And there are others in Boston tonight who require my care. You saved your friend’s life, and that is no small thing. But there’s nothing more we can do to save his arm.”
Every breath Ethan took seemed to come at great cost, and his hands had begun to shake.
“Help me move him. We should do this on the table in my dining room.” The doctor spoke in even tones. Not light, by any means. But steady, reassuring, purposeful.
Ethan sheathed his blade. Together they carried Diver to the dining room and positioned him on the table. Warren returned to the common room to retrieve his tools and supplies, leaving Ethan alone with his friend. He could think of nothing to say, and before long Warren was beside him again, arraying his tools on the table.
“I need you to hold him,” the doctor said, his voice gentle. “He’s unconscious, which is a blessing—for him and for us—but nevertheless, you must keep him still. Do you understand?”
Ethan nodded, the motion jerky.
“Look away. Don’t watch any of it. It won’t take long, and aside from keeping him still, I can do everything else myself.” He pointed to two spots on Diver’s lower arm. “Grip him here and here.”
He nodded again, bile rising in his throat. He took hold of Diver’s arm where Warren had indicated and stared at the wall opposite where he stood. A portrait hung there: a young woman, pretty, dressed in a blue satin gown. Ethan wondered if this was Warren’s wife. Whoever she was, he refused to tear his gaze from her.
Still, keeping his eyes averted helped only so much. He could hear it all. The quiet ring of metal tools, the soft shudder of a blade carving through muscle and skin, and worst of all, the horrific rattle of that sawblade on bone. Tears slid down his cheeks and his pulse pounded in his ears. The procedure seemed to take forever, and yet it ended abruptly, sooner than Ethan expected.
“Don’t look yet,” Warren said, though out of the corner of his eye Ethan saw him take up the bandages. “But you can release the arm.”
Doing so felt like the most evil of betrayals.
Forgive me, Diver.
And then another thought: Ramsey, you will pay for this in blood and torment.
“Why don’t you step outside, Mister Kaille. I’ll join you there shortly.”
Without speaking a word, Ethan left the house. The cold air was a mercy, and he took a long, unsteady breath. Church bells continued to peal, echoing up and down the deserted lane. Ethan listened for musket fire, but heard none. He glanced up at the sky, bright with stars and moonlight, and tried to summon a prayer for Diver and for Kannice, tried to feel the Lord’s presence, just as he had when he was a boy in Bristol, standing with his parents and sisters in the cathedral there. But he felt naught but anguish and fury and heartache.
He stood thus for a long time, until at last the door opened behind him and Warren joined him on the ice-covered walk that led from the house.
“He’s resting. I don’t imagine he’ll wake for some time. My wife and children won’t be home this evening. Samuel feared violence this night, and suggested that our families lodge elsewhere. So, he can remain here, but if he does wake, he’ll probably be alone. I’d like to move him, but I dare not so soon after the surgery.”
“I understand. He lives near here, on Pudding Lane. Perhaps tomorrow we can see him back to his room.” If I survive the night.
“That would be fine. I’ll check in on him when I can.” The doctor hesitated. “What you did in there—earlier, I mean … I know that we didn’t save his arm, but your powers are most remarkable. I heard you say something as you … as you conjured.”
“It was Latin,” Ethan said, weary beyond measure. “Roughly translated, it means ‘healing conjured from blood.’”
“I have others to whom to attend this evening. I could use your help.”
Ethan took another long breath. “Diver is a friend, Doctor Warren. He’s known me for many years. He trusts me, and the power I wield. And you’re a learned man who is more accepting of … phenomena with which you are unfamiliar than most would be. There are some who would rather die or lose a loved one than be healed by what they consider witchery.”
“I doubt that.”
“I assure you it’s true. I know as well that there are