Page 59 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder (The Hemlock Saga #1)

Saga

Saga was pacing back and forth in the surgical waiting room, too antsy to sit like her companion.

She’d put on her coat to keep the rest of the waiting room from staring at the blood splattered across the front of her dress.

She’d removed her shoes an hour into their wait; at hour three, she took the few hairpins that had twisted the sides up and massaged the scalp beneath; and at hour four she gave up on pacing and sat down next to Avery, who had somehow remained rather motionless in her seat.

“I suppose I should take heart in the wait. It means he’s still alive. ”

“That would be the silver lining, yes.” Avery propped her elbows onto her knees and rested her chin on her clasped hands. “They should be able to contact you, you don’t have to wait here.”

“He has no family,” said Saga. “Well, no immediate family, anyway. It doesn’t feel right to leave him here alone.” She leaned her head on Avery’s shoulder.

“He’s not alone, Saga,” Avery reminded her gently.

“I don’t care how great their bedside manner supposedly is, a team of surgeons isn’t the same.” She yawned. “I don’t even know if there’s anyone I could call in this situation…”

Avery sighed deeply. “What are the chances his liver just failed and it has nothing to do with our case?”

“Acute liver failure is a rare occurrence. Current statistics range less than ten cases per million people worldwide, and even then it typically happens over a matter of days, not hours.”

“Extremely slim, then, I would imagine?”

“Slim, but not impossible. For all we know he’s been ignoring symptoms for the past few days. I actually overheard Doctor Campbell chide him about drinking at the funeral.”

“Miss Trygg?” A man in scrubs approached them. “I’m Doctor Iman, they told me you were the one who brought in Mr. Goff?”

Saga sat up, jolting out of her bleariness. “How is he?”

He frowned. “Stable, for now. Do you mind if I ask a few questions?”

Saga pushed herself into a stand. “No, of course, anything I can do to help.”

“Elis has…” Dr. Iman’s eyes widened, seeing the bloodstain on Saga’s dress. “Miss Trygg, are you bleeding?”

Saga frowned. “Oh, no… I’m… It’s his. Hemoptysis.57 Before he passed out.”

The confusion on Dr. Iman’s face was apparent, and Saga clarified without further prompting.

“I just finished my first foundation year through Oxford.”

“And were you and Mr. Goff…intimate?”

Saga shook her head. “Our families were close, but I honestly hadn’t seen him recently until the other day. We were just having dinner to reconnect, but I noticed the symptoms…”

“If you hadn’t acted as quickly as you did, he would have died. He’s on artificial liver support; he won’t be mobile, but it should bridge enough time until a transplant can be found.” He shifted his weight, looking unsure. “Do you happen to know if he had gotten into anything…strange?”

Saga and Avery exchanged a look. This was it. “I know he hasn’t really been himself since his wife passed, but how do you mean?”

“We found foreign objects and substances in his lower abdomen, in place of his liver.”

Saga knew it was imperative she didn’t look like she was expecting this. “W-what foreign objects and substances?”

“We’ll need to run tests, but it looks like some kind of oil and plants. How they got there or how they didn’t cause an infection, I can’t be sure.”

And there it was. She had to keep up the ruse. He could not suspect she knew anything about it. “I don’t understand, are you saying his liver was removed?”

Iman shook his head. “That would be the strangest part. This would have had to be a recent surgery, yet I could find nothing that would suggest he’d been operated on previously.”

Saga bit her lower lip. “Is he going to be all right?”

“He’s on a short list for a transplant, but…”

“But in a case like this, that’s not exactly something you can depend on.

” Saga tapped her fingers on her thigh. “Doctor Iman… He doesn’t really have any family…

I mean, I think a second cousin, or something, but…

” She wasn’t sure how she wanted to finish that sentence.

She couldn’t exactly tell the doctor that Elis’s closest living relative was, as Saoirse had once put it, a human cockroach.

She felt helpless and simultaneously somehow responsible for the situation. “Is there anything I can do for him?”

“If you can tell us anything about what might be going on with him…”

Naturally, he needed the one thing Saga couldn’t surrender.

Even if she did, she’d probably sound crazier than what he’d found in Elis’s body.

“I’m sorry, I wish I knew…” Then she had a thought.

“You might consider reaching out to Doctor Alistair Campbell. I know he wasn’t Elis’s physician, but he was a family friend and attended his mother for years.

He might be able to provide further insight, being so close to the family. ”

The doctor made a note on his clipboard. “I’ll do just that, thank you. And thank you for sticking around. You saved a man’s life tonight. Now it’s up to us.”

“Can we see him?”

“I’m sorry, he needs his rest.” And with no more than that, Doctor Iman vanished again through the surgical doors.

Avery stood up slowly, taking her place next to Saga. She blew air through her lips. “Liver missing.”

Saga shook her head. “What does this mean?”

“Simple. It means we were wrong.”

“I was so certain…is there any way he could have—”

“Removed his own liver? No.”

“It’s a classic murder mystery twist, injure yourself enough that you look like a victim, and throw the detective off the trail. Agatha Christie used it several times.”

“I don’t know who that is,” reminded Avery gently.

“Famous mystery novelist, I think you’d like her.” Perhaps Saga would have to introduce Avery to Inspector Poirot when all of this was over.

Avery shook her head decisively. “Performing healing magic on yourself is hard enough on its own—removing your own liver to replace it with an artificial replacement? Impossible; he’d need help.

No, I think someone else needed his liver—and they needed to believe it would help him and whoever received it. ”

Still, something was bothering Saga. “If you were resurrecting someone and you needed fresh organs, wouldn’t you choose a liver that wasn’t on the brink of failing?”

“Unless it had to be Elis.’” Avery conjectured. “If this is all in the pursuit of resurrecting Eira, then they may need tissue from her bloodline in order to make it work.”

Saga could feel something clicking into place in her mind. “The liver is the largest solid organ, which means it’s rich in blood, and it’s the only organ in the human body able to regenerate.”

“You’ve thought of something.”

Saga turned to face Avery fully. “Back at Rachel’s you mentioned whoever was doing this likely had medical knowledge.”

Avery’s eyes lit up. “You’re thinking it’s Doctor Campbell?”

“When I overheard him and Elis at the funeral—I thought it was just a doctor advising against alcohol poisoning, but…a day later Elis’s liver fails?

That can’t just be a coincidence. If Doctor Campbell did take the liver, even if he didn’t know the new organ’s relationship with the host was a time bomb on its own, he might have been concerned Elis’s excessive drinking could cause problems with the spell…

” Saga frowned, believing her theory less as she spoke it aloud. “I don’t know, does that sound crazy?”

“A doctor willing to do literally anything to save his patient…” Avery was silent a moment before she spoke. “Could they have been working together? Before Elis passed out, he said he gave Valentina that hawthorn amulet.”

“He called it a family heirloom, but I don’t think he fully understood what it was.”

“Well someone in the Goff family line practiced magic at some point. Perhaps Saoirse and Eira had something else to bond over.”

“Even if you’re right,” said Saga with a shake of her head, “she never would have wanted this.” She reached down to grab her heels as they turned to go but stopped at the sight of an unexpected familiar face. “Mr. Bowen?”

The lawyer had stepped through the doors into the surgical waiting room.

He looked tired and disheveled. He turned bleary eyes toward them, blinking a few times before recognition dawned on him.

“Oh, Miss Trygg, I’m here to…” He paused and thought better of his initial manner of answering.

“I’m the emergency contact for one of my clients.

They have no next of kin… What are you doing here? ”

So Elis had someone at least—a hired professional, but it was someone. “Elis and I had a dinner date, but I noticed the symptoms of acute liver failure, and then he collapsed.”

Bowen glanced curiously at Avery, then focused back on Saga. “So you’re the one who got him to the hospital.” He noticed the blood then. “Is he…?”

“Stable,” Saga assured. “Doctor Iman should be able to tell you more.”

Bowen’s expression was pained as he peered toward the door that led to the operating rooms, and then the nurses’ station.

He steeled himself. “It seems the Goff estate owes your family a great debt, Miss Trygg.” He smiled mirthlessly, something more akin to a wince.

“And I believe I still owe you your grandmother’s photographs. ”

“That’s not important right now,” Saga dismissed his guilt reassuringly.

“I appreciate that, but if I don’t do something about it now with you present in my mind, I’m bound to forget again.

” Bowen fumbled, reaching into his inside jacket pocket.

“Here’s my card. I may be preoccupied for a few days, but please do not hesitate to call, and I’ll get that sorted out as soon as possible. ”

Saga took the card thoughtfully. “You wouldn’t happen to have Doctor Campbell’s number as well, would you?”

The question took him off guard and he fumbled to answer. “My office would have it on file, I suppose, why?”

Saga felt Avery’s hand on her elbow—a reminder and a warning to tread carefully. “I was wondering if Doctor Iman shouldn’t reach out to him for insight into Elis’s history—Campbell being the family physician and all.”

“Doctor Campbell was Eira’s personal physician.”

“My mistake,” Saga admitted with an apologetic smile.

Mr. Bowen gave another glance to the nurses’ station. “I should go check on my client.”

“Of course.”

Avery’s hand moved to Saga’s shoulder. “Now that someone is here with his best interest in mind, perhaps we should get home.” She cleared her throat. “And get you cleaned up.”

“Ugh, yeah. Good thing I was wearing black.” She examined the damage done to the fabric by Elis’s blood. And that’s when she noticed something odd. “Huh.”

“Something wrong?”

“It might be the light, but does this blood look like it has a sort of glimmer to you?”

Avery squinted under the fluorescent bulbs. “Glimmer how?”

“Almost iridescent?”

“You’re certain it’s not your dress?”

Saga shook her head. “Very, it’s a matte fabric.”

Avery dug into her pocket and produced the hagstone. She fingered it thoughtfully, flipping it over in her fingers. She glanced around to make sure no one was paying them any attention and donned the hagstone like a monocle. “That’s… fey blood.”

“What?”

Removing the monocle quickly, Avery took Saga by the arm to continue to lead her to the exit.

“It has a sort of self-glamouring quality—can’t be identified by the naked eye.

” She dropped her voice lower. “I am not ready to postulate on type of fey or even how removed from the Otherworld they might be, but there is undoubtedly fey blood in the Goff family line…”

“Are you able to test that kind of thing?”

“Some of it, but I’d need access to a lab.” Avery put her arm around Saga’s shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

Saga smiled gratefully as they walked out of the OR waiting room.

“It’s possible those genetics could be from Eira’s husband’s side…

but…” But it would make more sense if it was Eira.

Everyone always said Eira and Saoirse, though best of friends, were from very different worlds, ran in very different circles.

Could this be why? “The Goff family are pretty famous in British society—if she was fey, would she also be known in those circles?”

“Unless for some reason the family kept their lineage quiet to both sides,” said Avery. “Esteri didn’t recognize the name.”

Saga nodded, trusting that Avery’s friend was some sort of authority on the matter. She clicked her tongue thoughtfully. “If it was from her side of the family… What’s the likelihood of her personal doctor knowing about it?”

Avery sat back on her heels as this question sank in. “Considering it raises the likelihood of a successful resurrection? Very high.”

57 Blood or bloody mucus coughed from your respiratory tract or lungs.

It is as unpleasant as it sounds. Still, isn’t it wonderful a word exists for it specifically?