Chapter 1 #2
The house settles into darkness around us, with the stove reduced to embers and the upper floor holding the day’s leftover warmth like breath trapped in wool.
I have lit only one lamp to save oil, and its light trembles over the stairwell, making the walls look narrower than they are.
Corin grips the banister with both hands, one foot planted on the third step, the other dragging behind as though his leg no longer believes in him.
“I’m fine,” he says.
“You are on the stairs.”
“Many fine people use stairs.”
“You are sweating through your shirt.”
“Fashion.”
“Corin.”
He takes one more step. His face grays.
I am below him when his strength gives out. He slumps sideways against the wall, and I lunge up, catching him around the waist. His breath punches out against my shoulder.
“All right,” he whispers. “Perhaps the stairs have made a compelling argument.”
“You mule-headed bastard.”
“Love you too.”
I get his arm over my shoulders and drag more than carry him the rest of the way.
Each stair is a battle. His boots knock against the risers.
My thighs burn. My spine screams. His weight is not what it should be, and that frightens me more than the struggle.
He used to be solid, warm, impossible to move when he planted himself in my way and refused to let me storm out into danger.
Now I haul him like something already half-stolen.
By the time I get him into bed, my breath is ragged and his lips are colorless. I pull the blanket over him, tuck it around his sides, and reach for the cup of bloodroot infusion on the table.
His hand closes around my wrist.
“Sable.”
“Drink.”
“Do not beg demons for me.”
I do not move.
His fingers are fever-warm. “Promise me.”
The room feels suddenly too small for all the lies I have available.
“You need rest,” I say.
“Promise me.”
I sit on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips, and he watches my face with the exhausted focus of a man trying to memorize a verdict. I can hear the rain beginning again outside, soft at first, then harder against the roof.
“I won’t,” I say.
The lie tastes like metal.
He closes his eyes, either because he believes me or because he wants to. I do not know which mercy is crueler.
By morning, I have sold my mother’s earrings, the silver clasp from my winter cloak, two sets of carving tools, the copper-bottomed pan, and half our stored herbs.
The city takes each piece of me with greedy fingers and gives back too little coin.
Pawnmen squint. Herbalists haggle. A woman with painted lips and a Dark Elf patron’s mark on her throat tells me the earrings are unfashionable, as if grief needs better taste.
I do not slap her. This is my great act of restraint.
By noon, I am in the under-stair room of an apothecary whose shop front sells lavender soap and cough syrup while the back reeks of rotwine, grave salt, boiled feathers, and illegal hope.
Shelves crowd the walls from floor to ceiling, packed with jars that glow faintly, twitch occasionally, or whisper when I pass.
The apothecary herself is a narrow woman with hennaed fingertips and a cataract over one eye.
“Magical wasting,” she says after I pay enough to make her interested.
“Yes.”
“Heart-bound?”
“Yes.”
“Human?”
“Yes.”
She exhales through her nose. “That is ugly business.”
“I did not come here for poetry.”
“No, you came for a miracle with street coin.”
“I came for a name.”
Her good eye studies me. “Names cost more than herbs.”
I put the rest of my coins on the counter.
She does not touch them at once. “You understand that some cures are only traps with better manners.”
“I understand my brother is dying.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It is to me.”
She looks at me for a long moment, then sweeps the coins into her palm. “There is a man who is not a man near the docks. He wears a hood stitched with red thread. He brokers introductions where temples fear to breathe.”
“Infernal?”
“Do not say that word loudly in my shop.”
“Where?”
“Warehouse Nine, beyond the fishmongers’ lane. Look for ward-burns on the doorframe. If the marks are cold, leave. If they smoke, knock twice and put blood on the wood.”
My stomach turns. “My blood?”
She gives me a dry smile. “No, dear, the neighbor’s cat.”
I leave before fear can grow legs.
At home, Corin sleeps with one hand curled near his chest. The room is dim, curtains drawn, the air heavy with bloodroot, damp linen, and the bitter smoke of the charm Tovan left burning in a saucer.
I stand beside the bed and listen to him breathe.
Every inhale catches. Every exhale sounds borrowed.
I pack coin into the lining of my cloak.
His eyes open.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
He sees my cloak. He sees the knife at my belt. He sees the little purse of coins I cannot quite hide quickly enough.
“Sable,” he says, and the word is not a plea now. It is grief.
I tie the purse shut. “Go back to sleep.”
“You lied.”
“Yes.”
His mouth trembles, but he does not waste strength pretending surprise. “Please.”
I come to the bed because I cannot leave from across the room. I bend and kiss his forehead. His skin is too hot.
“I am older than you,” I whisper.
“By eleven minutes.”
“Best eleven minutes of my life. Very formative.”
He tries to laugh and winces instead.
I press my cheek to his hair. “You don’t get to ask me to watch you die politely.”
“I am asking you to live.”
“I am.”
“No,” he whispers. “You’re bargaining.”