Chapter 18: The Cure

"Not a bowl," Lenora said, before I could answer.

She spoke fast, afraid I would say no.

"I'm not asking you for your blood.

"I'm asking you to come to my room and let me give something back."

Ronan stood at my shoulder.

He had said nothing, and he had not moved.

"Go," he said quietly. "I'll come with you."

The footmen carried her up the east stair in the chair.

The bridal chamber was as I had left it, except that the mirror had been turned to face the wall.

Lenora asked the footmen to leave.

Then she reached under the mattress with her thin hand and drew out a bundle of brown cloth.

It was heavier than it looked.

She unwrapped it on the bed.

Inside lay a white splinter of bone as long as my hand, hollow at the heart, with a point as fine as a needle.

It had a thin dark stain along one edge.

I felt the scar under my ribs go hot.

"I picked it up when you fell," Lenora said. "It broke off in the wound.

"I didn't know what it was.

"When the Prince thanked me, I was holding it, and I thought, if I hide this, nobody can say it wasn't me."

She swallowed.

"I kept it for three years under the mattress.

"Every night I felt it hum.

"I think it was asking me to give it back."

Ronan had gone very still.

He reached out and took the splinter in two fingers.

"My father's," he said.

The bone flared white in his hand, and the mark under my ribs flared with it.

He did not drop it.

He closed his fist, and when he opened it again, the splinter had gone dull and grey, an ordinary bit of old bone.

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