“Will it hurt?” I ventured.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Reassuring.”
He circled the ring with his thumb and forefinger. It felt first hot, then cold. The teeth on the inner rim seemed to move, twisting and digging themselves deeper into my skin. How deep were they burrowing? It felt like they were writhing their way to the bone, like an eel’s backward-pointing teeth drawing in its prey. Patrick’s hold on the ring tightened, and a shard of pain iced from my ring finger up the length of my arm, making my skull rattle. I screamed—a long, throbbing note. Baldbeakwoke up and shrieked, leaping up from his perch and flapping his wings. Patrick knelt before me, the two pieces of the ring in his palm, his face white.
“It is done,” he said. “Netta. It is done.”
I cradled my injured hand in the other. My finger was shredded down to the white fat and ivory bone, streaked with blood. I was aware of the pain, but horror, or shock, kept a thin, shimmering barrier between me and the sensation. Baldbeak landed beside me, keeping a little distance, as if afraid that he, too, might hurt me.
Patrick looked like he might be sick. “I didn’t realize …”
“It’s all right,” I whispered. “It’s off.”
He got to his feet and moved swiftly to the basin in the corner of the room, dampening a cloth. “We need to clean the wound and bandage it,” he said, his voice trembling a little.
I stared down at it. The colors were almost pretty—cream; a watery pink; and red. So much red. Perhaps to protect itself, my mind started to see the torn flesh and exposed bone as a piece of delicate embroidery—something floral and sinuous on a cream silk base; something like the ornate monogrammed handkerchiefs I had transformed for Mieka. In my mind, I unpicked the pattern and started to restitch it, shaping its chaos into a more orderly form.
I barely noticed when Patrick knelt before me again, damp cloth and length of muslin in his hands. I heard his sharp intake of breath, but continued staring dreamily down at the cloth on which I was working. Wait—not cloth. My brow furrowed. My vision tripped back and forth between the silk handkerchief and my ruined finger. Not so ruined now, because as I watched, the flesh and skin began to knit itself together. The movement was mesmerizing.
“Netta,” said Patrick. “What …?”
But the rest of the question died on his lips as we both stared at the slow, unnatural progress of the invisible needle that seemed to be mending my flesh. At last, nothing wasleft but a flap of skin and soon even that had smoothed and melded into the rest. My hand lay still, complete and nearly flawless, just a slender, shining scar where the relentless teeth of the ring had gripped me. I waited to feel tired, or drained, as I had after reviving Baldbeak, but instead was filled with a strange thrum of energy.
“I have never seen anything like this. It shouldn’t be possible,” Patrick breathed. He raked a hand through his hair.
“I don’t know. I mean, I know that my Hair—”
“I don’t think this is your Hair. This is something new. How did you do that?”
“I …” I felt silly telling him about my embroidery, how I had envisioned it. “I don’t know. Perhaps it is part of the ring’s purpose, not mine. To heal the wounds it causes.”
“I doubt Ban Morin would chain you with anything so benign.” He smoothed his finger over the healed skin, seeming to not realize what he was doing. “Completely restored. I have never seen anything like it. When I saw what had happened to Baldbeak, I didn’t …”
“What do you mean?” I said sharply.
“Why, that you healed him.” He reached out a hand to smooth Baldbeak’s feathers. “I felt my connection with him sever. His injury must have been grave. And yet—here he is. You healed him. You must have.”
Baldbeak and I exchanged glances.
He does not know, said Baldbeak.That I died.
“All right,” I said, pretending reluctance. “Yes. I healed him.”
“Do you know how astounding that is?”
He was too eager, his sharp features made sharper by his interest. He stood and turned to stand by the fire with his back to me. “No wonder Ban Morin and Milady are so anxious to get you back. No wonder—” But he cut himself off.
“Why? Why are they?”
His jaw tightened. “I have some theories.”
“Then tell me, Patrick,” I said. “If you really want me to trust you, tell me.”
I rubbed at the place on my finger where the ring had been. Although the skin was unmarked, perfect, I imagined I could feel the ghost of it—the ghost of control. Of coercion. With a flash of revulsion, I wished I could just cut the hand off and be done with it.
Patrick sighed, rubbing at his close-cropped beard as he thought. He sat in the chair opposite me and steepled his fingers. “You know that all power must come from somewhere. Every incarnist mage draws their power from a part of the body—a part that can be sacrificed and then replenished. Not without cost, but replenished.”
