Ten #2
Healing a body, bringing it back to wholeness, was only music.
Clement shifted to a third above, then a minor third below, then back to the base note, holding it for a few heartbeats longer before they let it die away. Moyna’s magic settled in her arm. Ready.
“Tixerrant?” said Jehan, and Alys—her fingers laid over one of Luisa’s wrists—nodded.
“All right,” said Jehan, and put his own fingers at Luisa’s temples. “Let’s begin.”
It began well. Moyna’s magic and Clement’s were mingled, harmonised, with Estiene’s, and so Moyna felt the work that Estiene was doing as if overhearing a conversation.
The deliberate surge that was rebreaking the bones, and dissolving the old callus—difficult steps, as they were working uphill against the body’s instincts, mimicking a fresh injury that their magic could then coax back toward normal.
That part was tedious, but at least it was downhill.
Moyna held the proper anatomy of a healthy ankle clearly in her mind.
It was always hard to measure time during a healing.
When she began to feel the anaemic tiredness that meant she needed to work harder to hold her magic and her mental image steady, Moyna dared a single look up at the clock above the inner door.
Twenty minutes to go of the hour. She hummed Clement’s note and Clement matched it at once, steadying the flow of Moyna’s magic.
“Fortier,” said Alys, abruptly. “Her heart’s slowing. It’s not irregular, but . . .”
“Marcelle, how much more to go?” Jehan sounded hoarse.
“The bones are done, but I need more time for the tendons and nerves,” said Estiene.
“Slowing further,” said Alys.
Jehan swore. “I can’t pull her up higher. It’ll yank her out entirely. Tixerrant, can you help her heart back to pace?”
“I—” Alys’s voice was shaky. “I don’t know if I can shift direction—”
“Apprice,” said Clement. The soft backwash of their magic into Moyna’s didn’t waver. “If Marcelle and I hold this, can you do it?”
Pacing. Simple enough, for a short while. “Yes,” said Moyna.
“I’m sorry,” said Alys.
“Nothing to worry about,” said Clement. “Apprice, withdraw on the three. Whenever you’re ready.”
That clear, unshakable note again. Estiene hummed along.
Clement’s free hand began to tap a waltz, one two three, and Moyna closed her eyes to concentrate.
Children skipping with two ropes overlapping knew how to do this: to find the rhythm and use it to step in, or out.
Moyna took her magic back within herself, waited for the three, and—out.
Her legs complained as she stood and went to join Alys, whose lovely face was drawn with worry.
Moyna sat and put her hand over Alys’s. It’d be easiest to slide in alongside Alys’s monitoring magic, which felt like a soft woollen thread leading directly to the heart. Oh, yes. Slow and still slowing.
Moyna began her own free-handed tapping, this one the doubled rhythm of a heart contracting at a normal rate, and sent her magic down the thread.
It was a young, healthy heart with nothing wrong with it except for the signals coming through the nervous system and convincing it to go coma-slow.
Moyna nudged it, very carefully. Tap-tap. Just a little faster. And hold there.
Her own breath was coming quickly and there was sweat on her brow by the time Estiene said, “Done,” and pulled away. Jehan said, “Tixerrant, Apprice, you can withdraw,” and Moyna’s magic snapped back to her hands with an unpleasant sting.
Jehan spent another minute carefully drawing Luisa up from the half-drowsing state, and then they all got to their feet.
Jehan looked wobbly himself, but he gave Luisa a hand up, and the girl’s face transformed as her weight sank onto both feet equally.
She stuck the foot out and stared at it.
Faint ridges of rearranged scar tissue still crossed her outer ankle, but the shape of the foot matched the one next to it.
Sometimes Moyna was reminded of how wondrous this must be if you’d never seen it before.
For a time in her early Academie years she had clung to that reminder, that look on people’s faces when they saw or experienced a healing, hoping it would be enough to revive her interest in the only profession that she would ever be allowed to have.
It hadn’t been enough.
Luisa gave a delighted shriek, hopped on the spot, and then burst into loud tears and flung her arms around Estiene’s neck, sobbing thanks in Matorran.
Estiene looked astonished. His terrible personality probably didn’t endear him to many patients.
Luisa crowned it all by picking up her crutch and smashing it against the wall until it splintered. Moyna didn’t blame her.
When the bell rang they all filed out again. It was cooler than yesterday, but still warm. The sweat of effort at Moyna’s hairline was immediately joined by more.
“You’ll be able to publish that array we just did,” Estiene was saying to Jehan.
Jehan looked as if he might be about to say something needling. Instead, he smiled. He did have a very good smile. Estiene twitched as if there were needles in it after all.
“An extra section of my research thesis, just what I wanted to spend the summer doing.”
“You were all so impressive,” said Alys. “I’m sure we’ll get good marks for that one, even though I was even less help than yesterday.”
“No need to go treading on glass about it. You did exactly what your position was supposed to do,” said Jehan.
Clement shot a look at Estiene. Moyna was also ready to say something scathing if he decided to leap down Alys’s throat. Clement said, “We should find somewhere to—”
“Scholar Estiene Marcelle?”
They all turned. It was a different messenger this time, wearing the same green uniform as yesterday’s. Estiene took the letter and broke the seal. Jehan and Alys claimed a shoulder each to stare over while Estiene read.
“Well?” said Moyna, closing her hand on the urge to snatch it and read it herself. “Is it from Ysabel?”
“Yes. Same as mine,” said Jehan. “It outlines how to use my half-under technique while healing an old injury. Her suggestion has the fifth healer in my radial of the array, though.”
“I know this is Jehan’s area,” Estiene read, “but he got the note yesterday when it was diagnostics, which is yours. It’s nice and symmetrical this way.
Don’t pout—pout!” he seethed. He shot a look at the retreating messenger and lowered his voice.
“What about the fact that we’ll be the ones accused of cheating if anyone sees this? Did she think of that?”