Page 77

And the third was the ward behind the door. An arcane ward that slammed into Fern with the force of a physical blow, crushing the air from her chest and sending her flying back. The impact lifted her feet from the ground, she fell past the stone steps and crashed to the floor with barely enough time to throw out her arms.

She landed with a sickening crunch. Pain exploded through her; her vision blurred.

Above, the door was once more closed.

Chapter thirty-six

The Pebble

Fern lay on thefloor in a state of complete shock. The pain in her arm blared like an alarm, deafening, drowning out every thought.

She had been hit by a ward before; it was never pleasant. But this was by far the most powerful ward she’d ever encountered. A ward this powerful could not possibly have been achieved by one person. Multiple people had created it; one person was unlikely to break it, not without a herculean effort.

Fern pulled herself up with a grunt of pain. There was nothing she could do now, not in this state. She would have to do some research on wards, and rest, and return better prepared.

For now, one thing at a time.

First, she must get herself up on her feet. She rolled forward onto her knees, cradling her left arm to her chest. One foot down. Then the other. She stood, teetering unsteadily.

Her back was sore from the tailbone to the neck, but she could stand. Her legs were fine—she could walk.Most of the shock of her fall had been absorbed by her arm, which might be broken. This would need to be dealt with later.

Leaning one shoulder against the wall for support, she set off back to the Mage Tower. Her left arm throbbed, sending shockwaves of pain through her. With each step she took, the waves of pain seemed to reach further up her arm, splashing her shoulders, then further, until her entire left side was throbbing.

Fern paused, squeezing her eyes shut.

What would she do if her arm was broken? Leaving was forbidden; she could not go to East Hemwick to see the town doctor there. Even with the energy Lautric had given her, healing spellcraft was far beyond Fern’s competency level, especially bone spellcraft, which required an intimate knowledge of human anatomy, long and complex incantations, and an enormous reserve of energy.

Fern set off once more, her mind turning to Dr Essouadi.

A broken arm would be nothing to a doctor of her calibre, and Fern wouldn’t have hesitated to ask her for help, had she not just learned Dr Essouadi was ailing herself.

She’d never mentioned it. With her calm manners and her fierce dark eyes, Dr Essouadi projected a sense of absolute mastery, both of herself and her craft. But Edmund had implied Dr Essouadi might be dying, that she’d come to Carthane to find a way to cure her tumour.

The thought of it made the nausea from earlier return, twisting Fern’s stomach. It pained her to think the doctor was unwell—it gutted her to think that she’d failedto notice something was wrong with her. She’d been so absorbed in the candidacy, in her work.

Had Lautric been right after all, when he’d judged her for being coldly ambitious?

Fern could not bear this line of thinking. Her arm was broken. Though it wasn’t a magical injury in itself, how would she explain it away? Citing a clumsy fall would not fool anyone, not when so many strange things were happening in Carthane.

Of course, Dr Essouadi might have questions herself, and Fern would be unable to tell her the truth without taking the risk of Dr Essouadi betraying her secret. The doctor did not strike Fern as duplicitous, but Edmund had made it clear that she had too much to lose by not succeeding.

Fern made her way, slowly and carefully, all the way to Dr Essouadi’s door, but in the end, she could not bring herself to knock.

Dr Essouadi was unwell; she should be reserving her strength and powers for herself, for the assignment. And Fern was already risking too much by sneaking around the passageways, breaking into Saffyn’s office and now, trying to gain access to the Astronomy Tower. Just like Dr Essouadi, Fern, too, had too much to lose.

She turned her back on Dr Essouadi’s door and walked away. In the end, it was not her caution which stayed her, but something else, something deeper and smaller and hard as a pebble.

It was the thought of asking for help.

It rankled; it made Fern uncomfortable, almost shameful. She had always looked after herself before, had she not?Why should she not do so now?

Carthane was the last place where she ought to be weak.

Back in her room,Fern sat on the edge of her bed and got to work. She tried to remove her coat, extricating her right arm from its sleeve, then twisting to remove the left sleeve without disturbing her arm. It was an exercise in futility; she had to move her arm to finally slide the sleeve off.

She barely strangled her cry of pain. Finally, the coat fell back onto her bed. Inkwell, who had been watching her fixedly, jumped onto the bed to curl up on the coat. He blinked at her, and Fern nodded at him, blowing hair out of her face with a sharp exhalation.

She unclipped the dagger from her belt and tossed it on the bed next to Inkwell. Then, with great difficulty, she pulled off her sweater vest. The more she moved her arm, the more it hurt, but she had no choice. She needed to get out of her clothes to inspect the damage.