He nodded, and she began to work on his more painful wounds. His fluttering gaze drifted from her to me.
“You’re good at this.” He wiped his nose on his shoulder. Blood speckled his teeth. “And you’re breaking a lot of rules for someone none of you have met.”
“We’re hacks. It’s what we’re supposed to do.” Madeline laughed softly, her magic a balm against his body’s betrayal. “You are a very good patient.”
Pièrre was going to let him die. His own hack.
“It’s what physicians are supposed to do,” I said. “Risk their own lives to save others.”
“Noon. Bloodletters.” Florice coughed and shook his head. “You want to save others, you go there and do something about Demeine.”
Laurel.
“I will,” I said softly. “You’re going to live a while. The arts will wear off by then, as soon as the power eats through the nerves she’s blocking.”
Madeline glanced at me. “You can see the ones I—”
“Yes.” I licked my lips. “I can make you think you’re something else, somewhere better.”
Florice laughed, and the Stareaters leapt from his chest, the wound wider now. “Changing thoughts is physicianry and even then, most don’t bother with alchemistry.”
It had been easier, as a child, to change my thoughts rather than change the world around me.
“I had to run away to come here and used body alchemistry to do it,” I said, and it was only a half lie. I had tried to run away and failed. “I can, but you have to let me in.”
Back home, I had a guard named Edouard who was wonderful and kind, whose mind I had crept into. It was harder to filter through to what I wanted since he had fought me, but eventually I had sent him to sleep, a little twist of alchemistry here and a little nudge of his body there. I had made sure his dreams were nice. He deserved that much.
“Do it,” Florice said.
I pulled the power I kept in me free and gathered it in my hands, letting the pieces sink into the smallest, most ethereal pieces of Florice’s mind.
“Think of your favorite memory,” I said. “Then keep thinking of it.”
I had not done this before, not on this level, and I had known Edouard for ages. He had been my personal guard since I was three, but an oddness swam in Florice’s veins with me. His body was in a panic, every part of him shutting down slowly as the magic of the noonday arts ate away at him. I tucked my power into his body and calmed myself. His body mimicked me.
One breath, one thought.
The memory he had selected played out, sparks of life, between the gaps of his brain. I latched onto it, dug my magic into his mind, and forced the sparks to replay over and over again.
Like lightning.
A hand closed over my wrist. “He’s dreaming.”
Madeline.
“We have to go,” Rainier said, hand on Madeline’s arm. “Now.”
For a brief moment, my magic still alive, we were all connected, and I could see the power in all of us.
I shook my head and my vision cleared. “Let’s go.”
The connection faded as quickly as it had come.
Eight
Annette
Estrel started with the older students. I went to classes like normal, new clothes fitted to me and worlds better than the old ones. Breakfast got worse, but I wasn’t so bad Estrel took notice, and Isabelle was getting better. Watching her go from endlessly blinking and tense with clenched hands, to a steady smile and a chin held as high as Coline’s was the only good part of my mornings. And Coline was getting better at mathematics.
I wasn’t getting better at faking interest in bookkeeping with Madame Bisset. Isabelle and I had taken to sitting together, mostly so we wouldn’t have to keep correcting Coline’s miscalculations. Isabelle paid attention in each class as if her life depended on it, something I did in all our other classes, but Bisset’s was still a struggle. We were going over the sections of the ledgers Laurel had stolen from Chevalier des Courmers, and Bisset had a whole list of advice for the folks who were as outraged about the expenses as Laurel. More and more posters were showing up in Bosquet, driving a wedge between most of us. A lot of the students were sad about the state of things and wished they could do something. Bisset had taken to providing us advice we could tell folks who needed it.