Chapter 14: What the Healer Said

He stood just inside the door and waited to be told where to put himself.

"Sit," I said, and pointed to the chair by the window.

He sat.

I stayed on my feet, because what I had to say needed me standing.

"You want to know why I look at you differently," I said. "I'll tell you. And you won't believe it."

"Try me."

"I died, healer."

He did not laugh.

"I was burned in the capital square after the next Festival, in front of the whole kingdom."

"By whom?"

"By everyone. It was my stepsister's doing, her wine and her tears. All five of you were dead by then."

"Dead how?"

"Wolfsbane in the Festival cups. The six cups she poured."

His face did not move, but his hands closed on his knees.

"I woke in the temple at the moment you all knelt," I said. "That's why I laughed."

"I thought you had gone mad."

"I thought so too, for about a minute."

He was quiet for a long time.

"And what did I do in that life?" he asked. "Say it plainly."

"Three days before the Festival, I found six vials in the infirmary."

"The tincture."

"I didn't know what it was."

"But you asked."

"I carried one to your surgery and asked what it was for."

"What did I say?"

I made myself say it in his own voice, flat and kind.

"You said Dahlia ordered a tonic for the Festival table.

"You said I was overwrought, and I should go and lie down.

"You said jealous wives find poison in honey."

The room was very still.

"You were the only one who knew what that bottle was," I said.

"You could have tasted one drop. You could have stopped the wine."

"And you told me to go to bed."

"I don't remember that."

"No. It never happened for you."

"It happened for you," he said.

He said it softly, with no defense in it.

"Then I said it," he said. "I believe you. It's exactly what I would have said."

"That's the worst part."

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