I slip inside the house when the morning is still new with ahushgesture to one of the attendants and tiptoe up the staircase. A shadow inside my room makes me pause, but the woman waiting for me is neither my mother nor my sister.
“Clarissa?” I call for her, and like all of Maria’s trained healers, she is ready and waiting. One of them always travels with the Hunter’s family. A good Hunter cannot focus on the mission and his family, so along with maids and the like, we travel with a skilled physician. Softly, so as not to risk my voice carrying, I say, “I have need of you.”
“Where?” Clarissa’s gaze sweeps over me from where she waits just inside the doorway of the closet. Next to her is a table with bandages, a lit candle, a basin of water, and assorted canisters.
I lift my arm to expose my bloodied side. “Most of it is fine. Three or four stitches, though, just here would not be amiss.”
She peels off my dress to expose the wound. I swear I waste far too much money on dresses that are slashed, bloodied, or otherwise destroyed. Parts of this one can be saved and repurposed, but most of my side is destined for the burn bin.
“Not deep.”
I refuse to look. My side is decorated with a few thick white lines already. Father assures me that when I become the Hunter, they will vanish—as if I am worried about the marks of fights survived. Scars simply show that I am alive to heal.
“Hold on,” Clarissa orders.
I stretch upward to grip the doorframe of my closet and brace myself for the sharp jab of the needle, but instead, Clarissa dabs the wound with something astringent. It stings briefly and then the skin becomes blessedly numb.
The lack of pain makes me sigh in relief.
“It works then?” Clarissa asks. “It’s an extract of clove with aloe and—”
“It’s glorious, that’s what it is. Can I bathe in it?”
“I don’t think I have that much made up. I mix it fresh, and I thought you were delayed so long you might need healing.” Clarissa’s cheeks bloom with a pink tint. “I am not glad I was correct, but I am glad the ointment helps.”
“Glorious,” I stress.
She cleans more blood away, then holds the stitching needle in the flame of a candle she presumably has lit for that very reason. “Let me stitch the edge. Then you can soak to clean away any lingering dirt and blood ...”
I wince at the feeling of the needle sliding into my skin. It is far less painful after the ointment, but less painful still aches like more claws piercing my body.
A few short moments later, Clarissa tugs the last stitch through. The feeling of the thread pulling through skin still feels unnatural, but I know I heal faster and bleed less when stitched. “It feels different. Burns more than usual, as well.”
“Silk rather than catgut,” Clarissa says. “Dipped in alcohol, not table wine but a potato extract that is ... stronger. A few of us took a ship to the coast to learn this new way.” She drops a clean linen over the bloodied rags. “Into the water with you, m’lady.”
I obediently slide into the water, flinching slightly at the temperature.
“Heat on the needle makes it safer, so it goes to follow that heat upon the body will do the same.” Clarissa turns her back on me to clear away the tools of her work, leaving only the small tubs of ointment behind.
After bathing, more ointment, bandaging, and donning my underlayers, I can almost believe I’m not injured. Almost. If I move the wrong way—which I absolutely must do repeatedly while dressing—my body quickly disabuses me of that notion.
Clarissa has just draped the gown for the ball on the bed when the countess opens the door. She slips into the hallway with her hidden cache of bloodied rags as Mother sweeps into the room.
“Today of all days! You should already be dressed. And your face! Do you have any idea how hard it is to hide your bruises in bright light?” The Countess of Fleuriste stares at me. Her face wears a look that hovers between worry and frustration. In her hand is a glass of oxymel.
I’m already dressed in my chemise, drawers, and stockings. Before the countess arrived, I’d stood naked while Clarissa wrapped a long bandage across my chest and under my arms, covering the cut, scratches, and purpling skin.
Mother does not ask, but I’m sure she sees the bulk of that bandage. She expects it. That’s why she brings the oxymel.
“Your sister is already dressed.” The countess pulls the door shut and carries the drink to my dressing table.
“Rylan doesn’t have to patrol.” I pause before using my preplanned verbal weapon. “I saved a child that was being taken.”
“I would also prefermychild to be uninjured,” Mother says in a tone that is hard to counter.
But I try anyhow. “The ball tonight is masked. My eye will be hidden.”
“The balls won’t always be masked.” Mother gestures at my black eye. “I prefer that you are not in pain, Gabrielle. Less ofthat, please, in the future.”
