by Julie Kagawa
A harsh cry made me glance up. A huge raven swooped overhead, so close that I felt the wind from its passing ruffle my hair. It perched on a branch and looked back at us, eyes glowing green in the darkness, before barking another caw and flapping away into the trees. Ash gave a quiet word to follow, and the tatter-colt started after it, slipping into the woods as silently as a ghost. I turned and watched my house getting smaller and smaller through the branches, until the forest closed in and the trees obscured it completely.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Healer
We rode for a couple hours while the sky above us turned from pitch black to navy blue to the faintest tinge of pink. Puck kept well ahead of us, flitting from branch to branch until we caught up, then swooping away again. He led us deep into the swamps, through bogs where the tatter-colt sloshed through waist-deep pools of murky water, past huge, moss-covered trees dripping with vines. Ash said nothing as we traveled, but his head hung lower and lower the farther we went, until it was all I could do to hold him upright.
Finally, as the last of the stars faded from the sky, the tatter-colt pushed its way through a cluster of vine-covered trees to find the raven perched atop a rustic-looking shack in the middle of the swamp.
Before the tatter-colt stopped moving, Ash was sliding off its back, crumpling to the misty ground. As soon as he was off, the tatter-colt began tossing its head and bucking, until I half slid, half fell off its back into the mud. Snorting, the colt trotted into the bushes with its head held high and disappeared.
I knelt by Ash, and my heart clenched at how pallid he looked, the abrasions on his face standing out angrily against his pale skin. I touched his cheek and he groaned, but he didn’t open his eyes.
Puck was there suddenly, dragging Ash to his feet, grimacing at the pain of his own wound. “Princess,” he gritted out, taking the prince’s weight, “go wake up the healer. Tell her we’ve got an iron-sickened prince on our hands. But be careful.” He grinned, his normal self once more. “She can be a little cranky before she’s had her coffee.”
I climbed the rickety wooden steps onto the porch, which creaked under my feet. A cluster of toadstools, growing right out of the wall near the door, pulsed with a soft orange light, and the shack itself was covered in various moss, lichens and mushrooms of different colors. I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
No one answered right away, so I banged again, louder this time. “Hello?” I called, peering through a dusty, curtained window. My raw throat ached, bringing tears to my eyes, but I raised my voice and called out again. “Is anyone there? We need your help! Hello?”
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” yelled an irritable voice on the other side. “Do you people think healers don’t have to sleep, is that it?” Shuffling footsteps made their way to the door while the voice still continued to mutter. “Up all night with a sick catoblepas, but do I get any rest? Of course not, healers don’t need rest. They can just drink one of their special potions and stay up all night, for days on end, ready to jump at every emergency that comes banging on their door at five in the morning!” The door whooshed open, and I found myself staring at empty air.
“What?” snapped the voice near my feet. I looked down.
An ancient gnome stared up at me, her face wrinkled and shriveled like a walnut under a frayed clump of white hair. Barely two feet tall, dressed in a once-white robe with tiny gold glasses on the end of her nose, she glared at me like a furious midget bear, black eyes snapping with irritation.
I felt a stab of recognition. “Ms…. Ms. Stacy?” I blurted out, seeing, for just a moment, my old school nurse. The gnome blinked up at me, then pulled her glasses off and began cleaning them.
“Well now, Ms. Chase,” she said, cementing my hunch. “It has been a while. Last I saw you, you were hiding in my office after that cruel trick that boy played on you in the cafeteria.”
I winced at the memory. That had been the most embarrassing day of my life, and I didn’t want to think about it. “What are you doing here?” I asked, amazed. The nurse snorted and shoved her glasses back atop her nose.
“Your father, Lord Oberon, bade me keep an eye on you with Mr. Goodfellow,” she replied, looking up at me primly. “If you were hurt, I was supposed to heal you. If you saw anything strange, I was to help you forget. I provided Goodfellow with the necessary herbs and potions he needed to keep you from seeing us.” She sighed. “But then, you went traipsing off to the Nevernever to find your brother, and everything unraveled. Fortunately, Oberon allowed me to keep my job as school nurse, in case you ever came back.”
I felt a small prick of anger that this woman had blinded me for so long, but I couldn’t think about that now. “We need your help,” I said, turning so she could see Puck and Ash coming toward the porch. “My friend has been stabbed, but not only that, he’s iron-sick and getting weaker. Please, can you help him?”
“Iron-sick? Oh dear.” The gnome peered past me, staring at the two fey boys in the yard, and her eyes got wide behind her glasses. “That…is that…Prince Ash?” she gasped, as the blood drained from her face. “Mab’s son? You expect me to help a prince of Winter? Have you gone mad? I…no!” She backed through the door, shaking her head. “No, absolutely not!”
The door started to slam, but I stuck my foot in the frame, wincing as it banged my knee. “Please,” I begged, shouldering my way through the gap. The nurse glared at me, pursing her lips, as I crowded through the frame. “Please, he could be dying, and we have nowhere else to go.”
“I don’t make a habit of aiding the Unseelie, Ms. Chase.” The nurse sniffed and struggled to close the door, but I wasn’t budging. “Let his own take care of him. I’m sure the Winter Court has its share of healers.”
“We don’t have time!” Anger flared. Ash was getting weaker. He could be dying, and with every second, the scepter got farther away. I bashed my shoulder into the door, and it flew open. The nurse stumbled back, hand going to her chest, as I stepped into the room. “I’m sorry,” I told her in my best firm voice, “but I’m not giving you a choice. You will help Ash, or things will get very unpleasant in a very short time.”
“I won’t be bullied by a half-human brat!”
I straightened and towered over her, my head just touching the ceiling. “Oberon is my father, you said so yourself. Consider this an order from your princess.” When she scowled, her eyes nearly sinking into the creases of her face, I crossed my arms and glared imperiously. “Or, should I inform my father that you refused to help me? That I came to you for aid, and you turned me away? I don’t think he’d be too pleased about that.”
“All right, all right!” She raised her hands. “I’ll get no peace otherwise, I see that now. Bring in the Winter prince. But your father will hear of this, young lady.” She turned and shook a finger at me. “He will hear of this, and then we will see who will be the target of his ire.”
I felt a small pang of guilt that I had to pull the daddy card like some spoiled rich kid, but it faded as Puck dragged Ash up the stairs. The prince seemed more wraith than flesh now, his skin a sickly gray except for the angry red wounds on his face and arms, where the skin seemed to be peeling off the bones. I shuddered and my heart twisted with worry.
“Put him in here,” the nurse ordered, directing Puck to a small side room with a low-lying bed. Puck complied, laying Ash down on the sheets before collapsing into a chair that looked like an enormous mushroom.
The nurse sniffed. “I see the princess has you in on this, too, Robin.”
“Don’t look at me.” Puck smirked and wiped a hand across his face. “I did my best to kill the guy, but when the princess wants something, there’s no changing her mind.”
I scowled at him. He shrugged and offered a helpless grin, and I turned back to Ash.
“Ugh, he doesn’t just smell of iron, he reeks of it,” the nurse muttered, examining the wounds on his face and arms. “These burns aren’t normal—they’ve erupted from
the inside out. It’s almost like he had something metal inside him.”
“He did,” I said quietly, and the nurse shuddered, wiping her hands. She pulled up Ash’s shirt, revealing a layer of gauze that was just beginning to seep blood onto the mattress. “At least the bandaging was done properly,” she mused. “Very nice, clean work. Your handiwork, I presume, Goodfellow?”
“Which one?”
“The bandage, Robin.”
“Yeah, that was mine, too.”
The nurse sighed, bending over Ash, studying the cuts on his face, peeling away the gauze to see the stab wound. Her brow furrowed. “So, let me get this straight,” she continued, looking at Puck. “You stabbed Ash, prince of the Winter Court.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“And, judging by both of your conditions—” her eyes flickered to my throat and Puck’s bloody shoulder “—I’m guessing the Winter prince did that to you, as well.”
“Right again.”
“Which means you were fighting each other.” The nurse’s eyes narrowed. “Which means he was probably trying to kill you, yes?”
“Well…” I stammered.
“So, why in the name of all that’s sacred do you want me to heal him? Not that I won’t,” she added, holding up her hand, “but what’s to stop him from attacking you again? Or me, for that matter?”
“He won’t,” I said quickly. “I promise, he won’t.”
“Are you planning to use him as a hostage, is that it?”
“No! It’s just—” I sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, you will have to tell me later,” the nurse sighed, standing up. “Your friend is very lucky,” she continued, crossing the room to take a porcelain jar off the shelf. “I don’t know how he didn’t die, but he is strong, to survive as long as he did. He must’ve been in terrible pain.” She returned to his side, shaking her head as she knelt beside him. “I can heal his surface wounds, but I don’t know what I can do about the iron sickness. He must recover from that himself. It is better if he returns to Tir Na Nog after this. His body will throw off the sickness faster in his own land.”
“That’s not really an option,” I ventured. The nurse snorted.
“Then I’m afraid he will be quite weak for a long, long time.” She straightened and turned around, staring at us with her hands on her hips. “Now I need to work. Both of you, out. If you’re tired, use the extra bed in the adjoining room, but don’t disturb my other patient. The prince will be fine, but I can’t be tripping over you every few seconds. Go on, now. Get.”
Making shooing motions with her hands, she chased us from the room and slammed the door behind us.
EVEN EXHAUSTED, I was too worried to sleep. I wandered the healer’s small cabin like a restless cat, checking the door every ten seconds, waiting for it to open. Ash was on the other side, and I didn’t know what was happening to him. I drove Puck and the satyr with the broken leg crazy, drifting from one room to the next, until Puck threatened, only half jokingly, to put a sleeping spell on me if I didn’t relax. To which I threatened, only half jokingly, that I would kill him if he did.
Finally, the door creaked open and the nurse stepped out, bloodstained and weary-eyed, her hair in disarray.
“He’s fine,” she told me as I rushed up, the question on the tip of my tongue. “Like I said before, he’s still weak from the iron-sickness, but he’s no longer in any danger. Though I must say—” and she glared at me fiercely, “—the boy almost snapped my wrist when I tried sewing his wounds shut. Wretched Unseelie, the only thing they know is violence.”
“Can I see him?”
She eyed me over her gold-rimmed glasses, and sighed. “I should tell you no, he needs his rest, but you wouldn’t listen to me, anyway. So yes, you can see him, but keep it short. Oh, and Robin,” she said, crooking a finger at Puck, “a word.”
Puck gave me a grimace of mock terror and followed the nurse from the room. I watched them leave, then slipped quietly into the darkened room, closing the door behind me.
Easing over to his bed, I sat beside him and studied his face. The cuts were still there, but they were faded now, less severe. His shirt was off, and clean bandages wrapped his stomach and torso. His breathing was slow and deep, his chest rising and falling with each breath. I reached down and gently placed a hand over his heart, wanting to touch him, to feel his heartbeat under my fingers. His face was peaceful, free of harsh lines or worries, but even in sleep, he looked a little sad.
Preoccupied with watching his face, I didn’t see his arm move until strong fingers curled gently over mine. My stomach leaped as I looked down, seeing my hand trapped within his, and glanced back at his face. His silver eyes were open now, staring at me, his expression unreadable in the darkness. My breath caught in my throat.
“Hi,” I whispered, for lack of anything to say. He continued to watch me, unmoving, and I rattled on. “Um, the nurse says you’re going to be fine now. You’ll be a little sick from the iron, but that should fade with time.” He remained silent, his eyes never leaving my face, and my cheeks started to burn. Maybe he just had a nightmare, and I’d startled him by creeping into his room like a stalker. I was lucky he hadn’t snapped my wrist like he almost did with the nurse. “Sorry if I woke you,” I muttered, attempting to pull back. “I’ll let you sleep now.”
His grip tightened, stopping me. “Stay.”
My heart soared. I looked down at him, wishing I could just melt into him, feel his arms around me. He sighed, and his eyes closed. “You were right,” he murmured, his voice nearly lost in the darkness. “I couldn’t do it alone. I should have listened to you back in Tir Na Nog.”
“Yes, you should have,” I whispered. “Remember that, so that next time you can just agree with whatever I say and we’ll be fine.”
Though he didn’t open his eyes, one corner of his mouth curled, ever so slightly. It was what I was hoping for. For a moment, the barriers had crumbled and we were all right again. I squeezed his hand. “I missed you,” I whispered.
I waited for him to say I missed you, too, but he grew very still under my hand, and my heart plummeted. “Meghan,” he began, sounding uncomfortable. “I…I still don’t know if…” He stopped, opening his eyes. “We’re still on opposite sides,” he murmured, his voice tinged with regret. “Nothing changes that, even now. Contract aside, you’re still considered my enemy. Besides, I thought you and Goodfellow—”
I shook my head. “Puck is…” I began, and stopped. What was he? Thinking about him, I suddenly realized I couldn’t say he was just a friend. “Just friends” didn’t kiss each other in an empty bedroom. “Just a friend” wouldn’t make my stomach squirm in weird, fluttery ways when he came through a door. Was this love, this strange, confusing swirl of emotion? I didn’t have the same intense feelings for Puck that I did for Ash, but I did feel something for him. I couldn’t deny that anymore.
I swallowed. “Puck is…” I tried again.
“Is what?”
I spun around. Puck stood in the doorway, a rather dangerous smile on his face, watching us with narrowed green eyes.
“…talking to the nurse,” I said faintly, as Ash released my hand and turned his face away. Puck stared at me, hard and uncomfortable, as if he knew what I was thinking.
“Nurse wants to talk to you,” he said at last, turning away. “Says to leave his royal iciness alone so he can sleep. Better go see what she has to say, Princess, before she starts throwing her coffee mug.”
I glanced down at Ash, but his eyes were closed and he wasn’t looking at me.
A little apprehensive, I approached the kitchen, where the nurse sat at the table with a steaming mug of what was probably coffee, since the whole room smelled like it. The nurse glanced up and waved me to the opposite chair.
“Sit down, Miss Chase.”
I did. Puck joined us, plunking into the seat beside me, munching an apple he’d gotten from who knew where.
“Robin tells me
you’re going on a dangerous mission after this,” she began, cupping her withered hands around the mug, staring into the coffee. “He wouldn’t give me details, but that’s why you need the Winter prince healthy, so he can help you. Is that right?”
I nodded.
“The problem is, if you go through with this plan, you’ll almost certainly kill him.”
I jerked up. “What are you talking about?”
“He is very sick, Miss Chase.” She glared at me over the rim of her mug, steam writhing off her glasses. “I wasn’t joking when I said he’ll be weak. The iron was in his system too long.”
“Isn’t there anything else you can do?”
“Me? No. He needs the glamour of his own realm to heal, so his body can throw off the sickness. Barring that—” she took a sip of coffee “—if you could find a great influx of human emotion, in large quantities, that might help him. At the very least, he could begin to recover.”
“Lots of glamour?” I thought a moment. Where would there be a lot of crazy, unrestrained human emotion? A concert or a club would be perfect, but we had no tickets, and I was underage for most clubs. But, as Grimalkin had taught me, that wasn’t a problem when you could conjure money from leaves and a valid license from a Blockbuster card. “Puck—think you can sneak us into a club tonight?”
He snorted. “I can sneak us into anything, Princess. Who do you think you’re talking to?” He snapped his fingers, grinning. “We can pay a visit to Blue Chaos again, that’ll be fun.”
The nurse blinked. “Blue Chaos is owned by a Winter sidhe who employs redcaps and is rumored to have an ogre in the basement.” She sighed. “Wait. If you insist on doing this, I’ve a better idea, one not so…insane.” She looked caught between reluctance and resignation as she turned to me. “The Winter Formal is tonight at your old school, Miss Chase. If there is one place that is sure to have an overabundance of emotionally charged, hormonal teenagers, that would be it.”
