uglier than the scars that marred her real body. When she ran her hands over her stomach she felt the ripple of the stitches beneath them. The sheer number of them took her breath away. He must have been doing this since the first day. All this time, the Work had seemed miraculous, and all this time it had been...infecting her.
The boy. The boy must be Gavin, but somehow she doubted that the Unbinding was the unbinding the magus had promised her. They had another plan, the magus and his nasty old teacher, and she didn’t know what it was, but she knew it involved her and Gavin.
Her pain didn’t matter, did it? Well, that was familiar.
She found a stitch just above her left breast that was nearly an inch long. Slid a finger under the purple thread. Ripped it out.
She screamed. The world went black.
She came to on her knees, sobbing. It was the worst pain she’d ever known. Worse than the poker, worse than the caning, worse than thinking Darid was dead. But she was still in the Work, and the stitch had vanished.
She found another stitch and tried again.
The world went black again.
Hundreds of purple stitches marred her body. She pulled out four of them before the pain kicked her out of the Work entirely and she found herself lying on the cold stone floor of the tower. Night had fallen. She crawled to the sheared-away edge and was sick over the edge of it. Her whole body hurt. She told herself that she would rest for just a minute. Maybe two. The floor was so nice and cool on her aching body and the fresh air felt good.
When she woke, she was shivering. Her arm dangled over the edge. Lifting her head, the first thing she saw was the drop. All at once fully awake, heart pounding and breath short, she crawled away, not trusting her legs to carry her. Only after she was safe did she realize: something was different.
She was hungry. She was cold. She was lonely.
And she was furious.
Chapter Twenty
Nate didn’t dare treat patients anymore. He was afraid he’d kill someone. Word had gotten around Marketside and Brakeside that his friend had died and people seemed content to leave him in what they judged to be grief. On the street, he was the recipient of many a pitying smile and kind pat on the shoulder. Waiting at Leda’s, he lost track of the world and when he found it again, he was holding a wizened sprig of mint. Based on Leda’s expression, he guessed he’d been standing there quite a while. “You’ll find someone else, magus,” she said. “No heart dies forever.” Confused, Nate only nodded. It wasn’t until later that he realized that Leda had assumed Charles was his lover. Once, that would have humiliated and infuriated him, but it no longer seemed to matter.
Bindy took care of him in a quiet way that he found almost intolerable. He suspected that she was filling and delivering simple orders so she didn’t have to bother him with them, but her apprenticeship had withered and died on the vine. When she decided he needed something—food, water, a shave—she put bread or a cup or his razor in front of him, so unobtrusively that they might always have been there. When she started to bring soup again he knew she was truly worried for him. He wasn’t hungry, but he ate to please her. The soup tasted different. He doubted the broth lady could get her hands on chicken anymore. He didn’t like to think what she’d found to use instead.
A week passed like this. It was the week the Seneschal had given Nate to get Judah down from the tower. On what he knew would be his last morning in the manor, he woke to find Derie sitting in the kitchen. “Locked the door in case your little wenchlet shows up early,” she said, and nodded at a cup on the table. “Might as well drink that.”
It was broth, but cold. He drank it anyway.
Derie watched. “Today, then.”
“Today.” He frowned into the broth. “Derie, if we ever go home, I want to bring Bindy. If she wants to come.”
“Her?” Derie’s voice dripped with contempt. “She’s got nothing in her at all.”
“Still. I’d like to ask her,” Nate said, dogged.
Derie huffed. “I’ll consider it. But I’m not making you any sort of deathbed promise about it, boy.”
“Deathbed?” Nate swallowed. “Do you think I’m going to