Chapter 21: Bess Sits Up

Toby dragged Delaney into the kitchen by the elbow so I could hear her.

She was tied at the wrists, with grass in her hair and a split lip, and she was still smiling.

"It won't close," she said. "Will it?"

I put down the basin.

"What did you do?"

"My father cut his silver rounds with aconite. He kept a box of them for his enemies." She tilted her head. "I gave the rogues the last of them."

She smiled wider.

"The old healer would have known the cure. But she's dead, and her granddaughter has only a tin of letters."

Toby's hand tightened on her arm.

"What is the cure?" I said.

"I'd tell you," said Delaney. "But I'd rather watch."

I crossed the floor and slapped her across the face.

The crack rang off the walls. My palm stung for a full minute.

"That's for the thermos," I said. "Take her out of my house, Toby. Put her in the Elder's cell and put two wolves on the door."

"With pleasure."

Delaney looked at me, wide-eyed and almost astonished, as he pulled her away.

Then the kitchen was quiet.

Gideon lay on the table, grey and shining with sweat.

The black lines had not grown, but they had not shrunk, either.

I pressed my hands to his shoulder and the warmth ran into him again.

The wound drank it and stayed open.

I had nothing left.

"Maeve," said a dry voice from the doorway.

Bess stood there in her nightgown and coat with a kettle in one hand and a bundle in the other.

"I heard the shot from across the road," she said. "I'm too old to run, so I walked."

"She says it's aconite. I don't know the cure."

"Your grandmother did."

"She's not here."

"No," Bess said. "But I am, and she told me once over a bottle of rye, because she said somebody ought to know."

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