Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
FITZ
“Iwould appreciate it if you didn’t keep throwing yourself into the jaws of death whenever you had the chance. I don’t think even Henry has enough coffee to keep me going at his rate.”
The words were accompanied by a warm, bubbly feeling flowing through his chest. For the first time in recent memory, Fitz was free of the pounding that had seemed to take up permanent residence in his skull.
He blinked as the world slowly came into focus, this time through both eyes rather than one.
He turned his head in the direction of Darby’s voice.
She was sitting in the green chair, arms and legs splayed out as if she had collapsed into it rather than taken a seat.
Despite the large, dark circles under her eyes, her hair was tied neatly back rather than the frizzy mess it had been in before, and her familiar blue coat was crisp and clean. It was the coat that jogged his memory.
“You were the nurse from the hospital.”
Her jaw worked back and forth for a moment. “Intern. But yes, we did meet there.”
“This isn’t the hospital.”
There wasn’t nearly enough white for that. And rather than alcohol and disinfectant, it smelled like grease and metal.
“It’s not.”
“Where am I?” Fitz’s panic, which had dissipated for a few moments at the foreign sensation of being comfortable, now began rearing its head again. Sharp pain knifed through his heart with every beat.
Darby straightened, and her brow twisted in concentration. “Please stop doing that. You’ll heal faster if you can remain calm.”
The warm, bubbly feeling surged through him again, and he felt his breathing relax.
This isn’t natural.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to help you, but my magic isn’t strong enough to fight against you and speed the healing process along at the same time.
It’s either one or the other. And since healing you is much more beneficial to both of us in the long term, I would appreciate it if you let me focus on that. ” She slumped back into her chair.
“You didn’t answer my question before. Where are we?”
She closed her eyes with a sigh. “My workshop.”
“Your…” His words trailed off as cold realization flooded through Fitz. He lifted his metal arm, which now responded almost readily to his command, and held it out in front of him accusingly. “You? You did this? Why?”
Her eyes popped open, a fire burning in their brilliant green depths. “Because you were going to die and it was the only way to save you.”
His gaze trailed from his arm down to the toe of the metal boot poking out from the edge of the blanket. Revulsion boiled in his stomach. “You should have let me die. I didn’t ask for this.”
The fire in her eyes turned to tears, though Darby kept a stubborn tilt to her chin. “You didn’t ask to be born, either, but most people don’t complain about that.”
His brows rose along with his voice. “And you’re Deus, that you get to decide?”
The stubbornness deflated. “No,” she admitted quietly. “But I saw what you did for your men. I couldn’t just let you die, not without at least trying to save you.”
“You saw? And what do you think you saw?” His heart was pounding again, but Darby seemed to be ready for him this time, and instead of knives all he felt were points of pressure.
“I saw what you were willing to sacrifice, and I saw the men you were willing to sacrifice for. Merry told me what you did, how you saved them. I found them all, Captain. Every single one of your men came through our doors, and every single one of them will walk out, thanks to you.”
Tears of thankfulness blurred his vision. “I was just doing what I was trained to do.”
She met his eyes, her own resolute and unblinking. “And so was I.”
A tapping at the window broke the tension between them that followed. Fitz followed Darby’s gaze as she looked up and sighed at the dark shadow on the other side of the window pane. She pushed herself up from the chair with a stifled groan and pushed the window open.
A black bird hopped through the small opening before landing on the back of the chair, bobbing its head as it spoke, “Sorry I’m late. What do you think you’re doing?”
Darby sank back into the chair, and the bird fluttered down to her knees. She stroked its head. “I’m sorry, Raven. But I wasn’t entirely sure you could be trusted while I was at work.”
“Good Raven.”
“Ha. You’re good when you feel like it. I wasn’t going to risk you deciding you needed to steal one of the Captain’s very shiny screws.”
“It’s mine.”
“It’s not. But here, I found something for you today.” Darby reached into the pocket of her coat and held out her palm, revealing a sparkling piece of blue glass. The bird immediately began pecking at it with its beak, turning it this way and that.
Fitz had the uncomfortable feeling that he was intruding on a private conversation between friends. He cleared his throat. “Does the raven come here often?”
Darby looked up from her feathered companion. “He’s a crow.”
“But…you called him a raven.”
“I called him Raven. That’s his name.”
“You have a crow named Raven?”
“Yes.” She said the word like a question, tilting her head and lifting an eyebrow quizzically.
“Isn’t that rather redundant?”
“No. It would be redundant if he were a crow named Crow.” A smile played at the corners of her mouth, and Fitz suddenly found he wanted to see what it would look like if she let it loose.
“I see.” He didn’t. “And he comes inside? I mean, is he tame?”
“About as tame as a crow can be. It depends on his mood—some days he’s as happy as a lark and on others he’s madder than a wet hen.” Darby pressed her lips together as if holding in a laugh, and her eyes twinkled with mischief.
The conversation was growing absurd, but since it was far preferable to addressing the glinting abomination permanently attached to his body, he leaned into it.
“So he just comes and goes as he pleases?”
She ran one finger along the center of Raven’s head, pushing down feathers that appeared much softer than he would have guessed the brash birds possessed.
“He generally pleases to come more than go, but he usually takes a morning and evening flight to find food and treasure. Raven loves collecting shiny things.” She tapped the bird’s beak, changing her voice to a higher pitch as she addressed him.
“I think it’s why he decided we should be friends in the first place.
You were just jealous of all my screws and bolts, weren’t you? ”
The bird ducked away from her hand. “Good Raven. It’s mine.”
His arm itched, and Fitz absentmindedly reached over to scratch it, then recoiled when his fingers touched cold metal instead of flesh. He cleared his throat to try to mask his reaction. “I didn’t know crows could talk. Can he actually understand you?”
Darby narrowed her eyes at him for a long moment. “It’s normal, you know—the phantom sensations. Your mind is still adjusting.”
Her well-meant reassurance brought the reality of his situation crashing back, and along with it, an uncharacteristic sarcasm. “Yes, I’m sure you know all about it.”
She simply raised an eyebrow at his attitude. “I am a doctor. I’ve studied and performed amputations before.”
Fitz held up his new arm, turning it this way and that.
He still wasn’t sure exactly how it was responding to his mind in almost the same way that his own flesh and blood would, but the ease with which he was able to control the metal gears was nearly as unnerving as seeing it there in the first place. “This isn’t an amputation.”
“True. The powder ball took care of that on its own. You came to me pre-amputated.”
“Which is how you should have left me.”
Darby nudged Raven from her lap and leaned forward onto her knees. Worry lines creased the area between her brows. “You can’t be serious.”
“And why not?” He tried to cross his arms, but gave up after trying to bend and twist the metal proved to be more difficult to master than merely lifting it. He huffed out an exasperated breath. “Surely you could have worked your magic and healed me without turning me into…this.”
“Into what? You’re still a man.”
“Half a man.”
“Just as much as you would have been otherwise. Like I said, I took you the way you came.” She leaned back in her chair and looked down at her hands, blowing out a long breath.
“Look, I’m sorry that I overstepped my bounds, and that I caused you pain.
I should have at least tried to obtain consent.
” She lifted her eyes again, staring him down resolutely.
“But you’re alive now, and I can’t say that I regret that. ”
He allowed the silence to stretch between them as he studied her.
His position as a captain had made it necessary for him to learn to read body language quickly—the shaking of nerves or the steely twitch of a trigger finger could mean the difference between life or death on the battlefield.
The woman before him was a mixture of contradictions.
The stubborn, defiant set of her chin was at odds with the way her hands were clasped nervously in her lap.
Her eyes never strayed from his, but he could see guilt and vulnerability in the slight slant of her shoulders, and the crease of worry that had never fully left her forehead.
She made a hard choice, and she’s sticking to it. I suppose I can’t blame her; I’d probably do something just as drastic myself if it were one of my men. She acted out of a place of care, even if it might have been misplaced.
Well, what’s done is done. There’s nothing to do about it now.
“You might regret it,” he said finally, breaking the silence. “Because now that you’ve saddled me with all this equipment, you have to teach me how to use it, and I’m much more used to giving orders than taking them.”