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“She’s sayinghealthy and a beautiful, straight scarover and over.”

Luc frowned as he looked up. “That’s all she’s saying?”

“Like a mantra. I do it myself sometimes. Talk to myself as I’m working with patients. Telling them they’re going to pull through.” She shrugged. “Not sure if it works, but it can’t hurt, can it?”

“No.” But Luc rubbed his forearm, where once the skin had been cut open to the bone beneath. Now it was smooth as the day he’d been born.

If this was the result of Ava saying a mantra, then it had worked all too well.

Chapter 18

“Is it my imagination, or has Revek got considerably worse?” Ava glanced over at Luc and Dorea, and Dorea rose up to come crouch beside her.

“His fever is higher. He’s more listless.” The healer felt for the pulse in his neck.

Ava had been aware for a few minutes that he had slipped into unconsciousness, and while that might be best for him, to manage the pain sewing his wound caused, she didn’t like how hot and dry he felt beneath her hands. And how hard it seemed to be for him to breathe.

“There’s something on his cheekbone. Oil of some kind. I can see it glistening in the firelight.” She was sitting directly behind him, with his head and shoulders in her lap, and the gleam of it in the firelight had caught her eye.

She often grew tired when she worked, especially if she worked in magic. The precision needed, and the focus, sapped her energy. But she was already exhausted and she had only sewn half of Revek’s injury. It felt as though something was working against her. Taking the work she was doing to imbue healing into him and dissipating it as fast as she created it.

“What are you saying?” Luc was suddenly crouched on her other side, his gaze on his friend. “That there is something wrong with the oil? Something doing him harm?”

She looked at him carefully. She really was only going on instinct here. Just as she’d been forced into doing in so many other ways. And she wasn’t sure of her ground. “I don’t know, but the way Haslia swiped her thumb across his cheek, and the way he seems to have worsened since . . .”

Luc lifted his head from his friend’s face, met her gaze. “I agree. I thought there was something strange about it at the time.”

“I’ll get a warm, wet cloth.” Dorea strode into the tent and came back in moments, wiping Revek’s cheek. She turned the cloth and wiped again, then, in a sudden, violent move, threw the cloth into the fire.

It flared up for a moment, the water spitting in the intense heat, and then they all saw the flame turn green before it burned away to nothing.

Revek drew in a rattling breath, the deepest one since Haslia had left the tent.

“I think his color is already looking better.” Dorea looked over Ava’s head at Luc.

“I’ll go find Haslia. Find out what she has to say.” Luc got to his feet, his face as grim as Ava had ever seen it.

“Wait.” Ava hoped it would go faster now whatever had been fighting her had gone. “Let me finish, then we can help Dorea get him back on his bed. I’ll go with you to look for Haslia.”

She tugged the thread through, for the first time without resistance, and thought about healing again, and a straight scar.

“You got your orders, boy.” Dorea snorted out a laugh. “And the lady is right. I can’t carry him in on my own.”

Confused, Ava looked up, and saw Luc watching her with a wry expression. “What?”

“Nothing.” He suddenly grinned. “I’ll wait for you.”

She focused on finishing up, tying off the thread and looking over her work critically before she eased back and stood, stretching out her stiff legs.

While she’d been sewing, Luc had found two guards to help carry Revek back inside, so she tidied away her things and was ready when Luc emerged from the tent.

“You look tired.” He stood in front of her, and lifted a hand to cup the back of her neck.

She nodded, unsure whether to tell him about how she felt something had sapped her strength while she worked on Revek.

He waited for a response, and then stepped back and let his hand fall away. “I want you to be able to speak freely to me.”

She thought back to his reaction earlier today. “And I want the same of you.”