exhausted and panting, then coughing again, always coughing, then vomiting up rabbit. When he was done Gracie laid her cool hand against his forehead.
“You’re hot,” she murmured.
He wished he could take that as a compliment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t have one or two days to get to Helmsley, do I? I’m still dying, apparently.”
Her jaw set. “You need to change. It’s the only way.”
All that was left of his pride seemed to have deserted him. “How?” he whispered.
“I’ll wrap you loose, so you won’t be injured, and bind you to me, and carry you.”
“Bind me to you?” he croaked, struggling to keep his eyes open.
“Like a mother would carry her bairn,” she said, grabbing his hand. “You’d be safe, and we’d go quickly. I can run like the wind, even when I’m not a fox.” She pulled his hand into her chest, where he could feel the strong beat of her heart. “I promise you. I can get you to your granny.”
“All right,” he whispered, a hint of a smile appearing on his lips. “I can’t very well say no to spending the night resting against your bosom, can I?”
She snatched his hand away. “Don’t be fresh.”
He gave a soft laugh, and then he was a kestrel. Gracie sighed and pulled the cloak around him, and it was dark, and warm there against her, and good. Really, really good.
He became slowly aware of a faintly bad smell. He stretched and was surprised to find himself in his human body again, on a real bed, it felt like, covered in furs. He opened his eyes. A single candle burned in the darkness, and as his eyes adjusted he could make out a figure sitting by his bed. A woman.
“Gracie? Where are we?”
“You’re at Helmsley,” said a voice, but it wasn’t the Scot’s voice. It was Bess. She smiled at him and caught his hand. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t make it.”
“I was beginning to think so, too,” he admitted.
“Here.” She brought a cup to his lips. He drank and then hissed at the taste. It wasn’t water, but a concoction so foul it made his eyes tear.
“It will snake the poison from your blood,” Bess told him. “Gran made it.”
“Gran’s here?”
“Of course I’m here,” came a gruff old voice from the doorway. “Where else do you suppose I would be?”
“Hello, Gran.”
“You’ve got yourself in quite the pickle, haven’t you, my boy?” Gran said. She went to the window and drew back the heavy velvet curtains. Warm midday sunshine poured in.
“Gran,” Bess admonished warmly. “You shouldn’t address him as boy. He’s still the king.”
“He’s a birdbrained boy, as far as I can tell,” the old lady cackled. “I mean, getting himself poisoned. My word, child. People tried to poison me ten times a day, when I was queen. None of them ever succeeded.”
“Yes, Gran,” he said. “It was in poor form to get myself poisoned.”
“Now get up,” she ordered. “You need to get the blood moving through you, to give the antidote a chance to work.”
He still felt light-headed and wobbly, but he didn’t argue. He let Bess support him as he sat up and swung his legs out of bed. That’s when he discovered he was wearing only the white linen shirt Gracie had stole for him, which hit him mid-thigh.
“Um, where are my pants?”
Gran scoffed. “Oh, please, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” She got on the other side of him and poked him in the ribs. “Up with you.”
He stood. It did not escape his notice that Gran was as unpleasantly fragrant as ever, but the skunk smell was actually working to clear his head. He felt weak and hollowed out and half-naked, of course, but decidedly better.
Maybe he wasn’t going to die.
Gracie appeared in the doorway. Her gaze went straight to his white, white legs.
“Your Majesty,” she said with a grin, and curtsied impertinently, which looked all wrong because she was still wearing trousers.
Or maybe he wanted to die, after all.
Still, as Gran had said, it was nothing she hadn’t seen before.
Gran and Bess were both looking from Gracie to Edward and back again with amused expressions. Then Bess snapped out of it and fetched his pants. He tried to ignore his burning face as she helped him put them on, one leg and then the other. Once they were fastened, he stood up straight and said, “I can manage,” shook Bess off as she tried to help him, and walked slowly but steadily