Amara wadded up the blanket. She shoved it at the marshal, who pressed it against Cilla’s chest and held it there.
Footsteps rang down the hall.
Amara stumbled away from the bed. The smell of copper was in her nose and everywhere else. Normally, she didn’t smear the blood on her face. Normally, Cilla’s injuries were minor.
A ripple went through the wall. The stones shifted their attention—
—Nolan didn’t want to see this. He wanted to feel it even less. His eyes opened with a start. He rolled from the bench before he realized it and grunted as his head hit the wall. The dressing room was well-lit, bright and yellow and safe.
He didn’t want to go back—
—he went back and the floor was dragging Amara in. The stones crushed her body bloody and broke her bones and it took too long to end.
Nolan stayed for all of it; she’d heal faster if he did.
By the time the curse faded, Jorn and Gacco had arrived. Amara lay there, her chest rising and falling. Broken ribs stabbed her lungs. She felt them twist, gathering shattered pieces to mend. There were no pauses, no stutters. She healed the way she’d always thought a real mage ought to.
“What do we do with them?” the Elig marshal asked. From where Amara lay, curled up and facing the wall, she could just see everyone huddled near the mattress. The marshal still pressed the blanket to Cilla’s chest. She was bloody, too. At first, Nolan thought the blood was Cilla’s, but when Amara’s gaze lingered, he realized the red lines standing out on the marshal’s skin weren’t smears but scratches. Cilla had fought her.
She’d given up now, though. Her head lay flat on the pillow, staring at Amara.
“I’m sorry.” Cilla barely moved as she spoke. The marshal was still holding her down. “I didn’t mean for … you weren’t supposed to …”
“Keep the pressure on.” Jorn stepped sideways, blocking Amara’s view of Cilla. “How deep were the scratches?”
Amara’s head lolled sideways. Watching took too much effort. She couldn’t think through the pain. Her jaw repaired itself, bone grinding against bone. The noise echoed in her ears and skull.
Amara drifted out, leaving Nolan alone with the sound of gnashing bones. Injuries like these took a long time to heal, even now that he wasn’t blinking back and forth. Vaguely, beyond Jorn’s voice, he heard a familiar choked sound. Gacco. Throwing up in the hall.
This isn’t my body, Nolan told himself. This isn’t my pain.
It didn’t make it hurt any less, but he repeated the words, anyway.
By the time Amara awoke, her bones had mended. Muscles shifted under her skin, following suit. She dragged her arm out from underneath her until both hands rested in the space between her drawn-up knees and head. Her hands were still bloody, the skin and veins damaged, but the tendons and muscles worked.
What was Amara doing? The pain scrambled her thoughts, making them hard for Nolan to pick out.
“Go away,” she signed. “Healed enough go away.”
Nolan had promised to leave when asked. But—right now, with her body still torn open? Was she thinking clearly?
“Plan,” she said. “Go before too late. Plan.” She rolled onto her back, letting her arm thump to the side. She wouldn’t be able to sign anymore without the others noticing. Jorn and the Elig marshal faced away from her, but Jorn was looking back every now and then, and Gacco had returned as well, his skin a queasy shade of gray-brown.
Nolan drew back.
34
Help,” Amara signed, hoping to catch Gacco’s eye. From where she lay on the floor, she saw him slanted and upside down. “Left. He left.”
Gacco frowned but didn’t move.
Of course. Gacco wouldn’t know about Nolan. Amara needed to think. Her mind felt full. Torn in every direction. “Stopped healing. Help,” she repeated.
“Hey, Jorn?” Gacco said. “The girl says she stopped healing.”
Jorn looked over his shoulder irritably, then back at Cilla, who lay motionless. Amara could just about see him think: Nolan. That asshole.
“I can put her in her cell and bring the doctor,” Gacco said.
Amara worked up a shudder. She coughed. Blood shot into her mouth and sprayed onto the floor. Must’ve been left in her lungs. Her hand crept to her chest and pressed on her heart.
She was fine, at least on the inside. Jorn and the marshals only saw the outside, which looked bloody and bruised, with her skin torn and her wear unrecognizable as ever having been clothing. The outside looked as if she could die at any moment. She needed it to. Without the threat of death, Jorn might simply stick her in her cell and wait for Nolan to fix her.
Jorn cursed under his breath. “Take her to the doctor.”
“Should I call another marshal to—”
“That’ll take too long. She’s harmless. Take her!”
Ruudde’s voice echoed in Amara’s mind: Her, we can control.
Gacco was by Amara’s side in two steps. He crouched. One hand went under her knees, the other under her shoulders, the same way Jorn had carried her off the dunes and into the pub so long ago. Back then, she hadn’t known Nolan was in control or that he was the one to heal her. She’d thought she was a mage. Maart had been alive. She hadn’t run away. And, unlike now, she really had been dying. She’d been panicked and frightened and hurting like hell.
This time, she was angry.
She faked another spasm. She needed Gacco more worried about the possibility of her death than the possibility of her escape.
One thing the old Amara had in common with this one: she still hurt like hell. The injuries she’d asked Nolan to abandon stung and burned and ached. Pain shot through her with every step Gacco took.
Stay away, she thought. Stay away, stay away, stay away.
They arrived at the palace carecenter, which she recognized by scent alone. It lacked the freshness of flowers and polished wood of the rest of the palace. Instead, the room smelled of alcohol, sharp and clean.
Gacco placed her on a table in the center of the room. He was gentle—she’d give him that—supporting her head and adjusting her scarf to cover more of her arms. She looked past him at tables with gleaming bowls and tools. She tensed. She hadn’t been here since she was a child, but she had no doubt: they were in the operating room. This was where Lorres had forced open her mouth, where a mage had looked into her eyes and cast a spell and then reached inside and cut her tongue. She’d tasted the blood but not the pain, and even the blood hadn’t lasted long. The palace mages had performed that trick a hundred times.
The doctor stopped at her side, blocking her view of the tools. Amara didn’t recognize the face that hovered over her. The woman was pretty, though. Older. Wide, green eyes. Jélis, like Gacco—she had the same frizzed hair and curved nose, and most doctors were Jélis, anyway. As the only people without mages, they’d had to find other ways of fixing their sick and injured.