Chapter 9: Both Hands

By nightfall, Gabe's hands had turned white and stiff to the wrist.

I dragged him into the ooze house myself, because he could not hold on to anything.

[Gabe Gallagher: Frostbite, both hands. Apply steady heat or lose use.]

The words hung over his head where everyone could read them.

He tried to make a joke and failed.

"I used to cook for a living," he said. "Before the driving. That's not good for a cook."

"Sit," I said.

He sat.

Dee looked at the two of us, and at the stew, and at the quiet stranger asleep in a blanket on the plank beside her.

"I am going to check on every single patch on this street," she said. "It'll take me an hour. Possibly two."

She left with the stew pot.

TinyTurnip, who had been hovering, remembered something urgent on the far end of the planks.

That left Gabe, me and the fire.

Outside the glowing wall, I could hear the wind that was not wind.

The cold had a sound at sixty below, a low, steady scrape on the edge of everything.

I knelt in front of him and took his hands.

They were stiff and cold as stone, and they did not bend.

"I'm going to use my talent," I said. "It might hurt. It'll hurt more if I stop."

"Don't stop."

I spent six Ember Points and put my hands around his.

[Hearthfire: warmth infused. This will take a while.]

Heat rushed out of my palms.

His fingers began to twitch.

His breath hissed through his teeth, and I held on.

"That's the blood coming back," I said. "Breathe through it."

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