Page 69 of Silver and Lead (October Daye #19)

I withdrew my arm, looking at my healed thumb with measurable pleasure. “Things are getting back to normal?”

“Seem to be,” he said, adding a few pinches of something to the vial and swirling it like a sommelier trying to determine the vintage of a glass of wine. He chanted as he swirled, the smell of ice and yarrow lighting up the air.

A thin band of black formed at the bottom of the vial, leaving the majority of its contents bright and red and arterial. Walther nodded, looking satisfied, and held the vial up for the rest of us to see.

“There’s still some iron in your system, Toby, but it’s no worse than you’d get after a visit to a place with lots of 1860s architecture. I recommend a trip to see Jin and get it properly flushed out.” He lowered the vial. “For all intents and purposes, you’re fine.”

Relief washed through me, cold and bright and refreshing. I looked down at the baby. “And her…?”

“I did a blood test as soon as she stopped crying, and Tybalt agreed to let me take a few drops from her foot,” said Walther.

Tybalt narrowed his eyes at the reminder that he’d allowed Walther to cut his daughter.

“No perceptible iron poisoning. She healed almost before I could take the knife away. She’s totally fine. ”

“She’s perfect,” I corrected, looking down at her squished little face again. “She’s going to need to eat soon, and that’s going to be a problem—if there’s any iron still in my system, I shouldn’t be breastfeeding, and I never got the hang of that with Gillian, anyway.”

“Then we should be going,” said Tybalt. He leaned over, carefully taking the baby from my arms. I managed, barely, not to snatch her back as he stood, pulling her to his chest. Instead, I turned to Walther, holding out my right arm.

He smiled indulgently and plucked the crossbow bolt out of the bend of my elbow, causing more blood to well to the surface. This time, it stopped quickly, the skin sealing in its wake, and I relaxed a little more.

“All right,” he said, turning to Quentin. “May, can I get a little help here?”

“On it,” said May, moving to stand beside him. He handed her a strip of gauze and a wad of what looked like raw wool, muttering instructions I didn’t need to hear.

When he pulled the crossbow bolt out of Quentin’s arm, May was ready, pressing the wool against the wound. It began to turn red almost immediately, catching the blood before it could be fully spilled, and May wrapped the gauze around his arm, pinning the wool in place.

“Can you stand?” asked Walther.

He was talking to Quentin—of course he was talking to Quentin—but it was a good question. I pushed myself to my feet, tensing against the expectation of pain.

There wasn’t any. For the first time in weeks, there wasn’t any. My sheet-dress was stiff with dried blood, and I was sure it looked like something out of a horror movie. I reached down to feel my midriff, still ginger, and found nothing there that hurt. The damage had already been undone.

The pile of fabric where I’d been lying was like something out of a slaughterhouse. Even a Bannick couldn’t have gotten those tapestries clean again. I nudged the mess with the toe of my foot. “Can we burn this?” I asked. “I don’t like leaving this much of my blood around for people to find.”

“Anyone who wanted to use it for magical purposes would get a nasty surprise when they encountered the iron,” said Walther. “You’d need a really good alchemist to separate the blood and iron after they’ve dried.”

“Does Altair have access to a really good alchemist?” I asked.

Walther looked unsure. “She has money,” he said finally. “She could probably hire one who doesn’t know why she’s not a safe employer.”

“Then I ask again, can we burn this?”

Walther looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what kind of ventilation we’ve got in here,” he said. “We could suffocate ourselves. And without access to the Shadow Roads, that would mean all of us.”

I grimaced, glancing to Tybalt and the infant in his arms. Not being pregnant and dying of iron poisoning was nice. Needing to worry about the safety of our child outside the comforting buffer of my body was less so.

Quentin staggered to his feet, wobbling. May hurried to relieve Tybalt of the baby, holding her with ease, and Tybalt moved to scoop my unsteady squire off his feet. Quentin started to protest, then relaxed against Tybalt, letting himself be carried.

“Did you see anything that looked like a way out of this place when you were looking around?” I asked. “I was pretty out of it while you were searching.”

“Only you would call a raging case of iron poisoning ‘pretty out of it,’” said Tybalt, with a sigh.

“Still.”

“No,” said May. “We didn’t search the whole place—there wasn’t time, and we had other priorities to worry about—but we didn’t see anything that looked like an exit, or even a door.”

Somewhere in the shelves ahead of us, Madden yelped.

The sound was distinctly canine, even though I knew he was still on two feet: he had to be, or he wouldn’t have been walking.

Without a word, we collectively started walking, heading for the sound, leaving both my mess and Walther’s alchemical supplies behind.

Really, it shouldn’t have been a shock when we came around a tall oak shelf to find Madden standing next to Janet, who was holding a scabbard in one hand and a long kitchen knife in the other.

The knife was a dull, poisonous gray, and she had the edge of it pressed against Madden’s throat.

He was watching her with wide, terrified eyes, the whites showing all the way around his irises.

She smiled at the sight of us. “There’s my granddaughter,” she said, in an almost jovial tone. “I found your dog, October. Time to make a trade.”

“Trade?” I asked, feigning confusion.

“Yes. Give me my baby.”