13. Lucy
Lucy
To brew a tea for honest dreams, steep mugwort in water boiled at the hour you were born. Strain it through your own hair. The truth costs something to drink, or it isn't truth at all.
Iwoke up feeling like a failure. Seeking something I couldn’t find. As if, even in my dreams, my escape eluded me. And I couldn’t stop thinking about silence.
Not the absence of sound. It seemed Luneth Hollow was never truly quiet, always humming with life and magic and the whisper of frozen fog against stone.
This was different. A pocket of peace I couldn’t remember experiencing but knew I had.
It lived somewhere in the gaps of my memory, in the hours I lost between sunset and dawn, and it was driving me slowly insane.
I’d found a letter I’d written to myself this morning.
The handwriting was shaky, but mine. And it said only three words. Remember the silence.
I couldn’t remember writing it, but I knew I had. The note was proof that whatever happened at night might not have been dreams or nightmares or delusions brought on by exhaustion.
Maybe it was real. And I was desperate enough to leave myself cryptic messages rather than clear warnings, which suggested I either couldn’t remember the details long enough to write them down, or something was preventing me from being more specific.
Either option terrified me.
“Emrys!” Tavian’s shout came from somewhere in the belly of the Keep. But there was something frantic about his voice. Something desperate. He shouted again. “Emrys, I need you!”
But Emrys wasn’t here. I’d seen him headed down the path to the city hours ago.
I jerked my door open, already moving toward the stairs.
The hallway was empty except for the echo of Tavian’s voice growing more frantic with each call.
When I rounded the corner to the main hall, I found him standing just outside the doorway to his workroom, a small boy cradled in his arms.
The child couldn’t have been more than seven. Blood matted his dark hair on one side, and his head lolled against Tavian’s chest at an angle that sent ice through my veins. His breathing was shallow but steady. It was the way his body hung limp that froze every inch of my nerves.
“What happened?” I was already crossing to him.
“His name is Finn. He was playing Calix with some older boys. A young scorched has no business…” Tavian’s voice cracked. “He fell from twenty feet up and landed on the ice. I think his spine is broken. Head injury too. I need another set of hands and Emrys is Furies know where.”
“I can help.”
Tavian’s expression shifted from panic to desperate hope. “In here.”
He carried the boy into his workroom, moving with agonizing care.
The table in the center had been cleared, and he laid Finn down on his stomach with the gentleness of someone handling glass.
I took a moment to steady myself as Tavian looked the boy over.
Shelves lined every wall, packed with bottles and jars and bundles of dried plants.
It was so similar to a witch’s apothecary.
But just like the Mistress of Blade’s shop in Grimora, the air smelled like herbs and fear.
A woman burst through the door behind us, her face streaked with tears and dirt. “My baby. Oh gods, my baby, is he breathing? Finn, can you hear me? Finn!”
The boy didn’t respond.
“Elenor, I need you to step back.” Tavian’s voice steadied slightly. “Lucy, I need clean water and all the linen bandages from the cabinet. The one with the blue door. There’s a tincture on the third shelf next to the door with a green warning label. We’re going to need it.”
I moved quickly, finding the supplies and bringing them to the table.
Finn’s breathing remained steady but his stillness was absolute.
My chest tightened watching him. He was so small.
Too small for this. This child had been climbing and laughing with his friends hours ago, and now he lay broken on a table while adults tried desperately to piece him back together.
I looked up and found Tavian watching me. Our eyes met across Finn’s small body, and I saw my own fear reflected back. I could read the healer like a book. He wasn’t sure the boy was going to make it either.
“Finn!” The mother’s scream pitched higher. “Wake up, baby, please wake up. Let me see him, let me—”
She lunged for the table, hands reaching for her son. Tavian caught her by the shoulders, physically holding her back while trying to maintain his grip on his composure. “Elenor please, I need space to work.”
“You don’t understand! I need to touch him, I need to—”
Tavian took a fist to the face as the woman fought against him, but still he remained steady. “Lucy, the bell by the door. Ring it. Now.”
I found the brass bell mounted near the doorframe and rang it hard. The sound cut through the mother’s screaming.
“My son, please, just let me hold his hand.”
“You’re going to hurt him if you touch him right now,” Tavian said, his voice firm but not unkind. “His spine is likely broken. One wrong movement and he…” He took a deep breath and it was clear Tavian didn’t want to speak the next words into existence. “Do you understand, Elenor? He… dies.”
The words seemed to hit her like a punch to the gut. She stopped fighting, going limp in Tavian’s strong arms and she gripped the Life Rune around her own neck as if that would save her son.
The cook appeared in the doorway moments later. I’d rarely seen the woman before now, but she paid me no mind, moving with surprising speed as she wrapped an arm around the sobbing mother. “Come on, love. Let’s get you some tea. Let them work.”
“I can’t leave him.”
“You’re not leaving him. You’re letting our healer do his job.” The cook’s voice was firm but gentle. “Come now.”
The woman’s sobs faded as they descended the stairs.
Tavian traced a finger down Finn’s spine, stopping halfway. “Here. The vertebrae are displaced. If I don’t realign them properly, he’ll never walk again. If I move him wrong...” He didn’t finish.
“What do you need me to do?”
“This isn’t easy work. I’m giving you the chance to walk out of this room. I won’t judge you if you can’t stomach it, but you cannot leave in the middle. If you commit now, you have to stay.”
“I’ve seen more than my own fair share of injuries on the Nexus field. I can help you.”
He nodded, turning back to the boy. “Hold his head. Perfectly still. When I manipulate his spine, his body is going to react even while unconscious. You cannot let his head or neck move. Not even a fraction.”
“Alright.”
“I mean it, Lucy. If his neck shifts while I’m working on his back, I could sever the spinal cord completely. He’ll die.”
I moved to the head of the table, placing my hands on either side of Finn’s face. His skin was cold and clammy. “I’ve got him.” I locked eyes with Tavian. “I promise I won’t let go.”
Tavian’s hands were still shaking as he reached for the tincture. “This will help with the swelling. But the realignment...” He poured it over his hands. “I’ve only done this twice before. Both times with Emrys helping.”
“You saved them?”
“One of them.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “The other... I was too slow. Too careful. By the time I worked up the courage, the swelling had progressed too far.”
“Then don’t be too careful this time.” I met his eyes. “Trust yourself.”
His expression hardened. He positioned his hands on either side of Finn’s spine, then paused. Looked down at the unconscious boy. “I know you can’t hear me, Finn, but I need you to hold on. Your mother is waiting for you downstairs. She needs you to come back to her.”
His thumb brushed across the boy’s shoulder blade.
It was gentle despite the urgency of what came next.
He wasn’t afraid of what he had to do. I could tell in his mannerisms, but each time he looked at the boy, something rattled his expression.
I bet Emrys would have never noticed, but I lived for details.
Tavian cared. Genuinely. It wasn’t the practiced concern of someone performing their duty, but the kind of care that came from seeing every patient as someone’s child, someone’s reason for waking up in the morning.
There were few people I’d ever met who felt as authentic.
“On my count,” he said, “I’m going to apply pressure and shift the bone back into alignment. It has to be fast. He might seize. Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.”
“One.” Tavian’s breathing had gone slow and measured. “Two. Three.” Tavian’s hands moved with sudden force, pushing and twisting. Finn’s body jerked violently, arching off the table, every muscle going rigid.
I held his head locked in place, my fingers digging into his temples, feeling the tremors but refusing to let them move what mattered.
“Come on, come on.” Tavian’s voice was tight. “Just a little more—there!”
The vertebrae shifted with a soft click. Finn’s body went limp again.
Tavian’s hands stayed on the boy’s back, feeling along the spine. “It’s aligned.” His sigh was more than a breath. It was every fear he’d been holding back for the last ten minutes finally escaping. “The swelling will take time, but the bone is back where it should be.”
“Will he walk?”
“If we’re lucky and the damage wasn’t too severe.” He reached for the bandages. “If I didn’t miss anything.”
I started to release my grip, but Tavian shook his head. “Not yet. I need to address the head wound. If there’s bleeding inside the skull...”
He moved to examine the gash on Finn’s scalp, cleaning away blood with gentle efficiency. The wound was deep but seemed clean. “No fracture that I can feel. Concussion, certainly. But the skull is intact.”
He stitched the wound closed. When the last stitch was in place, he finally stepped back. “You can let go now.”
I released Finn’s head slowly, my fingers aching. The boy’s breathing remained steady.
“Now we wait,” Tavian said quietly. “For him to wake up. To see if the spine heals properly. To find out if I was fast enough this time.” The exhaustion in his voice was profound. He walked to the window, bracing his hands against the sill.
I took his side. “You saved him.”
“We saved him. Maybe. If the swelling doesn’t cause damage we can’t see. If infection doesn’t set in. If you hadn’t been here, if Emrys had been where he was supposed to be... I don’t know if I could have done it alone.”
“But I was here. And you did it.”
Tavian finally turned to face me. This was a man who carried the weight of every life in Luneth Hollow on his shoulders, who smiled and spoke in gentle tones and pretended the burden didn’t crush him. Right now, he wasn’t pretending.
“Thank you,” he said simply.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
His hand found my shoulder and squeezed once. “I do. You have steady hands. A cool head under pressure. If you ever want to learn more about healing...” He gestured at the room around us.
“I’ll think about it.”
“We should get his mother.” Tavian’s voice had recovered some of its usual calm.
I nodded and moved to the door, calling down the stairs. The sound of footsteps was immediate. Elenor burst back into the room and collapsed beside the table, her hands finding her son’s hand.
Her voice was so small. “Will he be alright?”
“Time will tell,” Tavian said honestly. “But his spine is aligned and his skull isn’t fractured. Those are good signs. He’s young. Strong. If anyone can heal from this, it’s him.”
She pressed Finn’s hand to her cheek, tears streaming silently. “He and those boys. Always trying to prove themselves to the older ones.”
“He’ll have time to learn better,” Tavian said gently. “For now, he needs rest. And so do you.”
The cook had reappeared with a chair, setting it beside the table without being asked. The mother sank into it, never releasing her son’s hand.
Tavian moved to check Finn’s pulse one more time before nodding and gesturing toward the door.
Once we were in the hallway, the door clicked shut behind us and we took a couple steps away before he paused.
“Healing that boy was one thing, but I’m having trouble with another patient. Care to discuss it?”
“I’m happy to help where I can. I need a purpose. I know that.”
He said nothing, staring at me, waiting patiently.
“Tavian… am I the other patient?”
“I know I don’t get out much these days, Lucette. I’m afraid I’m not setting a good example for you, but if you would. If you’d go down to the city and meet some people, perhaps you could find some peace here. A little bit of that purpose.”
He was right, of course. And I did have a reason to go back down into the city.
Not to make friends, or explore. I didn’t need a new hobby.
But I did need answers, and though the jeweler’s shop had been dark for days, I’d seen his shop glowing from within this morning from my window.
I was confident he was going to be the only one that could give me any answers about this damn necklace.
And after several days away, I could only hope he returned with good news.