Page 64 of Hemlock & Silver

“Is she…?”

Javier didn’t have to finish the sentence. I was already on my knees, holding the mirror under Snow’s nose.

Several ages of the earth passed, and then it fogged. I sat back on my heels and exhaled. “Not yet. Help me get her onto a bed.” I looked around the bedchamber that belonged to a dead queen. Everything lay under dustcovers, like the ghosts of furniture. “Maybe not here.”

Aaron happened to be coming up the hallway at just that moment, intent on his flirtation with Eloise. They were both treated to the queen’s door being kicked open and Javier emerging with the princess in his arms.

“You found her!” Eloise said. “But what happened?”

“Shit,” said Aaron, taking in the way Snow’s head lolled over Javier’s arm. “Is she…?”

“Not yet,” I repeated. “Get Rinald. Now. ”

Aaron spun on his heel and ran down the staircase. Eloise darted ahead, flung open a door, and said, “This one’s being aired.”

The room was a duplicate of mine, down to the enormous mirror.

There were more dustcovers, but the mattress was covered in sprigs of lavender.

Javier laid Snow down in a cloud of fragrance.

The off-white canvas mattress cover was darker than her skin and made her look even paler by comparison.

If you were a poetic soul, maybe you’d say she looked like a princess in an enchanted slumber. To me, she mostly just looked dead.

“What can I do?” Eloise asked.

“Get some water,” I said. I didn’t know that I was going to need any water, but it’s the task I always order family members to do.

Eloise nodded. Her hair, perhaps aware of the solemnity of the occasion, was hiding behind her neck. “Do you need a sheet torn into strips?”

I stared at her, baffled. “What?”

“Birthing,” murmured Javier in my ear.

“Oh!” Blessed Saint Adder, of course. Most people were used to healing involving a lot of blood. “No, it’s not that kind of thing. Just water.”

She fled. Javier looked at me. “What do you need?”

“I don’t know yet.” I curled my fingers around Snow’s wrist, trying to feel a pulse, but there was nothing. Not that it meant anything. Finding a wrist pulse in children can be nearly impossible. I tried her throat and then finally just rested my ear against her chest.

When Rinald arrived, panting from the run, that was the pose he found me in. He put his hands on his knees, doubling over, and managed to gasp out, “Is she…?”

“Not yet,” I said. Saints, maybe Grayling was right about humans. We did all ask the same questions. “Listen.”

He took my place, his ear against Snow’s chest. I knew what he was hearing—terrifying silence, finally broken by a thump, then another long silence.

“Saint Sheep’s shit,” Rinald growled. “Uh—begging your pardon, Healer—”

“No, that about sums it up.” I rubbed my face. “She took a massive dose of the poison. The smaller dose causes intense vomiting, but this…”

“No convulsions,” said Rinald, sitting up. He lifted one arm and let it drop. “No stiffness.”

I nodded. “It’s not arsenic. I still don’t know the exact nature of the compound.” I was already digging through my bag. “We’ll start by inducing vomiting. Then we’ll see if we can get some charcoal in her.”

Eloise arrived with water, and I took it with heartfelt thanks and set to work.

Forty-five minutes later, Snow still wasn’t dead, but we’d acquired an audience.

Aaron stationed himself at the door. The only person who came through was Lady Sorrel, who, for a wonder, did not ask if she was dead.

She looked the situation over and asked, “Is there anything the house can provide that will make your lives easier right now?”

“A stiff drink,” muttered Rinald.

Lady Sorrel turned her head and barked an order.

Rinald flushed. “Didn’t actually mean…”

“I am told that brandy is medicinal,” Sorrel said calmly. “Anything else?”

I shook my head. “Eloise, are you tired yet?”

The maid, who had been tirelessly cleaning up the mess left by our treatment, shook her head. “I’m here for the long haul, Healer.”

I felt an unexpected pang of gratitude. I barely knew Eloise, beyond the fact that she was very good at what she did, but she was familiar where most of the staff was not. I needed that familiarity right now. “Thank you. Javier?”

He shook his head.

Sorrel nodded. “Inform me if there is anything else that can be done. And now I shall get out of your way.” She swept out again. The thought came to me in passing that she would probably enjoy the company of the Sorrel in the mirror.

Snow wasn’t dead, but she was cold. We’d piled blankets around her but had to leave her chest free so that we could track her heartbeat.

I didn’t know how much it was helping. I didn’t know how much anything was helping.

We’d managed to get the remains of the apples from her system and put charcoal in at both ends, with no notable change.

I was starting to suspect that this wasn’t actually from the poison so much as it was from the effort required to push the Mirror Queen through the mirror.

I had slept for hours after failing to bring a bird the size of my thumb through the silver.

It was hardly surprising that someone the size of the Mirror Queen would induce a coma.

Charcoal wasn’t going to help with that.

Rinald had come to a similar conclusion, even without knowing about the mirror. “Almost reminds me of a laudanum overdose,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “Only thing to do is wait and see if she wakes up.”

“Laudanum overdose,” I said blankly.

“Saw it a few times,” Rinald said. And then, very quietly, so that only the four of us could hear, he added, “It’s not a bad way to go. She’s not in any pain.”

“Laudanum,” I said again. A thought, terrible in its possibility, had come to me. It hung suspended in the middle of my mind, fearful and glorious as a god. “Presents almost like lotus smoke…”

Javier met my eyes.

“Do I dare?” I asked him. “It almost never works. It could kill her.”

“Is she dying now?” Javier asked.

Rinald sighed. The sun was setting outside, and the shadows were deepening all the worry lines on the horse leech’s face. For a moment I could see how he would look when he was old. “Yeah,” he said. “She probably is.”

Javier’s eyes never left my face. “Do it,” he said.

That was what I needed to hear. I might have stood and dithered all night otherwise. Eloise went around lighting more lamps, and I went to my bag and pulled out the vial of chime-adder venom.

My hands knew what they were doing. I let them do it. The rest of me prayed as intensely as I had ever prayed in my life. Blessed Saint Adder, Coiled One, let me save this one life. This girl is dying because she killed a great evil. Please.

Down at the root, it was the same prayer I prayed over all my patients, addicts and princesses alike. Please let this work.

“What is that?” Rinald asked.

“Distilled chime-adder venom,” I said. “It strengthens the heart. Hold her head for me.”

Snow was so small that it was hard to get the tube into her nose at all. Rinald helped and didn’t argue. I suppose he’d dosed horses the same way. I took a deep breath, put my mouth over the end, and blew.

Was there a reaction? The faintest twitch? Was I seeing things just because I wanted to see them?

“Now what?” Rinald asked.

“Now we wait,” I said. My voice shook a little, and Javier gripped my shoulder and I wanted to lean into him and cry because this was it, the very last throw of the dice, and I was staking everything on something I’d concocted, something that no other physician had ever prescribed.

Harkelion had never written a word about it.

If it failed—and it almost always failed—how would I explain it to the king?

Javier tugged gently on my shoulder and I turned and he put his arms around me.

It nearly undid me. I pressed my face against the hollow of his throat and thought, Finally, a hug that counts.

I almost laughed at that, but I was on the fine edge of hysteria, and I knew if I started to laugh, I wouldn’t stop.

I stood in the circle of Javier’s arms for what felt like a long time. His chest was warm and solid and hard-muscled. As long as neither of us moved, maybe time would stop passing and Snow wouldn’t die and I wouldn’t have killed her.

Rinald cleared his throat, and Javier released me. Reluctantly, I thought, or maybe that was only the hope talking. The stupid, treacherous hope. It’s the hope that wrecks you.

“Is she…?” I asked, because Grayling had been right about almost everything.

Rinald shook his head. “Not yet. In fact, listen.”

I laid my head down on Snow’s chest.

Silence, and then… a beat. And another one, with less time between them. Still not very strong, but closer together.

I sat up. Was that the faintest flush on Snow’s cheeks?

It might not mean anything. It could be the last rally before she dies. Don’t hope. Don’t hope.

Eloise reached out and took my hand. Her fingers were warm. Mine were cold and sweaty, I’m sure. Before I could apologize, she had a warm towel and was wiping my fingers clean, as calmly as if I were an end table that something had spilled on.

“Thank you,” I said hoarsely. “You’d be a good nurse.”

“I’d hate it,” she said.

“Not as much as I hate being a healer right now.”

Rinald gave a choking laugh at that. Eloise smiled, and her hair ate the towel.

Rinald and I took turns listening to Snow’s heartbeat. Poison doctor and horse leech. I would not have traded him for all the physicians in Four Saints.

I don’t know how long it took—not that long, I think, even if it felt like hours. Rinald straightened and nodded to me. The sound under my ear was stronger, faster, almost normal. I bit my lip. Don’t hope. Don’t hope.

“I think it’s working,” Rinald said.

“Shit. I was trying not to hope.”

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered, and rubbed his knuckles over Snow’s sternum. Javier winced. It’s extremely painful. It also works. I reached out and clutched Javier’s hand.

Snow’s eyelids fluttered and she moaned.

The cheer that all four of us let out was as hoarse and croaking as toad song. Aaron jerked upright from where he leaned against the doorframe. “Is she…?”

I peeled back one of Snow’s eyelids, and her pupil contracted. She moaned again, and one hand came up a little way off the bed.

“She’s alive,” I said.

Aaron let out a whoop, charged into the room, picked Eloise up, and spun her around. She laughed delightedly and flung her arms around his neck.

“Blessed Saint Adder—” I began, and then Javier kissed me.

It was a good kiss. It was warm and solid, and then I think he realized what he was doing and started to pull away, so I opened my mouth and wedged a foot between his, fully intending to trip him and follow him down to the floor if needed.

At that point, he got the message and slid his hand up the back of my neck, under my braid, and things proceeded quite nicely until the sound of Aaron braying like a hyena intruded into our awareness and we pulled apart.

“Ah,” I said, wiping my mouth.

“Uh,” Javier said.

Aaron slapped us both on the back, which staggered me a bit.

“We shouldn’t celebrate too soon,” I said, in a fine case of closing the door after the horses had burned down the rest of the barn. “This might not last.”

Rinald gave me wry look. Aaron tried to look sheepish and failed. Javier grunted.

“You lot should go to bed,” Rinald said. “It’s late.”

“It’s just as late for you as for me,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t drag Snow back from hell by the heel. Or wherever you found her.” He gave me another look, this one much too thoughtful. I had a suspicion that Rinald and I would have to have a long talk in the near future.

I started to protest, but a jaw-cracking yawn stole most of it. “Right,” I said. “You’ll wake me if anything changes?”

“You’ll know as soon as I do.”

If I was a good healer, I’d probably refuse to leave my patient. But I’m not a good healer, I’m a good problem solver, and the problem with Snow attached was as close to being solved as I could get. I left Rinald to it.

Javier followed me into my room without either of us even thinking about it.

We’d spent the last week in such close quarters that it was almost a reflex now.

Except that when I turned around and looked at him, he looked back, and there was something in his eyes like a distant flame, and suddenly it didn’t seem like reflex anymore.

I was suddenly intensely aware of the bed. That it existed. That it was right there, behind me. That it was big enough for two people.

That I was so goddamn tired that if the Saint of Rabbits had appeared and blessed us both with libido beyond human comprehension, I still couldn’t have done a damn thing about it.

I opened my mouth to say something and lost it to another massive yawn. Javier grunted.

“Hold on,” I demanded. “Was that a preemptive grunt?”

He grunted again, but there was a definite smile lurking at the edges of his mouth.

“So,” I said. “ Now what do we do?”

“Oh Saints, not that again!”

I snickered.

Javier ran a hand over the top of his head.

“I… uh. That is…” He glanced toward the bed, then quickly away, as if the sight had burned him.

“I don’t want to go back to the barracks,” he said.

“In case something changes with Snow. Or the Mirror Queen isn’t really dead.

Or those mirror-gelds come pouring through the mirror, demanding payment.

Or something I haven’t thought of goes wrong.

” He squared his shoulders. “I should. Uh. Go bed down in another room, maybe.”

“You could stay here,” I said.

He met my eyes and held them. “I could.”

I thought long and hard about Isobel telling me to be tactful. But Isobel was what she was, and I was what I was, and if thirty-odd years and a lot of poison hadn’t changed that, I might as well embrace it. Tact is overrated anyway. And if I started being tactful now, he’d probably die of shock.

“I’m exhausted,” I said. “And I’m going to fall asleep standing up in a minute. But I wouldn’t mind falling asleep in the same bed as you.”

I expected a grunt, but instead I got a smile. A surprisingly shy smile for a man carrying a sword.

“Yeah,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind that either.”