Chapter 7: Dead Hands

The herbalist had been right about the thread.

For hours I was not asleep and not awake.

I lay in the cold with one thin thread of my heart still pulling.

I could hear everything, and I could not move anything.

Machines beeped around me, then roared, then went silent and started again.

Something heavy slammed down on my chest.

I felt it only as a thud, a long way off.

The pads hit again.

"Six vials," a man said. "She's taken six vials of the wolf-awakening serum and nothing has moved."

"Again."

"Alpha, the monitor hasn't given us a line in nine hours."

I knew the second voice.

It was low and rough, and it was Eamon's.

Eamon had brought the whole coast's doctors into a tent.

I could feel the lights through my eyelids, white and hot.

I could smell burnt skin, and I knew with distant interest that it was mine.

At last a man spoke close by, and his knees hit the floor.

"Her wolf is gone. There's nothing left to save."

Nobody answered him.

Then a hand touched the corner of my mouth.

It was gentle. It held a warm cloth, and it wiped something dry and dark from my lip.

It was shaking.

"She drank wolfsbane," said another voice, quiet and close.

"Pure wolfsbane. It was in the glass, and it wasn't in your formula. We tested the dregs."

The hand stopped.

I wanted badly to open my eyes, and I could not.

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