wretchedly, turning to me. “I’m sorry. I truly am.”
He left poppy tears for us to administer to my father. Lockjaw is a painful way to go, but even with the sedative his body still trembled.
My mother was catatonic, refusing to accept it. She spent the day in my room, staring at the wall, and muttering old forgotten prayers to old forgotten Gods, with me silently holding her hand, saying my own prayers inside my mind. Lief remained with our father.
I had gone downstairs to fetch myself a glass of milk. It was late, the moon was high and the world was still. I didn’t hear Lief come in behind me; it was only when I saw his reflection in the glass of the window that I realized he was there. When I turned and saw his face, I knew.
“How do I tell her?” he said. “How do I tell her he’s gone?”
Silas works with me for the next hour, painstakingly cleaning the man inch by inch, uncovering multiple lesions and bruises. He doesn’t flinch, or gag, working stoically and silently, helping me wash, treat and then dress the wounds as best we can. Ugly, vicious bruises have turned the skin across the man’s chest and stomach dark purple, and that’s not a good sign. His skin is cold to the touch, and doesn’t get any warmer, no matter how much we pile the fire. When we wash the blood and dirt from his hair I see it’s white like Silas’s, and when I peel back his eyelids to check his pupils, his irises are gold. I look at Silas but he says nothing.
Finally, with nothing left to tend, we stop, covering him with as many blankets as we can.
“Now what?” Silas says, his already husky voice raw with tiredness or pain.
“Nothing. I’ve done all I can. Now it’s up to him. If he’s bruised inside…” I trail off, and Silas nods sharply. “The arnica and the willow bark will hopefully bring down the swelling on the outside. We’ll know more if – when – he wakes up.”
Silas rests his head in his hands.
I stand and check the bucket, using the little water left to make two weak cups of tea. I hold one out to him. He takes it, wrapping both hands around it.
“What happened?” I ask. “Who is he? Is he … is he related to you?”
“Yes. He’s a distant cousin. But I knew him well. He…” Silas stops to sip his tea. “Do you have anything stronger?”
I raise my eyebrows at him.
He takes another sip. “He’s been the go-between. He’s the man you saw me with yesterday. We have a chain, across Lormere. People stationed at various points passing items along from my mother’s temple, until they get over the border to me, and I move them on to safety. He was the border runner, crossing the woods. He was the best. It was him I was supposed to meet earlier, but he didn’t show up. I knew something was wrong and…”
I’m ready to interrupt and ask what kind of items he’s smuggling, but then a chill creeps up my spine. Attacked in the woods … I rip the blankets from his friend and start to examine him again, looking for the long, jagged scratches that had covered my mother’s arms.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing, just … checking.”
“For what?”
I don’t answer, relieved when I can’t find anything. “And there was no sign of what – who – might have done this?”
Silas shakes his head. “I’m sorry to bring this upon you,” he says. “I know you have your own troubles.”
“Where else would you go?”
He shakes his head and hunches over, his arms resting on his knees. I find myself staring at the top of his head, noticing his hair is double crowned. It makes me think of Lief, whose hair was the same, and I remember when my mother cut it and the whole left side of his hair stuck out for moons until the weight dragged it flat. After that he grew his hair long and never allowed it to be cut. I wonder if Silas knows he has a double crown. I wonder if he cares.
I stand and pick up my cloak, draping it over his shoulders.
He flinches as it drops around him. “I’m not cold,” he says.
“That’s not why,” I whisper back.
Our eyes lock and I forget how to breathe. That’s how it feels; suddenly my chest doesn’t remember how to rise and fall, and my