Chapter 12
The first night, only a dozen of the children showed up to sleep in the loft.
Apple was the first through the door, looking positively gleeful.
The blankets that Griz and Sam had scrounged up were tattered and threadbare but better than nothing.
And to see the kids’ reactions, you’d think I handed them the world.
Hearing them sleeping above where I lay on my mattress comforted me.
Their little whispers and sleep mumbles meant they were safe and warm.
Trey came in, kicking snow off his boots, and I sat up.
In the dim glow of the woodstove, he noticed me and smiled.
I crawled out from under my blanket, shivering, and crossed the room toward him.
“How many kids showed up?” he whispered, glancing up at the loft.
“Only about a dozen.”
“More will come,” he assured me, “once word spreads.”
“I hope so,” I murmured.
He shrugged out of his jacket, hanging it on the hook by the door, and bent to shake the snow out of his wet hair, turning his waves into loose curls. “It’s still coming down out there.”
“Trey?”
He glanced up at me through his damp curls, and my breath caught for a moment at how the firelight reflected in his eyes and played across the planes of his face. He was strikingly handsome. I tried to ignore my feelings for him digging in, taking root somewhere deep in my chest.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice hoarse with emotion.
His smile was so sweet. “You’re welcome, Bones.”
—
More kids did come, slowly, and then, as the weather got even colder, all at once.
Somehow we managed to get every child who showed up a bed or at the very least a pallet on the floor, and they didn’t seem to mind that they were squished into the loft, sleeping on top of each other.
Once people noticed the kids sleeping at the clinic, many of them started bringing extra food and clothing.
Their generosity took me by surprise. I thought of Mist stealing food, and I wondered how many others had been secretly helping.
I’d assumed no one else cared, but the people were proving me wrong.
Leda and baby Jet came by almost every day. Leda had an eye for organizing, and soon the loft upstairs had the semblance of a bedroom. She even got Griz, Sam, and Trey to build some makeshift bunk beds.
“Messengers,” Leda mused one day, Jet perched on her hip, chewing on a wooden teething ring. “That was clever, Bones.”
The praise burned, like I’d stolen something meant for someone else—someone better.
“We’ve been trying to take care of these kids for years. I wish we had a school, but Madame won’t approve a building for one.”
A school was a good idea. I’d learned how to read at the small schoolhouse in our hold, and I would’ve been fucked if I hadn’t. I wasn’t surprised Madame didn’t think it was necessary, though. So long as she had bodies for labor, she didn’t seem to give a shit about the rest.
“Bones?”
I snapped out of my thoughts. Leda stared at me, questioning.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I asked, my face heating.
“I was just sayin’ that Trey seems to be taken with you.” She gave me a sly grin, her teeth flashing white against her brown skin.
I kept my face blank. “He’s working.”
She paused, amusement dancing in her eyes. “Oh, is that all?”
I shrugged, trying to push away the memory of Trey’s arms around me as I fiddled with things on the counter. “I’m with Zip.”
“Yeah, I heard about that.”
I wasn’t brave enough to look at her, but I could hear the disapproval in her voice.
“All I’m sayin’ is, I’ve known Trey since he was in diapers, and I’ve never seen him so focused on someone before.”
“It’s his job,” I said, my voice a little sharper.
Before she could respond, the door opened and Trey strode in, kicking snow from his boots and shaking it from his hat. He smiled at both of us, taking off his jacket before coming over, something in his hand.
“Hey, Leda,” he greeted her. “Thanks for all your help getting the beds situated upstairs.”
“Of course.” Leda smiled, then she glanced at his hand. “Whatcha got there?”
Trey’s ears went pink. “Oh, I made something for Bones.” He placed one of my small glass bottles on the table with a single dandelion flower inside.
As I looked closer, I realized the flower was carved out of wood and painted a cheerful yellow with the stem green.
“Can’t get the real ones now, so I figured this could stand in for ’em during the winter.”
My heart felt impossibly tight and too big all at once. I picked up the little wooden carving, trying my hardest to keep my expression even, but I struggled. When I looked up, both Leda and Trey smiled at me.
“Thank you,” I said, trying to pretend my voice didn’t wobble.
“You’re welcome, Bones,” Trey said.
I knew if I held his gaze I would cry, so I turned and walked over to the mirror, setting the little dandelion carving on the shelf.
It did add a bit of sunshine. I washed my hands as an excuse to hide in the corner a little longer, pulling myself back together.
When I came back to the table, Trey had moved over to his mattress to take his pistol apart and oil it.
He glanced up once and smiled warmly at me before focusing on his gun.
Leda shifted Jet to her other hip and gave me a smug grin.
“Definitely just his job,” she leaned in to whisper to me.
I rolled my eyes.
She laughed, her dark curls bouncing. “I’m heading home. I’ll see you two later.”
Trey gave her a wave. After the door shut behind her, silence fell, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Trey focused on cleaning his gun. The few kids upstairs whispered to one another. A cheerful fire crackled in the woodstove, bathing the spotless clinic in a warm orange light.
The comforting feeling of home hit me straight in the heart.
You know better, Wolf said, but he sounded a little quieter than normal.
It’d been almost two weeks since Madame last summoned me to the dungeon. I could pretend that wasn’t a part of my life. I could pretend that this was my home, where I wanted to be, that Trey—
I shoved those thoughts back down. I didn’t have the luxury of indulging in silly fantasies. Zip would be back soon, and Madame would summon me any day. That was the reality of my life, and pretending anything different would make it hurt worse when it got taken away.
—
The loggers returned a week later; several teams of large horses hauled giant logs.
I didn’t see Zip for a few days still, as they continued to work chopping and distributing the wood.
When someone burst through the door five days after the loggers got back, I assumed it would be Zip, but it wasn’t him.
It was the partner of one of the other loggers, his face panicked.
“Silver’s sick,” he blurted. “Been sick since he got back, but it’s gettin’ worse. Can you come, Bones?”
I nodded, grabbing the med kit I’d put together.
Trey waited outside and immediately took the heavy bag from me as we walked through the snow.
Silver’s partner, Marsh, walked so fast I had to trot to keep up.
The temperature barely changed between outside and inside as we entered the shack, the walls doing almost nothing to keep the cold out.
Silver lay on a pile of furs, his normally tan face pale.
His breathing sounded more like a gurgle.
“Silver?” I asked, crouching next to him with the med bag. “Can you hear me?”
His eyes stayed on the ceiling, unfocused.
“How long has he been like this?” I asked Marsh.
“He wasn’t feelin’ great this morning, but when I came home from workin’, he was like this.”
I took Silver’s vitals with my worn instruments, my dread growing. A person declining that fast meant a serious illness. I placed my hands on Silver’s sweaty shoulders and let my power flow into him.
It felt…off. I continued to channel that warmth into him, but it took a lot more effort than it should have.
Slowly his color came back, and his eyes focused on me.
I kept going until his breathing sounded normal again.
When I let go, my hands trembled, and getting to my feet took an unusual amount of effort.
I’d finished packing up my med kit when Atlas ran through the door.
“Bones, there’s a bunch of people sick,” he said, gasping. “Got at least five people asking you to come.”
Fuck.
Dawn broke before I stumbled back to the clinic.
This sickness was spreading too fast. The kids had been bringing me messages and summonses all day, and I was barely keeping my head above water.
I wanted to keep going, but Trey had threatened to throw me over his shoulder and carry me back if I didn’t take a break to sleep.
“A couple hours of sleep, alright?” Trey said, my kit hefted over his shoulder. “Then you can head back out.”
I nodded, too exhausted to argue.
As we entered the clinic, the sound of labored breathing and rattling coughs reached us, and I darted up the ladder to the loft. A little boy named Cloud met me at the top of the ladder, his eyes huge and scared.
“They were okay at dinner,” he whispered.
I sank beside the closest one, placing my hands on the little boy’s thin shoulders as Trey crouched beside me.
“Are you feeling alright, Cloud?” Trey asked.
“Yeah.” Cloud’s voice trembled. “Am I gonna get sick too?”
“If you get sick, I’ll heal you,” I said. “You’re gonna be okay.”
Cloud nodded, chewing on his lip. The sick boy finally took a breath without wheezing and opened his eyes.
“Miss Bones?” he whimpered.
“It’s just Bones,” I murmured. “You’re okay. You got sick, but I’m healing you.”
Cloud led us to all five of the sick kids, and some of that fear in his eyes melted away as he watched me heal his friends.
“How do you do that?” he whispered at one point.
“I don’t know,” I answered, too tired to come up with anything else. “I just can.”
“I wish I could do that too,” he said, and I had to bite back the urge to tell him that no, he didn’t want this.