Page 43 of Her Orc Healer

She just gave me that maddeningly smug look, waiting.

I exhaled sharply, hands curling into fists before I forced them loose again. The truth was, if I didn’t go, I wouldn’t hear the end of it. Not from Brindle, not from Maeve, and certainly not from my own thoughts, which were already looping around his absence like a snake eating its own tail.

And maybe—just maybe—part of me wanted to go.

Just to see.

Just to confirm that he was fine.

Just to tell him he was an absolute ass for making me feel like this.

If I didn’t go, I’d keep inventing reasons not to. And maybe next time, there wouldn’t be a door left to knock on.

I grabbed my cloak with more force than necessary and swung it over my shoulders.

“I’ll be back,” I muttered.

Auntie Brindle smiled into her nettles. “Take all the time you need.”

Maeve waved. “Tell Kazrek I said hi!”

I muttered something unkind under my breath and stepped out into the night.

Kazrek’s clinic wasn’t on the main thoroughfare.

I already knew that.

The last time I was here, I’d barely been standing. I remembered the doorway in a vague, passing way—the rough grain of the wood beneath my palm as I steadied myself, the cool air outside hitting my face as I left. But I hadn’t really looked. I hadn’t taken in the narrow alley, the way the stones here were older, cracked, as if the city had forgotten this part of itself.

Now, I was seeing it properly.

Tucked away, quiet. No polished signs like the guild healers had—just a weathered plaque with KAZREK, HEALER carved deep into the wood. And beneath it, a scrap of parchment, scrawled in thick, bold ink:

CLOSED.

I stopped short, my breath puffing out in the cool night air.

A part of me wanted to take this as a sign and turn back before I made a fool of myself. But another, louder part—the part that had been stewing in frustration all day—wasn’t leaving without answers.

I raised my fist and knocked.

The alley was quiet, the distant hum of Everwood’s nightlife too far off to be of any use. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting—maybe the usual sound of movement, the steady shuffle of a man who always seemed to be doing something. But the stillness behind the door felt… wrong.

I knocked again, harder this time.

Still nothing.

I was about to knock a third time when I caught it—the faintest flicker of light slipping through the cracks in the shutters. A slow shift of movement inside.

“Kazrek?”

The latch clicked, and the door cracked open just enough for warm, lantern-lit air to spill out.

Then, Kazrek was there.

And he looked… awful.

His usual precision was gone. The warrior’s tail at the nape of his neck had come loose, dark strands falling over his forehead. His dark eyes, always sharp, were clouded with exhaustion, his skin damp with fever sweat. The deep green of his skin looked duller in the dim light, the rough edges of old scars standing out against it.