Chapter 10 Kit
Kit
As Penny slumped in my arms, my heart thundered in my ears so loud it blanked out all other sounds.
“Hey!” I eased him back with a shake, but he didn’t respond. “Stay with me, Pen.” I patted his cheek and nearly yanked my hand away when his head lolled. His lips were tinged blue even in the warm glow from the lantern’s flame.
It struck me how far we were from any form of help, and when I couldn’t get Penny to stir, my own lightheadedness threatened to bring us both to the ground.
My eyes darted between the half-dug grave and the cart in rapid succession.
There was one place I knew to go, but it would take nearly an hour to get there.
There was no other option.
My arms shook with the strain as I dragged Penny’s limp body out of the grave and back to the cart.
After hours of hacking away at the frozen ground, I hardly had the strength to haul him up into the bed.
I collapsed beside him once he was in, breathing hard and feeling like I could pass out too. Still, he didn’t stir.
I should have gotten him help sooner. Surely there had been doctors in any one of the towns we passed through on our way here, and they might have offered more aid than herbs and tea. If he died…
A sick feeling welled up in my gut when I recalled what Penny had told me about Tessa suggesting she and Rosie kill old man Arkwright and use his body for their offering.
I doubted she was the only initiate who would have seen Penny’s condition as an opportunity.
The idea of one of them letting him die then taking him back to Ashpoint to strip the flesh from his bones was more than I could handle.
I barely made it to the edge of the wagon before my stomach rolled and my meager supper of deer jerky and mixed nuts made a reappearance.
Bile burned my throat and made my eyes water.
I’d sooner bury Penny here than give him over to Eeus.
After wiping my mouth and swallowing lingering bits of acid, I heaved myself to the driver’s bench and took the reins in my trembling hands. A click of my tongue set Betty into motion. As soon as we were out on the main road, I turned her north and urged her into a fast trot.
Ten minutes into the journey, Penny finally stirred.
“Kit?” he mumbled.
I twisted in my seat and pushed the hair off his face while he blinked hazy eyes against the dark.
“I’m here,” I told him. “Just rest. Breathe and rest. I’ve got you.”
His eyes slid closed as he nodded and mumbled, “Okay.”
Half an hour later, the glint of firelight in the distance wicked away some of my dread. We were close, and soon, Penny would be in the care of nurses better versed in medicine than Isla. They would know what was wrong, they would put him right, and he would be okay.
The mission outside of Emberstead was an imposing old stone building tucked away on a wooded lot beyond the town limits.
It was once the home of a wealthy family that had died out half a century before, but it had since been converted into a charitable outreach with a vast infirmary.
I’d sought refuge there years before but never thought I’d return. Especially not like this.
As we approached, it looked almost sinister, a hulking shape in the darkness with two flickering lanterns on either side of the door. Light peeked around the curtains on several of the lower windows, but the rest of the building looked uninhabited.
Penny roused as I drew Betty to a stop at the base of the front steps and leaped from the driver’s bench with barely the presence of mind to knot the reins on the hitching post.
I pounded on the door before returning to the cart and easing Penny out of it. He leaned against me when I wrapped my arm around his shoulders to keep him close, then stumbled as we made our way up the three steps to the heavy wooden door creaking slowly open.
An elderly woman emerged, holding a lantern.
I squinted against the light. Crepey skin wrinkled around her tired gray eyes, and her white hair was pulled back in a neat bun.
She barely came up to my chin. I was equal parts relieved and dismayed to find that I recognized her—Nora Halmer, head Symbiarch of the mission—and she, in turn, recognized me.
She took in our muddy, disheveled state and sighed. “Kit Koesters. And company, I see.” She stepped back and waved us inside. “I thought you left all this behind.”
I helped Penny over the threshold while avoiding the old woman’s eyes. The disappointment in her tone stung. “I did,” I replied, then added, “but it caught back up to me.”
She closed and locked the door behind us and gestured for us to follow as she crossed the foyer to a set of double doors on the right side of the room. “After all you did to get away?” she asked, pushing open and holding one of the doors for me to maneuver Penny into the infirmary beyond.
“It’s complicated.”
She glanced at Penny and then back to me. “I see that.”
The infirmary was effectively a long hallway lined with patient rooms on both sides. Nora pointed at one of the open doors on the left.
“Bring him in here,” she said. “No point in walking him any farther.”
Penny crossed the threshold, then balked at the sight of the white sheeted bed. He planted his feet, resisting my efforts to lead him in. A coughing fit interrupted his rapid, shallow breathing, leaving him winded while trying to pull away.
“Hey.” I cupped his face in my hands and forced his wild eyes to meet mine. “It’s okay. We’re safe here. We can trust her.”
“How do you know?” he asked, his voice raspy.
“You trust me, right?” I managed to smile when he nodded without hesitation. “Then let that be good enough for now. You trust me, and I trust Nora.”
Penny let me lead him inside and sit him on the edge of the bed. He perched there, stiff and uneasy, while I stepped back to let Nora approach.
“Let me have a look at you.” She took Penny’s chin in hand and tilted his head to one side, then the other. “Eyes are a bit dilated, and you’re awfully gray. No fever, though.” She pressed her fingertips against his neck beneath his jaw. “Pulse is rapid.”
It was all I could do not to pace the open space at the foot of the bed, mired in worry I wasn’t sure how to soothe. Penny looked even paler than he had at the grave, though at least his lips had lost their blue tint.
“Let’s get this off so I can listen to your lungs.” Nora reached for the hem of Penny’s shirt.
He leaned away and pushed at her hands.
“It’s all right, Pen.” I returned to the bedside and crouched beside him with a hand on his knee. “It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before.”
“But the…” His eyes darted meaningfully down to my chest and back up again.
I squeezed his knee then looked at Nora. “The brand is fairly fresh, but well-tended.”
The Symbiarch’s frown deepened, but she nodded.
“Unlikely to cause respiratory distress even if it weren’t.
” When she returned her attention to Penny, she offered him the same kind smile she’d given me years ago when I’d first stumbled into her care.
“You’ve nothing to fear from me, child. I’m not here to judge. ”
Penny watched me with unmasked confusion while the old woman eased him out of his shirt, careful of the healing brand beneath.
He hadn’t asked the details of how I’d escaped the Bone Men all those years ago, and I hadn’t offered, but I regretted that now.
If I had, he might not have looked on the verge of a panic attack while Nora made a quick check of the state of his brand and then leaned in to press her ear to the unmarked side of his chest.
“Take a few breaths,” she said, tutting when anything deeper than normal sparked a cough. She moved to the other side of the bed and repeated her request as she listened to his back. “Your lungs sound clear. What are your other symptoms?”
Penny cleared his throat. “I’m, um… tired and a bit weak. Can’t catch my breath.”
“When did this start?” Nora asked.
Penny’s eyes flicked over to me as he tugged his shirt back on. It sounded like a question when he said, “About two weeks ago?”
Nora hummed and nodded as she checked his pulse again. “Did anything else happen two weeks ago?”
If I hadn’t already been on the floor, I may have ended up there as realization dawned. I’d caused this. I hadn’t made the connection sooner because I never had respiratory side effects, but it was the logical conclusion.
“I started giving him hemlock,” I admitted softly.
Both of them turned to face me, and I focused on Nora so I didn’t have to see Penny’s expression. I hadn’t told him what the poison was because I knew it would worry him. As someone who raised livestock, he would be well aware of the danger ingesting hemlock posed for both of us.
“Were you trying to kill the boy?” Nora snapped, making me flinch.
“Trying to keep him alive.”
She scoffed. “Strange way of doing it.”
I sighed and rubbed my hands on my thighs. “The third Oath requires drinking hemlock tea. My father built my tolerance to it over several years to increase my odds of survival. I was trying to do the same for Penny.”
Nora stepped over to me and, much like she had with Penny, grabbed my chin and tilted my head toward the light of the lantern. Her lips pursed. “You’re taking it too.”
I nodded.
“Then you’re completing your Oaths.”
“Yes.”
Her brows dropped low over her eyes, and she tightened her grip on my jaw until it was almost painful.
“You were out. You had a good life. I was sorry to hear about Delmer’s passing and that you had to leave town after, but you found a place to settle.
They didn’t know where to find you.” She sighed and shook her head. “Why this? Why now?”