Chapter 17: Slow

Torin found me on the shore with a blanket round my shoulders and the old woman packing my ribs with snow.

Hugh had already gone, carrying Cecily to the pack gate on his back, because someone had to.

I told Torin what she had said.

He listened with his hands hanging.

Then he sat down on the stones, quite slowly.

"He's right," Torin said.

"You don't know that."

"I know what's been happening for a month. Every night I get slower."

His breath was coming short.

"Vane stops answering for a whole day. Then he comes up in me hot and goes back down. Tonight he's not coming up."

His eyes were grey, and duller than grey now.

Then his hands began to shake.

I knelt in front of him.

"Get up," I said.

"Isla..."

"I said get up. You are not dying on my beach."

I got my shoulder under his arm.

He was heavy, and every step to the cabin he said my name, low.

I put him on the bed.

I lit the stove, and then I stood over him in the orange light with my hands in fists and my ribs aching.

He lay with his eyes closed. His jaw had gone slack, and he was trembling.

I thought of the doctor in the loft. I thought of Edmund saying, you are the one doing it.

I thought: if I leave him tonight, I am the one who killed him. And if I stay, I am only the medicine.

I did not want to be medicine.

"Torin."

His lashes lifted.

"If I touch you," I said, "I'm not doing it to fix you.

"I'm doing it because I want to. You need to know the difference."

"I know," he said. His voice cracked. "Isla, I know the difference."

"Rule two."

"Ask me."

"I'm asking," I said, and took off my cardigan.

I did it slowly.

I took off the dress after it, and then the rest, and stood naked in front of the stove where he could see everything.

He looked at me with a wonder so plain it hurt.

I undid his shirt one button at a time.

His chest was much too hot under my knuckles.

When I laid my palm flat on it, the shaking eased.

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