1. Chapter 1 The Clinic #3
"It's gone," she said. Her voice was low and steady and it broke on the second word and came back together on the third. "It's gone. What everyone has been saying is true. I didn’t think you had the kind of power to fix me, but… you did."
"I’m glad you were wrong."
She stood there for a few seconds. Then she reached into her coat and pulled out a small leather pouch and emptied it into the jar. Copper and silver, everything in the pouch. The coins clinked through the slot one by one.
She walked out. Her stride was even. Her footsteps in the hallway were steady and straight, and then the street door closed behind her.
The room was quiet.
Liv walked over a moment later with a cup of water and set it on the washstand beside me.
"Drink. You’re going to be dehydrated."
I smiled gratefully and took her advice.
***
The afternoon brought three more. A man with a burn on his forearm that had healed badly.
A girl with an ear infection. An old woman whose knee had been locking up.
Quick heals, each of them. The gold came and went and the jar collected its coppers and the light through the window went from white to the warm amber of late day.
Liv left around mid-afternoon. She had errands, restocking, something about a message from Garric at the Hen. She touched my arm on the way out, her ears high and relaxed, saying she'd see me at supper.
I was by myself.
The brothel came awake around me in degrees. Footsteps overhead, more of them now, purposeful. A woman's laugh from somewhere on the second floor, easy and professional. The street door below kept swinging, the evening shift filtering in. The building was crossing from one life into the other.
I went upstairs and found the girl who Rowena had mentioned.
She was a beautiful cat-kin. The bruise on her thigh was deep, weeks old, a dark bloom that hadn't faded because the tissue underneath was still damaged.
I healed it in the upstairs hallway with Rowena standing three feet away, arms folded, her eyes on the gold as it worked.
The girl thanked me and went back into her room and Rowena walked me to the stairs without commentary.
"Same day next week?" she said at the top of the staircase.
"If you'll have me."
"The room's yours." She didn't elaborate.
“I’ve still got some time left today,” I said. “I’m glad I could help the girl.”
Rowena smiled and went back down the hall and I went down the stairs.
***
I was sitting in the chair with an empty room and the last of the daylight when Bjorna came through the front door.
She filled the hallway, her shoulders an inch from each wall, her head ducked to clear the ceiling beam at the threshold. She straightened in the clinic room where the ceiling was higher and stood for a moment, taking in the space, the empty table and the basin and the jar beside the door.
She crossed to the jar and picked it up with one hand, her bare claw-tipped fingers wrapping around the glass. She tilted it and looked through the side. Whatever accounting the enchantment allowed her to do, she did it in two seconds.
"Good day?" she asked.
"A dozen patients, give or take. No emergencies. Mostly old injuries and things people had been living with."
She set the jar down and sat on the edge of the table. The table creaked but held. Her legs hung off the side and her boots rested flat on the floor. She sat with the easy posture of a woman who has been big her whole life and stopped apologizing for it years ago.
"Rowena's girl? She told me about her earlier."
"Healed. Old bruise, deep tissue damage underneath. It was an easy fix."
She nodded. “Most things are easy fixes for you. We’re lucky to have you on our side.” Her dark eyes stayed on me, steady and calm.
The light through the window had gone long and golden. Larg's hammer had stopped. The avenue outside was quieter, the day winding down on one side of the street while the evening picked up on the other.
"Cold Hollow," she said.
"Yeah?"
"Day after tomorrow. First light. The five of us."
"You and me, Sif, Nott, Liv. First run as five."
She looked at me. "You ready?"
"I'm ready."
"Good." She put her hand flat on the table beside her, her claws resting against the wood, and she sat with me in the quiet of the clinic room as the day finished. I sat in the chair and Bjorna sat across from me on the padded edge and neither of us said anything for a while.
"Let's go home," she said.
"Yeah, get the jar and we’ll get out of here."
She was already holding it. She'd picked it up again while I was looking out the window. The corner of her mouth twitched, a motion too small to be a smile but headed in that direction.
We went out through the front door and across the avenue as the sun began to drop behind the mountains completely. Larg's forge was dark and cooling. The plank stairs up the side of the smithy were right where they always were.
Bjorna went up first. The wood flexed under her weight. It was a sound I was getting used to. I followed her up.
Supper was waiting.