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His brows pull together. “Say what?”

“Tell me how you feel about me.”

His face seems to come alive with realization, his lips curling into a rakish grin before he becomes solemn once more.

“I love you,” he says. “Before I even understood the term, I loved you. I love your laughter and your bawdy humor. I love your compassion and your vivacity, your fierceness and your loyalty.

“I meant to make you suffer, and look at me now—desperate to keep you in this land.”

The soft look on his face makes my stomach flip.

A gust of blustery wind tears through my clothes, forcing a shiver out of me, and that’s enough to break the spell.

“Let’s get you inside,” Pestilence says.

“Only if you continue to tell me everything you feel,” I say, greedy to hear it all.

“Gladly, dear Sara. There are many, many things I have yet to share. I wish for you to know them all.”

He begins to slide his arms under my body, clearly meaning to carry me.

I put a hand on his chest. “I can stand,” I insist.

Pestilence appears dubious, but backs off.

Gingerly, I swing my legs out over the side of the cart, hissing a little as I do so. Black spots dance at the edge of my vision.

Push through it, Burns.

I force myself to my feet, my body screaming in protest, those black spots spreading.

Wasn’t this bad at the hospital.

Pestilence stands in front of me, all his earlier tenderness gone, a disapproving frown growing on his face.

I take a step towards him and collapse in his arms.

Trying to walkwas a mistake. I see that in hindsight.

Pestilence keeps me bedridden in the (evacuated) mansion while he plays nursemaid. At first I assume the whole situation is a temporary one. But then one day turns into two, then three, then four, then five—six—seven—nine—thirteen … ?

The days tick by as my wound heals, and time begins to bleed together until I can’t remember how long we’ve been here. Long enough for me to discover that Pestilence can be bossy and overprotective, particularly when I try to do anything that remotely resembles living.

“I don’t remember you being like this when you came close to killing me,” I say testily, throwing back my covers on day fifteen? sixteen? Twenty?

“Am I to be punished for caring too much?” Pestilence asks from where he stands next to the bed. “Is that what you’re suggesting?”

Damn him for twisting my words.

“I am not staying in this shitty bed another hour.” It’s really not a shitty bed. Pain and idleness have just made me testy, that’s all.

“By God you are, and if I have to hold you down in it, so help me, Sara, I will.”

Pushy horsemen also make me testy.

“I’m healed!”

“I fight infection off your body even now! You arenot.”