Briar watched the flow of her magic, intent. Henna’s power followed the veins between the child’s chest and his head. “How does magic in his blood fix his air?”
“Haven’t you learned any physiology—how the body works?” asked Henna, startled.
Briar scowled at the hint that Rosethorn wasn’t teaching him properly. “I do plants,” he said, “not people.”
Henna shook her head. “I would have thought—never mind,” she added as Briar glared at her. “Veins—blood—carry air from the lungs to the brain. Without air, even for a short time, parts of the brain start to die. It can mean a change as tiny as forgetting how to tie a knot, or it can lead to idiocy, even death. Some who survive the blue pox will live damaged, even crippled.”
The sick boy opened his eyes, staring at Henna. “I’ll be there, Mama,” he whispered. “Don’t let the camels eat me.” He went back to sleep.
“He’s got a chance to survive.” Henna released him and got to her feet. Sighing, she turned her head and neck in a circle, trying to relax stiff muscles. “His family came on hard times just recently, so he’s still healthy at bottom. If we keep his brain whole, he may do all right.”
They had put the man with the cough in a distant corner, away from the old people and the children. Now he sat up, hacking loudly.
“What about him?” asked Briar.
Henna shook her head. “He’s in the last stages of consumption—lung-rot. Catching the blue pox just means he’ll die sooner rather than later.”
“But you could heal him,” protested Briar in a whisper, following her to the cupboards as she hunted for something. “I’ve seen you people do healings. Why aren’t you at it now?”
Henna pulled a basin from the cupboard. “I have the power to heal four of the people in this room completely,” she said, her voice tight. “Old people and children and those already ill, like that man, are the hardest to bring back—I’d have to go to Death’s kingdom to get them. That will drain me for a month or more—that means I’d be useless, bedridden, too weak even to care for the sick without my magic. If healers use themselves up to save a handful, what happens to the sick brought in tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after?” She searched through the medicines on the table, taking a brown glass bottle. “Get a cup.”
Briar obeyed.
As Henna poured liquid from the bottle into the cup, she continued, “A touch of my power given to one person at a time might help fifty to win free of the disease, and leave me with enough magic to fight the blue pox in my own body. I may have to let some die, if they’re too far gone, and keep my power to save others.”
“I’m sorry,” Briar whispered as she thrust the stopper into the bottle.
“So am I,” replied Henna. “It’s the single worst thing about being a healer-mage.” She took the cup and basin to the coughing man.
One of the old people sat up. “Get that oar in the water, ye sluggard,” she cried. “We’re bringin’ home a full boat if we fish till midnight!” She gasped and choked.
Rosethorn was beside her before Briar knew his teacher was awake, thrusting a cloth between the old woman’s teeth. The woman bucked hard, convulsing, and threw Rosethorn off the bed. Briar ran to help.
There was no quiet moment after that. Both the old woman and the boy had seizures all afternoon. When they were quiet, Henna, Rosethorn, and Briar cleaned everyone up and tried to get liquids into them. The man with consumption coughed long and often, fighting to breathe. By sunset he was spitting blood into the basin Henna had brought to him.
Flick dozed lightly at times or blinked at the ceiling. She was still too weak to sit. Briar helped the girl up, desperately trying to get her to drink more.
The thin gray daylight was fading when Briar heard the clank of metal. He dropped the bowl he was scrubbing and looked for the source. Was it the outside door again?
There was the sound of a bolt being drawn: clack. The inner door, the one that opened into Urda’s House, swung open.
Rosethorn and Henna got to their feet. Jokubas Atwater, the mean old man who had told Rosethorn that Urda’s House was not made of money, stood in the open door. “This entire building is now a pest-house,” he said acidly, eyes bitter. “The sick must keep to their own floors, but healers”—he looked around until he found Briar—”and apprentices, you may move freely about the house.”
“We could use another pair of hands,” remarked Henna.
“You’ll get them,” Jokubas said crisply. “My daughter is coming up here now, with ten more sick.”
5
The news that Briar and Rosethorn had been joined by Dedicate Henna was greeted with relief at Discipline Cottage. Everyone went to bed early that night, tired by worry and their own labors. Tris woke sometime after midnight to the sound of rain tapping the thatch overhead. She put on her spectacles, a wool gown, and a shawl, sending her power out. The familiar sense of hot metal in the room across from hers was missing—she frowned, then remembered that Daja was at Frostpine’s, working and sleeping at his forge. With a sigh Tris let her magic seep through the boards and plaster between her and the ground floor. Lark slept heavily, the warmth of her magic lower than Tris had ever felt it. Sandry was in the same shape. They had worked hard, putting their strength into the masks and gloves for Crane and his staff.