Give the Dark My Love(66)

“We need rats. Or some other small animal that will fit in here,” I said, lifting out my golden crucible.

My mother gasped. She had never seen that much gold before.

“We don’t have any traps,” Ernesta said. “The Sens had a litter of kittens, and they’ve been in our stable . . .”

“A kitten then,” I said, not thinking about how horrible it would be. “Go. Now.”

Ernesta turned on her heel and ran outside.

“What can I do?” Mama asked, her voice empty, small, tired. Weak. She stood up, the broken glass wrapped in the wet dish towel.

I crossed the room and wrapped her in a hug.

“It’s too late, isn’t it?” she whispered into my hair.

I held her tighter.



* * *



? ? ?

Ernesta was gone for so long that I had time to set up the crucible, mix a tonic, and feed it to Papa before she returned. I could hear her and Mama whispering outside Papa’s room, but I couldn’t make out their words.

“Finally,” I said.

“I couldn’t find any.”

I looked up at my sister. “I even went into town. No rats. No kittens. I couldn’t find anything.”

I growled in frustration. Papa hadn’t slipped into the coma-like sleep of a late-stage victim. He didn’t moan, but I could tell he was in pain.

“Fine,” I said, nodding my head, my decision made. I held Papa’s hand in one of mine and gripped the edge of the empty crucible. I muttered the runes, and they glowed dimly in the dark room.

Ernesta watched in silence. She didn’t know how alchemy worked; she was never interested in the old textbooks I’d get from Papa’s stacks of books. She didn’t know what I was about to do.

Pain flowed from my father’s body, through me, and swirled into the base of the crucible. I frowned, concentrating. With no vessel to take the pain, there was only one other place for it to go.

Into me.

I gritted my teeth, tugging at the pain. Its presence in the crucible felt like rain falling gently, but when I directed it back into myself, it burned like acid, white-hot heat spreading through my veins, seeping into my bones. Agony soaked into me, lingering on my skin, tearing through my joints.

I gagged, choking for air, and Ernesta made a move toward me, but I shook my head. I couldn’t let her touch me; I couldn’t risk breaking contact. I had to take all the pain, and I had to do it now before I lost my nerve.

My breath came out in rattling gasps, and I forced my mind to focus, my body to accept. Pulling the pain from Papa’s body was like pulling water from a river by pinching it between my fingers.

Black spots dotted my vision, and I collapsed.



* * *



? ? ?

I woke up in the chair I’d placed beside Papa’s bed, the crucible in my lap.

“I couldn’t move you,” Ernesta said. She’d pulled up another chair beside me.

“Papa?” I asked.

“He’s sleeping.” Her voice was low.

I tried to stand, and my back seized with pain. I collapsed back into the chair. Pins and needles prickled through my flesh, burning in agony.

“You pushed too hard,” Ernesta said.

“I had to do something.”

She helped me stand up, and we walked gingerly down the hall. She tried to take my crucible from me as she helped me into bed, but I couldn’t relax my grip; my fingers were frozen like claws. I curled up around the warm metal and fell asleep.

When I woke, it was dark, but according to the clock on my wall, only a few hours had passed. I let go of the crucible. The pain was fading from me, which meant it must be re-emerging for Papa.

It was so dark in the hallway I almost couldn’t see. Mama had a fire going in the hearth in the front room. It was stifling hot, the orange glow of the flames casting eerie shadows around the room.

“Has he woken?” I asked.

Mama shook her head. “How are you?”

I tried to shrug, but even that movement hurt, so I sat down in a chair by the door. “Why’d you light a fire? It’s too hot.” Even though it was winter, the weather was mild and warm, unusually so.

Ernesta started to answer, but Mama caught her eye and she fell silent.

“We should open a window,” I said. I started to move, but Ernesta jumped up, pushing me gently back into the seat.

“No point,” she said.

I turned to the window, and realization hit me as forcibly as the stench from the death cart: It wasn’t dark outside—the windows were covered in heavy black cloth.

We’d been quarantined.





FORTY-ONE


    Nedra



“They can’t keep us here,” I said, jumping up despite the pain and moving to the door.

The second I opened it, a rock slammed into the doorframe. Another soared past my shoulder, smashing into a vase on the table behind me, and a third rock hit me in the chest so hard that I took a step back into the room. Ernesta got up and slammed the door shut.

“They can’t do this to us!” I said.

“Elder Gryff saw me calling for the kittens,” Ernesta said. “When I went out. He caught me. I tried to lie, but he guessed the truth. They came while you were asleep.”