Scholar of Magic (Art of the Adept #3) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,138

on his leg moved slightly. “Oh, that’s disgusting,” announced Sammy. “I think I’m going to be sick!”

Erisa looked at her niece sharply. “No, you’re not. Go upstairs and put the kettle on the stove. I’ll need hot water, fresh towels, and linen bandages. Once you get the water heating, find my kit and bring it to me.” Sammy scampered up the ladder with alacrity, and Will’s mother looked back at him, radiating calm confidence. “It appears to be in the muscle. Depending on how deep I have to cut, you’re probably going to have trouble walking for a while. It’s going to hurt a lot too, but I have some tincture of poppy saved for just this sort of thing—”

Will put a hand on his mother’s arm. “I can’t take the tincture, Mom. I have to be clearheaded after this.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice clear and untroubled.

“I have to make potions when I get back.”

“Tiny’s kidney problem won’t kill him for a week or two at the worst. You have time.”

Will shook his head. “No. The regeneration potion won’t work if the kidney has already died. The same for Janice’s face. If it heals partially, she could be disfigured for life. She lost an eye, Mom.”

“There’s no way you can travel like that,” Erisa said stubbornly.

“She lost her eye for me, Mom. She and Tiny didn’t have to be there. They came even though they didn’t have a hope in hell of saving me. Rob too.”

“Who is Rob?”

“The one that didn’t make it back,” said Will somberly.

She sighed. “Can you make them here? Maybe the cat can take me back with the potions in your stead.”

“I don’t have all the ingredients here. It’s all waiting for me back at Wurthaven. Plus, I’m not sure you would survive the trip through Hell.”

“Hell?”

“That’s where the goddamn cat was wounded.”

Her calm demeanor, carefully cultivated over the years for when she was dealing with patients, cracked and her cheeks paled. “And you think you can survive the trip? With a hurt leg?”

“I don’t need my leg to use spells, and the cat does the running.”

Chapter 31

Will had experienced a wide variety of painful things since he had been born, but enduring minor surgery without anything to dull the pain was a novel form of torture. Unlike being whipped half to death, the pain came steadily, at the hand of someone who he thought loved him, but who he now suspected was in league with the forces of evil.

Erisa was merciless, and her face showed no doubt, no reserve, no hesitation as she carved into the meat of his thigh to remove the ‘parasite.’ Will’s grunt’s turned into screams almost from the beginning, and when Sammy began to cry, his mother finally lost her temper.

“Are you listening?” she snapped when Sammy failed to respond to the latest command. When Sammy responded with an incoherent sob, Erisa paused and put her knife down for a moment. “Sammy, you’re going to make this take longer than it should, which will hurt your cousin more. He was helping me with things like this at eleven. I think you can pull yourself together long enough to do what needs to be done.”

To be fair, Will had nearly passed out the first time his mother asked him to help with delivering a baby, so he felt a great deal of sympathy for his cousin, or he would have, if the pain in his leg wasn’t blotting out every other possible sensation.

Sammy clenched her teeth together, then managed to answer, “Yes, Aunty.”

“Take that towel and mop up the blood around the incision. I can’t see what I’m doing,” said Erisa calmly. Will hissed when Sammy touched him, and Sammy flinched, but she kept at it. Soon the knife was back, and Will was choking back screams again.

As family reunions went, it wasn’t the best, but it was something none of them would forget. When Erisa finally got the parasite, out a strange look of shock passed over her face, and predictably, Sammy was the first to say something. “It’s like a little