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The liquid travels downward in a cold line.

Nothing changes.

She lowers the cup and counts my breaths. Her fingertips rest against my throat. I sense the slight tremor she hides from her voice.

“Still steady,” she says. “Again.”

She gives me three more drops.

My throat closes around the second swallow, then releases. Air enters my lungs with marginally less resistance. The improvement is so small I might mistake it for hope if Fiona’s attention did not sharpen.

“Better,” she whispers.

She wets a clean cloth in the basin and lays it across my brow. Cold water tracks along my temple. Another cloth wraps my poisoned forearm, cooling the wound where the numiscu entered.

Fiona administers the weak preparation one measured swallow at a time. Between each, she checks my pulse and waits for signs that the fylvek is heating my blood too quickly.

Time loses shape.

The window darkens toward the final hours before dawn. Wind stirs the hangings. Fiona’s hands move between cup, basin, throat, and wound.

Then pain pricks the tip of my right forefinger.

It is no more than a needle point of sensation.

It is the first part of my body to return.

I command the finger to move. Nothing visible follows, but the effort reaches muscle rather than vanishing into the numiscu’s barrier.

Sensation spreads to the next fingertip. Then the next.

Fiona touches my right hand while measuring the cold of my skin. I try to send pressure through my fingers. They remain open.

“You are warmer,” she says. “Not too warm.”

She changes cups.

The stronger remedy reaches my tongue in single drops. Its bitterness is harsher. A restrained heat follows each swallow, met by the mountain air and cold cloths before it can gather.

Balance.

She understood.

My breathing deepens by fractions. The pauses between one breath and the next shorten. My heart, slow beneath the paralysis, begins a steadier rhythm without racing.

The remedy does not attack the numiscu. It gives my body enough strength to endure while the poison loses its hold.

Fiona leans close enough that her loosened braid brushes my shoulder. “Come back to me.”

I gather every fragment of will around my right hand.

My forefinger bends.

Fiona freezes over my pulse.

I bend it again.

Her breath leaves her in a broken laugh. “Good. Again.”