The Healer (The Witch Hunter 0.5)(5)

“Is your journal full of feelings helping?”

I roll my eyes. “What do you think?”

Fifer smiles. “I guess not. Better than drinking dog urine, though, right?”

“It was fox urine, and I wasn’t supposed to drink it. I was supposed to bathe in it.”

She barks a laugh. “Oh, that’s much better.”

Of all the remedies I researched for melancholia, bathing in fox urine was actually one of the more appealing ones. There was also bloodletting, leeching, anointing my pulse points with snake bile, and eating bone marrow mixed with the sweat of a boar. I don’t even know how you collect boar sweat.

“If you don’t think bathing in fox urine is better, then you’ve never tried to keep a journal.”

She laughs and hugs me again, hard.

“I really am glad to see you.”

“Me too.”

Nicholas comes up behind us then, my father in tow. Immediately, and even before examining him, I know something is wrong. The last time I saw Nicholas was perhaps six months ago. Nine, at most. He came to see Father at our home; I don’t remember what for, I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t paying attention to much of anything then. But I know he didn’t look the way he does now. His posture wasn’t stooped, his dark hair wasn’t streaked with white; his skin, while not youthful, wasn’t blanched gray. He almost looks diluted: a strained form of his usual self.

“Fifer,” he says. “Would you be so good as to show Peter to his room? And take John’s things to his?” It’s unnecessary, this request, as Hastings, Nicholas’s ghost servant, could just as easily do it. But it’s typical patient behavior: He’s getting the others out of the way so he can talk to me alone.

Fifer pulls my bags off my shoulders. Crooks a finger at my father, winks at me, then flounces up the stairs. Father stares a moment, then starts after her. Fifer’s attitude, her mannerisms—they’re so like Jane’s that sometimes it’s like being punched in the gut.

Nicholas extends his hand to me in greeting and I take it. His skin is ice cold.

“Why don’t we adjourn to the sitting room?” he says. “We can speak more comfortably there.”

Off to the side of the entrance hall is an impressive room, spanning the length of the house from front to back. A fire roars inside the large fireplace that takes up half of one wall. Groupings of settees, tables, and chairs line the other. Blue stained glass windows obscure the view out the front window, but the back windows are clear, offering a view to the courtyard. I can just make out a knot garden, the browning shrubs neatly trimmed into the symbol of the Reformists.

“Please, sit.” He leads me to one of the chairs by the fireplace, a great, overstuffed thing in blue velvet, and settles into the one beside it. “How was your trip?”

“Uneventful,” I reply.

Nicholas smiles. “Uneventful almost passes as good these days.” A pause. “Blackwell’s men are expanding their persecution to include all Reformists, even those who do not practice magic. We’re getting reports almost weekly of men and women going missing. From their homes, from their places of work, even from their beds. Without warning.”

I grip the edge of the chair, and my fingers dig into the plush fabric.

“I know it was dangerous for you to come, and I thank you for that,” Nicholas continues. “And I know how busy you are. It was good of you to take time away from your patients to see me.”

“I’m happy to do it,” I say.

Another pause as Nicholas leans back in his chair. He lets out a muffled grunt of discomfort, the smile abruptly leaving his face. He twists around in his seat, his hands—gnarled and thin—gripping the armrests.

He’s not doing what most people do when they see a healer for the first time. He’s not avoiding my gaze, not making excuses for how he feels, not putting on a brave face. People do this because they know they’re ill but they don’t want to hear the truth of it, of how bad off they might be, or how, despite everything I could do for them, it might not be enough.

He’s being honest, which is somehow even worse.

“What has your father told you about why I asked you here?”

“He told me you were having health issues,” I say. “But he didn’t get into much detail.”

Nicholas clasps his hands together, his fingers resting under his chin. “No. I suppose he wouldn’t. He’s a good man, your father. Very loyal.”

I nod.

“I’ve seen a number of healers over several months,” he begins. “They’ve all told me different things, all prescribed me different medicines. I daresay I’ve got enough herbs now to start my own apothecary.” He chuckles then, which gives way to a heavy, rattling cough. “But I’d like to know what you think.”

Nicholas is the most powerful wizard in Anglia. The idea of him wanting my opinion is madness.

I hesitate a moment, then get to my feet and find one of the smaller chairs in the room, pull it directly in front of his, and sit down. Patients don’t like it when you hover over them. I take his hands, feel his palms. Touch my hand to the sides of his neck, behind his ears, his forehead. Make him breathe for me, listen to the way he coughs. Listen to his heartbeat. Look again at his skin. His eyes. His posture. These things don’t lie, even if the patient does.