19. Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Rahk
Blue spiderlike veins spread out from the wound on Nat’s temple. I carry her to the nearest bed, which happens to be mine. Her head lolls over my elbow, her eyes vacant and her mouth open. The cook comes, folding back the bedclothes so I can lay Nat down. Edvear has already left for a doctor.
“Is there anything I can give her?” Charity asks, fussing with the quilt. “I have herbs of many varieties, fresh and dried, but I only know their cooking uses, not medicinal.”
I grind my teeth together. Fae poisons, I am familiar with, but I know nothing about human poisons. Its stench on each of the assassins’ blades was unfamiliar.
How could I have overlooked something so significant?
“We will wait until the doctor comes,” I say tightly.
“But what if that is too late? What if the poison moves too quickly?”
My gaze shifts from the concern wreathed across Charity’s features to Nat’s sweat-slicked face. The sun, only just rising, illuminates the spreading blue veins, reaching down to her cheek and up to her forehead. I look away quickly. “It won’t.”
Charity seems to take comfort in my baseless declaration. It is only then that I realize she referred to Nat as a her . I am not the only one to see through Nat’s disguise, then. Or did Nat confide in the cook?
None of that matters. What matters is saving Nat’s life.
Like she saved mine.
My guard shouldn’t have been down. I should have suspected an attempt like this from the queen after I refused to leave. I should have set wards around the estate to alert me of trespassers.
I step away from the bed, raking a hand through my hair. I am a prince of Nothril. I know better than this—than all of this. Nat never should have been in a position to save me.
And why did she? What could she possibly gain from protecting me? She could have helped the assassins and earned the favor of the queen.
I cannot let her die. I owe her a life debt now.
And Prince Rahk of the Nothril Court never owed anyone a life debt, much less to a human woman.
I wipe a hand down my face. Great Kings . . .
The wait for Edvear and the doctor to arrive is agonizing. Charity stays by Nat’s side while I pace at the far end of the room, thoroughly chastising myself in every way I can think of. The cook’s daughter comes in at one point, and her little eyes grow wide at the sight of Nat’s pale face and bloodied temple.
“We must ask the saints for help for Nat,” whispers Charity to the girl.
Their murmured prayers hum in the air, turning it thick. Nat must have saved me because she didn’t think things through properly. She must have reasoned that if I were killed, she wouldn’t have been able to keep her position and would have been turned out on the streets. It is the only thing that makes sense.
The click of Edvear’s heels makes all of us look up.
“We’re coming!” he calls from down the hallway.
My relief is so sudden, I pull out a chair and drop into it. The white-haired, portly doctor follows Edvear straight to Nat’s beside.
“Yes, poison,” says the doctor in a strong accent immediately upon seeing her. He sets his case on the bedside table and pops it open.
“We can take it from here, Mrs. Finch,” says Edvear to the cook, who looks at me.
“I don’t want to leave the girl alone with three men,” that look says.
I nod briefly, acknowledging her concern and bidding her to listen to Edvear. She purses her lips but leaves with her daughter. Edvear’s eyes are glued to them, and when Becky glances back at him, he gives her a gentle pat and steps outside with them.
“I will be here if you need me,” he tells me.
Only the doctor and I remain in the room with Nat. My fingers drum on the tabletop as the doctor places a tablet in Nat’s mouth and holds it shut until she swallows, wincing. Then he withdraws a sharp scalpel and a small bowl. In his thick accent, he says, “Poison. Out.”
He places the bowl beneath Nat’s cheek and makes a small incision with the scalpel, just below one of the blue veins, until the dribbling violet blood turns red and thin. He works on each vein, moving clockwise around the wound. One of the incisions is dangerously near her eye. I briefly wonder if the doctor had come any later, would he have been forced to partially blind her?
She wouldn’t have saved me if she’d known how much it could cost her.
I look away, clenching my jaw.
A moan drags my attention back to the bed. Just as the doctor is about to make the last incision, Nat thrashes her limbs.
“Sir, sir!” cries the doctor, just as Nat nearly rolls straight off the bed.
I am there the next moment, my knees digging into the mattress as I grip her arm in one hand and her jaw in the other.
“Still!” says the doctor, and I hold Nat’s head still against the mattress, no matter how hard she tries to fight as the doctor slices into her forehead.
The last of that ugly, thick, purple blood clears to red.
Kat
The side of my face stings. My throat aches. I drag open my eyes to see a sharp instrument dripping with blood and an unfamiliar face. I let out an “Uhh!” of surprise as I try to throw myself backward away from him.
A large hand lands on my shoulder, restraining me. “It’s alright, Nat. The doctor is helping you.”
That is the prince’s voice. I swivel my head toward it, only to find the great mass of Prince Rahk kneeling at my side, on the bed. Aside from when I massaged his back, I’ve never been this close to him before. What if he discovers . . .?
The assassins.
The poison.
I groan.
His thumb presses into the hollow above my collarbone. “Relax.”
Absolutely not. What is happening? Why is he so close to me? What if he—
The doctor lifts the bottom of my shirt.
Nothing—not the assassins, not hearing Rahk declare I’d been poisoned, not even Rahk himself—terrifies me as much as that.
I grab his wrist. “What are you doing?”
“Stomach. Poison. Investigate,” says the doctor with a thick Algravian accent.
“No, no investigate!” I try to get to my knees. They wobble and when I get one foot flat on the bed, I pitch to one side.
The prince catches me. Which is a horrible thing, it turns out, because he pulls me against his chest and captures my wrists in one vice-like fist, gripping them next to my face. “Hold still. The doctor is not going to hurt you.”
My panic turns blinding white. They’re going to remove my shirt and see my chest binding and there will be no recovery—for my job, my reputation, my fortune, my chance to avoid marriage, or my own dignity. “Please, please I don’t want—”
The prince’s low voice is a gentle murmur as he restrains me. “Nat, I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. Trust me.”
I’m panting, his long hair tickling my temple as I try to twist my wrists out of his grip. But I’m so weak, there is no chance of escape. I sag. A whimper sounds in the back of my throat.
“It is alright,” the prince soothes again as his hand reaches down toward the hem of my shirt.
I breathe far too quickly, wriggling uselessly.
Swiftly, the prince lifts my shirt, revealing my middle. He stops, however, at the base of my ribcage just below my chest binding, my shirt fisted in his grip, only allowing the doctor access to my stomach.
Wait, does this mean I won’t be disco—
Something cold presses against my stomach. My whole body seizes up. I yelp.
“Warm up the instrument first!” cries the prince. “The boy is in a delicate state!”
“Apology!” says the doctor, removing the cold metal thing . He holds it between his palms for a moment and then puts it back on my skin.
The doctor performs his investigation while the prince holds me. I grind my teeth and try to look anywhere but the doctor or the prince’s hand that holds my shirt. My eyes land on striped wallpaper and stay there.
At last, the doctor pulls away. The prince immediately puts my shirt back down. I let out the breath I was clinging to. He releases my wrists. I squirm away from him at once.
“Stomach. Small poison, not big poison,” announces the doctor, pointing at me. “Stomach sad. Eat cold foods.”
The prince stares blankly at the doctor, then turns to me. “Does that mean anything to you?”
I tug on the bottom of my shirt. “I think he’s saying only a little poison got to my stomach and that cold foods will help my body process it.”
The doctor nods eagerly, apparently much better at understanding our language than speaking it.
“That is it for managing the rest of the poison?” asks the prince dubiously. When the doctor nods, he shrugs. “You humans have odd medical practices and odd poisons, but we shall serve you cold foods and see if it helps. You already look better.”
I do feel better. I don’t resist as the doctor bandages my temple. Rahk gets up, seemingly glad to put distance between us once again. When the doctor closes his case, all his things packed up, the prince calls for Edvear to pay the doctor.
Guilt stabs me at once. I clutch the quilts and try to sit up. “You must take the fee out of my payment. I’m so sorry to have created such a—”
Rahk shoots me such a look, one that is both incredulous and furious, that I immediately snap my mouth shut. Edvear leads the doctor away and closes the door?leaving the prince and I alone.
I lick my lips. I shouldn’t fight him, but I cannot let him pay my doctor’s fee. I’m his servant, not someone he is responsible for. I’m not family. “Master, it is more than generous of you to handle this, but I don’t deserve it. Please let me pay for myself.”
Rahk, who leans against the table, folds his arms across his chest and regards me. His mouth is drawn in a tight, thin line. “You don’t deserve my generosity? How is this generosity, Nat? You saved my life. This doesn’t even come close to repaying the life debt I owe you.”
I draw back. “Life debt? Is that a fae thing? We don’t have those here.”
He shifts his weight, gripping the edge of the table in both hands. “I’m going to ask you a question, and you are going to answer it completely honestly.”
The ache of my throat and temple vanishes immediately in the thrumming pulse of my blood. Does he suspect my secret? Did he discover it while I was unconscious?
“Why did you save me?”
I blink. “I’m sorry?”
“Tell me, Nat, why you saved me.”
That’s it? “Because you were in danger.”
He shakes his head. “That is not why.”
“What do you mean?” I cry, sitting up, indignant. “I saw them out the window. At first, I was scared they were going to kill me—they spooked me badly!—but they didn’t, and then I realized they had come for you. So I had to warn you.”
“I told you to be honest.”
My mouth drops open. I try several responses, but none of them come out in my shock. Finally, I resort to, “What am I supposed to say? What response would satisfy you, Master?”
“I want the truth. I want to know why you came to warn me.”
I give a wheezing laugh of disbelief. “I’ve already told you! Because you were in danger! Because I didn’t want you to die!”
His finger shoots forward. “There! You didn’t want me to die. Why not? Tell me why you didn’t want me to die, Nat.”
“Because you are a person?” I say, spreading my hands wide helplessly. “Because they wanted to commit murder, and that is wrong?”
“But me killing those five was not murder?” he challenges.
“It’s different when you are defending yourself! What do you want me to say: that I didn’t want to spend all day scrubbing your blood out of the rug?”
He shakes his head. “I want to know what you get out of it if I’m alive. That is what I’m asking. Did you save my life so you could keep your position? Were you afraid you wouldn’t be able to get another if I died?”
“It was so early I thought my eyeballs were going to fall out of my head. I was not thinking of my position, except that it was because of this position I had to get up so early. Though now that you mention it, you dying would have probably put me in a tough situation.”
A strange little smile, with a dangerous edge, creeps across his face. “Are you claiming that you saved me purely out of the goodness of your heart?”
I snort. “Hardly. It was just instinctual, though now this questioning is making me regret it.”
His eyebrows rise at that. Strangely, my rude comment seems to be what convinces him. Of what, I’m not sure. His grip tightens on the table edge, and he looks away from me. He opens his mouth, pauses, shuts it again.
I wait, wriggling my toes beneath the quilt. His quilt.
He pushes off the table abruptly and heads toward the door. “Regardless of your reason, thank you for doing what you did. It . . . it was brave of you.” Each sentence sounds disjointed, almost awkward . “I’m sorry you got hurt. And I will be paying the doctor’s fee. You will rest.”
With that, he marches out of the room, shuts the door just shy of a slam, and his footsteps echo into nothing. When quiet at last fills my space, I collapse against the pillow, my chest rising and falling fast. My limbs shake even more than before.
He still doesn’t know I’m a woman.
I could almost laugh from relief. He still doesn’t know.
A knock sounds on the door. I nearly leap out of my skin.
“It’s just me, sweetheart,” says Charity, coming in with a bowl of broth. “No need to look so frightened. I’ve come to see if you can take a little broth after your wild morning—cold, unfortunately, as the doctor ordered.”
My hand shakes only a little as I take the bowl, but she places a hand beneath it, steadying it as I take small sips. The broth is good, spiced and salty, though I don’t like it nearly so much cold. “Is the doctor gone? Will he come back?”
“He is just leaving. Do you want him back?”
“No!” I say, too vehemently.
She gives a gentle smile and winks conspiratorially. “Don’t worry, he didn’t expose your secret.”
I nearly spit out my soup, setting into a violent round of hacking. “I beg your pardon?”
“Sweetheart,” Charity says with a chuckle. “I’ve known the entire time. There’s no need to hide it.”
I stare at her, my mouth fallen open, and I don’t know whether to be afraid or desperately relieved.
“I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” She takes the empty bowl, sitting on the edge of the bed.
I groan, closing my eyes. “How did you know?”
“A woman knows another woman, sweet. Now, Nat , would you like a confidant in . . . all this ?” She gestures around us. “Or shall I leave you to your secrets?”
The words come tumbling free without consulting me, anxious to be spoken. “My stepmother sold my horse, and I was afraid she would do worse if I didn’t marry a man I never want to see again in my life. I had to get out before I would be forced to accept his proposal!”
The rest of the story pours out without restraint. I don’t tell her my name, but I do mention that I have an inheritance that everyone keeps trying to steal. It’s enough that she will know who I am.
I do not tell her about my identity as the Ivy Mask.
“It’s all a mess!” I cry, throwing up my hands.
“That is quite the situation,” Charity agrees. She sits beside me, her legs crossed and her black stockings poking out beneath the hem of her frock. “Have you considered confiding in the master?”
“ Confiding in him?” I release a high-pitched chortle. “You cannot be serious.”
“I am. Did you not see how worried he was about you?”
She should have seen him interrogating me only moments ago.
She continues. “I am not one to trust a fae, but his attentiveness is unusual—not even human masters care so much about their servants—and I find it to be a virtue. His steward is amiable, too, for that matter.”
I shut my gaping mouth and wrap my arms around my knees.
“If you told the master, he might be able to help you,” she adds.
I’m already shaking my head. “I’m not saying he has not a single virtue, but I just . . . I cannot confide in him. If he sent me away or exposed me to my stepfamily, I’d have nowhere else to go. What I stand to gain from his aid is nowhere near as much as I stand to lose.”
Bartholomew, my fortune, my freedom, my ability to perform raids.
It feels like I am clinging to all the things I will inevitably lose because I didn’t deserve to have them in the first place.
Charity gets to her feet. “I’ve got work to do, but I am glad you are doing better, and I will do what I can to protect your secret until you’re ready.”
“Thank you,” I say earnestly as she takes the empty bowl and leaves.