“What took you so long?” says Callum.
“Magnus took a little persuading.” Blake kneels beside Callum, and Becky growls as he lifts up one of Ryan’s closed eyelids. “Make that noise at me again and I’ll rip out your tongue.”
Becky looks as if she’s about to launch herself over the cot at him, but Callum raises a blood-slicked hand.
“It’s alright, Becky,” he says. “Blake’s our healer here at Castle Madadh-allaidh.”
I distinctly recall Callum referring to the castle’s healer in a derogatory manner on the way here. Now I know why.
Blake is not what I expected of a healer. He is nothing like the fusty old men who worked for the High Priest and did little to ease my mother’s suffering.
I watch as he unbuttons the cuffs of his sleeves, then rolls them up—revealing corded forearms, and a nasty scar just beneath his elbow.
“What’s wrong with him?” I ask, thinking back to that horrible book of experiments I found in my chambers. “I thought Wolves healed quickly.”
Candles flicker in the infirmary, and the light dances across Blake’s chiseled features. “Come on, you know the answer to that, little rabbit.”
“Why should I?”
Blake clucks his tongue. “So, you’ve wandered into a den of Wolves with no idea what weakens us? That’s not very smart, is it?”
“Now’s not the time, Blake,” growls Callum.
“I expect stupidity from him,” Blake continues. “You. . . no. Small and fragile things cannot afford to be stupid. They’re too easy to break.”
If Callum didn’t have both his hands pressing into Ryan’s side, I think he would have broken Blake. He certainly looks like he wants to—his jawline is hard.
Yet, oddly, beneath the thinly veiled threat, it feels almost as if Blake is trying to give me a piece of advice.
His eyes are glinting as if he’s challenging me to find the answer.
I think back to that book again. There was an experiment that declared a substance that affected a wolf’s ability to heal, and, in large doses, was deadly.
Dread fills me.
“Wolfsbane,” I say.
“Good girl,” says Blake.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Wolfsbane.
The air is sucked out of the infirmary. Callum tenses, and a cry tears from Becky’s lips.
In the book I read, it didn’t seem like there was a cure.
“Can you fix him?” The plea in Callum’s voice breaks something inside me.
“Perhaps.” Blake walks over to his workstation, and selects a pipette.
He takes a sample of Ryan’s blood and holds it up to the torch flickering on the wall.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Identifying the strain.”
Callum’s gaze seeks mine. I can see he is lost, floating away, and looking for something to hold onto. Even though we barely know each other, he wants it to be me.
I know that feeling. I felt like I was drowning when my mother was dying. I wanted to grab onto someone, anyone—my father, my brother, the ladies-in-waiting—so that my head would remain above the water. Only, they always remained out of reach.
I will not remain out of Callum’s reach.
My gaze flits back to Blake. “Can he be cured?”
“There’s only one person in the Northlands who knows the antidote,” says Blake.
“You?”
His lips curve into a smile. He goes back to the workstation and starts mixing something in a beaker.
“Keep pressure on the wound,” he tells Callum.
When Blake returns, he tips back Ryan’s head and pours the liquid into his mouth. Ryan chokes.
I step closer, peering over Becky’s head. “That’s the antidote?”
“Yes.”
“What is it made of?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” His tone is light, but I have the distinct feeling that this is not an empty threat. “Keep hold of him.”
“I am holding him,” growls Callum. “Fix him.”
“How does it work?” I ask.
Ryan’s eyes jolt open. His back arches off the cot, and his shoulders bend in an unnatural way. He screams.
Blake clamps his hand over Ryan’s mouth, forcing him to swallow the liquid that he’s trying to spit out.
“Is that necessary?” snaps Callum.
“Get off him!” shrieks Becky. “You’re hurting him. Stop it!”
I watch the gash in Ryan’s side, fascinated. The blood loss is slowing. Blake is hurting him, yes. But he’s fixing him, too.
Becky doesn’t see it, though. She throws herself at Blake. With his free hand, he grabs her arm.
“Take her outside,” he says.
Callum looks at me, and I see the question in him, the plea.
“Come on, Becky.” I gently touch her shoulder. “Let’s—”
“No. The rabbit stays.” Blake glances at Callum. “You take her.”
Callum’s posture straightens. “If you think for a moment that I’m leaving her alone with you—”
“Do you want me to fix him?”
Callum swallows. “Aye, but—”
He winces when Ryan lets out a bloodcurdling scream.
“Then take the girl outside, and leave your pet,” says Blake. “She is of more use to me than you.”
I bristle at being called a pet, but he’s right. I can help.
Callum is too emotional. Whatever fight Ryan has ahead of him, it is clearly going to be painful—and Callum looks as if he wants to take the pain away.
The easiest way for him to do that would be to get rid of Blake. Yet Blake seems to actually know what he is doing. He is fixing him, in a way that no one was ever able to do for my mother.
“It’s okay, Callum,” I say, gently. “You should take Becky outside.”
I know Callum will not be happy to leave me, or Ryan, so I search for a way to make him feel like he is in control of the situation.
“Someone needs to find out what happened,” I say. “Others could be in danger. You should go with Becky and speak to Fergus.”
Callum takes a deep, shuddering breath. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Blake puts his hand on Ryan’s wound when Callum gets up.
Callum’s eyes narrow on him. “If you touch her—”
“Yes, yes, you’ll kill me in an undoubtedly unimaginative way. Don’t worry. I don’t harm things that are useful to me.”
Callum’s warmth floods me as he touches my shoulder and squeezes lightly.
“I’ll be fine,” I say.
He takes Becky’s arm and leads her, sobbing, away. “If you need me, I’ll hear you.”
“I know.”
They head out of the room, and he closes the door behind them.
“Others could be in danger?” Blake rolls his eyes. “You’re a manipulative little thing, aren’t you?”
I glare at Blake. I do not like being called that. I wasn’t being manipulative. I was trying to help. “I got him to leave, didn’t I?”
Blake smirks. “Get a needle and thread from my case on the workstation. And the pot of white ointment.”
I hurry over. The pot sits amid an array of glass jars, pestles, and dried herbs. I grab it, then flip open his case. There’s are cold metal scalpels in there, alongside the items he’s asking for.
When I have them, I kneel by his side.
“Put the ointment on the wound.”