Yet each draw of air brings agony. My lungs expand inside my chest as if they’re too big for my chest bones to cradle. In that instant, I am certain the edges of my bones carve slices into the thin bag that is my lungs.
“Gab?” My twin stands there. “Did something get a bite of you?”
Rylan’s face fills with worry. Her hand comes down on my brow, brushing my hair back and feeling the fever that rages in me.
“No bites. Something wrong, though,” I whisper.
Rylan half lifts me from the floor and back into my cocoon of blankets. “Do you need Clarissa?”
“Nothing to stitch or mend.”
Rylan leaves the room in a whoosh of silk and storm.
Minutes or hours later, Mother comes to see me. Bowls of ice chips and cloth strips to cool the fever, needles and sinew to stitch whatever ails me, cleaning liquid to burn away poison, and of course, a small set of knives and forceps to remove anything lodged in the skin. She ought to summon a healer, but I am grateful for her presence all the same. My heart hurts as much as my body.
“Father ...” I can’t make my mouth say the words. I choke on them. I am not ready, not to tell her and not to be Hunter.
“He’s gone, then.” The countess looks calmer than I can bear.
“I’m so sorry. His last words were of you.”
“Liar,” Mother says with a fond smile. “His last words were undoubtedly about whatever he hunted.”
I look to the side, hating that she knows that, hating that I must lie, hating him for dying.
“This pain will end,” the countess says as she wipes fever sweats away gently. “Come morning ...” She looks to the window, tracking the moon. “Perhaps evening.”
I can’t force more words through my now painfully dry lips. I do try, but all that comes out is a rasping noise. Morning seems so far away, and my mind swirls with questions. The Hunter journals said only that my body would change. It mentioned nothing of this debilitating pain.
Neither did Father.
Mother smiles sadly. “Your father’s pain was unbearable. He used to say that only dying would hurt this much.” She folds her hands together into a tight fist. “Did it? His death?”
“No,” I lie. “Not awful.”
Mother takes a clean cloth and wets it in a different bowl, one free of sweat. She squeezes the cool clean water into my mouth; droplets slip between my now cracked lips and land on my swollen tongue. It does little to ease the fire burning in my body, but I drink it down as best I can.
“It will end,” Mother says again. “Your body is healing your scars and injuries and making you strong enough to fulfill your duties.”
Tears I don’t want to spill leak from my eyes. The scars inside won’t heal, not now or ever. I watched my father die, and I burned him to ashes. Nothing can erase that scar, not even this magic. I am monstrous already.
“You are the head of the house now, Gabrielle Fleuriste. The new Hunter.” Mother looks at me as if there is pride in becoming more imperiled, as if beingthisis a good thing.
Once she leaves the room, a flicker of a thought comes to me: At least I have not passed this burden on to anyone else. I am well and truly the Hunter. This pain and duty are all mine.
Chapter 14
“The Breton fairies, like others of their race, are fond of kidnapping mortal children and leaving in their places wizened elves who cause the greatest trouble to the distressed parents. The usual method of ridding a family of such a changeling is to surprise it in some manner so that it will betray its true character.”
—Legends and Romances of Brittanyby Lewis Spence [1917]
I am as wobbly as a newborn foal when I wake, but monsters wait for no woman. I have been attacked twice, and Father has been murdered. The monster must be stopped—and I am now the Hunter who must stop it.
When Rylan comes into my room, she says, “Isabeau was here. Mother turned her away. Do you want to send her a note now that—”
“No. I have more pressing tasks. I need to be in my laboratory. Help me walk.”
“Mother will not approve.”
