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Once I settled on the plush cushion with Charlotte in front of me, Raphael was at my back. Just as well. I didn’t need to look at him while the healer examined me.

“I’m bleeding. But I wasn’t cut.” Confusion shaded my voice. In all my time at Greymere, nothing like that had happened, and I’d endured far worse than the past weeks of training.

“How old are you, dear?”

“Twenty years.” At least, I didn’t think my birthday had passed yet.Why did it matter?

“And how are you feeling?” she asked.

It was so strange to have someone ask that. I didn’t want to appear weak. “I’m bleeding,” I repeated. “But I’m doing alright.”Kind of.

“The truth, dove,” Raphael interrupted.

I winced.

“I need to know how you’re doing to best help you, dear,” Charlotte assured me. “Do you know what your monthly cycle is?”

The words stirred some memories of my mother talking with her lady’s maids, but nothing specific. I shook my head.

Charlotte explained in short, factual sentences what a monthly cycle was, and the fact it apparently happened every month or so to mortals from a young age.

I wanted to vomit all over again. “Every month? But this has never happened to me before.”

She pursed her lips as she studied me. “It’s… unusual, to say the least, for one of your age to have not yet had a cycle.”

“She didn’t have it because she was malnourished for the entirety of her adolescence,” Raphael interrupted. “I’d wager this is the first time in her life she’s properly eaten.”

“It’s best if the patient answers, Your Majesty.” It wasn’t quite a rebuke, but something like it. Charlotte focused her attention solely on me.

“I… it wasn’t possible to eat much these past years.” Another cramp seized my stomach. Raphael’s hand was immediately on my shoulder, gently pressing, distracting me from the pain.

“So how are you feeling now?” she asked again.

“Terrible, to be honest. My stomach hurts like someone is twisting a knife in it, my head feels like it’s going to float away, my back is sore, and I think I’d vomit again except there’s nothing left in my stomach.”

Charlotte just nodded along. “It’s to be expected, I’m afraid. I can mix you a drink to help abate the symptoms, but the body needs what it needs. I take it you don’t know much about handling your cycle?”

I shook my head once more. The healer launched into extensive details on symptomatology, expectations, and hygiene. By the time she finished, I was almost grateful to Greymere for keeping me so starved it had never happenedbefore. Almost.

The healer mixed up a brew before going, and under her—and Raphael’s—watchful gaze I drained every foul-tasting drop. I’d certainly had worse. Foul-tasting medicine was a novelty, though. When sick as a child, a witch trained in healing magic would tend to me. There was, of course, no such thing in Greymere, but there was no medicine either. The bitter drink felt like a kind of penance, as though because I suffered through the foul taste I would deserve the healing it offered.

The healer departed with promises to check on me tomorrow. Or any time I needed, or wanted to be checked-on—“Even in the middle of the day,” she added, when Raphael didn’t look pleased with her answer.

“You should go to bed,” he said once the door shut.

I was exhausted, but there was no way I could sleep right now. Certainly no way I’d crawl under the bedframe with Raphael here. “Can you send for Amalthea?”

“If you wish. But both the healer and I advise you to rest.”

“Amalthea’s presence will help me rest.”

Raphael chortled. “The last thing Amalthea brings to any room is tranquility.” But he heeded my wishes all the same. He stepped out, summoning a messenger to fetch Amalthea, and stayed, lingering in the doorjamb until the seer arrived.

Amalthea arrived with a basket of gifts. She dismissed Raphael with a wave of her hand and strode into the room, dress billowing around her.

“I have just the thing,” she declared.

“The healer already gave me a brew.”