The Healer (The Witch Hunter 0.5)(12)

“It’ll only make my job harder once she is strong enough,” Fifer mutters.

I open my eyes and shoot her a look, which she ignores.

“You never answered George’s question. Is she going to die?” Fifer steps closer to the bed, glances down at the girl. I know her name is Elizabeth, but for now I’m doing my best to try to forget it.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think so. But…I don’t know.” She’s still too pale, too thin. I can’t keep her temperature steady; one minute she’s shivering, the next her fever is raging. Half the time she’s restless, the other half she’s so still I’m sure she’s given up, gone ahead and died despite everything I’ve done to stop it.

We go silent for a moment.

“After she was arrested, no one spoke up for her,” George finally says. His voice is unusually quiet. “No one went looking for her. I’ve got my ear to the ground, always, and there wasn’t a single whisper of her name. It was as if she just…disappeared.”

Fifer and I exchange a glance. She knows, as well as I do, how they can do that. Simply make people disappear.

“How do you think she’s going to help us?” Fifer says. “The only thing she’s done so far is to help herself into trouble, and she nearly took Nicholas with her. She seems so…hapless. I mean, look at her.

I’ve done nothing but look at this girl for the past twenty-four hours, but I know what Fifer means. I’ve practically got her features memorized. Heart-shaped face. Pale, clear skin but for those freckles. About two feet of nearly white blond hair. Big, wide-set eyes—I thought I caught a glimpse of blue last night when she attacked me. Father thought she was fourteen; she told him she was sixteen. Either way, she’s just a girl.

“Maybe she knows something,” George offers. “Heard something. You can’t live in the king’s palace, as a maid no less, without overhearing something.”

Fifer considers it. “Maybe,” she says. “But then I got to thinking. About those herbs. The ones George said she was caught with.” She glances at me. “You know what she used them for.”

I nod. Herbs to prevent conception are common enough; I’ve got drawers full of them at the apothecary. My mother always kept them in stock, so now I do, too. Though I’ve never had anyone bold enough to come in and ask me for them.

“Well, that leads me to a theory.” Fifer pauses for dramatic effect. “I think she’s a witch.”

“A witch?” I say.

“Not a chance.” George shakes his head.

“Why not?” Fifer says.

“Not frightened enough,” George says simply. “If she were a witch living in Ravenscourt, surrounded by witch hunters—in disguise, no less—there’s no chance she’d spend her afternoons getting jingled at a tavern. She wouldn’t risk it. I told you, she’s a clever girl. There’s no way she’d be so indiscreet.”

“She wasn’t that indiscreet,” Fifer says. “You said she led you through a secret tunnel into Ravenscourt.”

“Aye, she did that,” George says. “But that doesn’t mean she’s a witch.”

“What about the herbs, then?” Fifer says. “She knew where to find them, she knew what they were. Presumably she was using them. And then she gets jail fever. Most people die from that in, what, days? A week?”

“If that,” I reply.

“She didn’t.” Fifer leans back in her chair and folds her arms, as if resting her case.

“I don’t know if her not dying in a week means anything,” I say. “She could have just been strong.”

“She doesn’t look strong to me,” Fifer counters.

I think of the way she pushed me away when I tried to get her to drink the potion, the way she kicked me halfway across the room, the way she struggled in my arms. The calluses on her slender fingers and hands, the muscles in her arms and legs. Whatever she did at the palace, it was a lot more than just cooking.

“I think George is right,” I say. “I don’t think she’s a witch. If she were, she would have left the palace a long time ago.”

Fifer shrugs. “Maybe she had nowhere else to go. You heard what your father said. She’s been in the kitchen since she was nine. I wonder what happened.”

“I don’t know.” I stand up then, stretching my legs that ache from sitting too long. Walk to the window and look out. “What do Nicholas and my father think?”

Fifer sighs. “Your father thinks she overheard something. Or that maybe whoever she was involved with was somehow involved with the curse. Nicholas is being quiet about it. He doesn’t speculate much, you know. He just says Veda will tell us when it’s time.” A pause. “If you don’t think she’s a witch, then what do you think?”

I turn to face her.

“I think we got the wrong girl,” I say.

“I thought that, too, at first,” Fifer says. “But Veda—”

“I know,” I say. “She’s never wrong. It’s just, this girl…”

I walk back to the bed. Look down at her. At this silly girl who had one bad night where she got too drunk, too careless, and is now near death because of it. When she wakes up—if she wakes up—she’s going to be frightened, confused, and that’s without our telling her she’s the only person who can help the most wanted man in the country.