want to admit that I am tempted by her arms, that I feel safer at her side, that I want to forget my pain and duty at the thought of tasting her lips again. “I need to go alone, Isabeau. I cannot remove my dress with you there.”
Her expression hardens, and I hear the raw edge of her temper as she bites off, “Afraid I’d prove as lecherous as gossips say?” Her gaze sears me as she adds, “Even as injured as you are? You think so little of me?”
“No.” I reach out and take her hand only long enough to squeeze it as I admit, “Not at all. I would rather you remember the way I look in your memory, not covered in blood and filth. I am allowed a little vanity, am I not?”
“You are stunning, love. Always.” Her voice is so sincere, so fervent, that I hate every woman she’s romanced or seduced. All of them. I lock away this memory because even in my pain, seeing her look at me and say such things is the single most romantic moment of my last decade.
I stand under the midday sun, covered in ash and blood, clad in tatters, and she looks at me as if I am something beautiful. It breaks my heart. I thought I was as shattered as I could be by her words and deeds, yet here we stand.
“Please?” I gesture to a building across the town square. No sign hangs in front of it, but the residents are physicians all trained in Regina Centrum. My family pays for whatever lessons they want, and in return, they open the door to us at any hour.
Isabeau bows to me and watches me hobble to the door.
I knock three times on a door that only opens for my family. They do see other patients, as needs require, but one physician is always readyat the side door if a Fleuriste is injured. Guilt sometimes washes over me for that, but there are benefits to offset the sacrifice of being the Hunter.
As the door opens, a young woman sees me and calls for the others. A child runs out and takes the horse, so it can be stabled at the Goose.
“My satchel,” I say.
The boy carries it to the house as I watch him. All I have to find clues about the creature my father must hunt is inside that bag. I cannot leave it outside.
I glance back to see Isabeau watching me, but then I am ushered into the warm house. As the door closes, I feel as if my willpower fades. No longer feigning strength, I let Maria—the matron of the house—direct me onto a steel bed that is covered in a stack of dark sheets. The steel will help kill any faery toxins on my body, and the sheet is a gesture of comfort. Steel beds are cold things, inflexible and icy.
“Creature?” Maria asks. Her long gray hair is bound atop her head in a massive bun, and her face is a map of wrinkles. Her feet are in one of the many pairs of brown brogans she wears. I trust her as I do few others. She’s been the steady hands that have protected me, healed me, and wiped away the blood and dirt that often cover me. In truth, I suspect she still can tell me the origin of the scars I no longer can recall.
Today, her careful hands snip away at my dress and petticoat, leaving me only in boots, tights, and stays in a matter of moments. Though she’s older even than my father, seven decades at the least, her hand is steady as she cuts away my clothing.
“I have no idea. I was attacked from behind,” I tell her. “Nothing that needs magic to fix.”
She pulls my boots off and hands them to a boy to salt. I hate that it’s needed, but if anything from my attacker lingers there, I don’t want to bring it into the manor. “We’ll treat the cuts in either case,” I say. “I did salt my head wound once.”
“Wise.”
The aches I was trying to ignore along the ride have grown impossible. Tears trickle from the corners of my eyes, leaving wet trails frommy temples and vanishing into my debris-strewn hair. “Wait. I have things in my pockets.”
“What hurts most?” Maria’s sharp gaze sweeps my body, and I know that she thinks nothing of the scars that write stories there already. “The arm?”
I let myself settle into my skin, feeling the pains in truth. There are scrapes and bruises. Nothing screams as a break.This could have been so much worse.I close my eyes to let the weight and the feeling of surviving wash over me.
“My head. I am not steady on my step, and I cast up my food. Twice.” I let my gaze meet Maria’s. “The attacker struck my head with something heavy. Twice.”
Her lips press together as she considers treatment options. My injuries have almost always been by way of claw or tooth, so the primary treatments tended toward salting wounds to prevent the faeries’ toxins from entering into my body, setting bones, or stitching wounds.
“When the men at the Goose complain of that after a fall, I blame the drink.” Maria nods, but her lips tighten in disapproval. I am dizzy but sober, but she cannot stitch or apply poultices to anything to fix it. She’s never happy about injuries she cannot treat. “Are you able to stand without purging?”
“Yes.”
