Sad business. She made to turn when a shuddered breath left his chest. With a quick glance down at the boy’s still form, she frowned. Well, now she definitely didn’t know what to do with him.
Lux tipped her head to the side, observing his chest rise and fall with shallow breaths. He would probably still die. But judging from his clothing, his family could likely afford to bring him back. Once the appropriate amount of time had passed.
“You idiot boy.” She shook her head at his folly. The rich thought themselves invincible. The youngest of them, even more so. This boy was probably gracing the Light’s gambling dens as they turned a blind eye to his smooth chin due to the coin in his pockets. That coin was certainly no more.
Lux shifted her feet against her bed’s call. She really didn’t feel like slipping through Ghadra’s streets to find a physician in an attempt to save a child that may be dead by the time they arrived.
She huffed a sarcastic laugh as she turned. The few physicians she knew were likely deep in the dens themselves, their minds clouded with drink and whatever else. They would be of no help to her. She told herself she would simply revive him when the family discovered his unfortunate death. She rounded the building’s corner again.
Her breath caught, and she leapt back as a hooded figure, their face obscured in shadow, stood silent before her door.
“Gah! What are you doing perched outside my door like that? Unless you come on business, away with you!”
Her heart returned to its normal rhythm as the figure lowered the hood in response to her demand for answers.
“I should be asking you the same question, Lucena. I would have thought you sleeping after your trying ordeal.” Riselda’s eyes glinted in the moonlight. They shimmered like lifeblood, and Lux flung her hand to her pocket at the reminder.
Still there. Thank fate.
Riselda tracked the movement before her gaze met Lux’s once more. Her eyebrow retreated beneath tendrils of dark hair as she raised it in question.
“There is a boy dying around the corner. Mugged. The shouts woke me.”
Riselda said nothing more, skirting around her instead to validate such claims herself. Lux groaned. Exhaustion had sunk its teeth into her, refusing to let go. She didn’t want to deal with the boy tonight. Covering a yawn, she followed Riselda to the body.
Bending low, Riselda turned his head toward her own with two slender fingers. She tutted. “Nasty head injury. A club or the like. Wretched.” She released him, and his head fell back to its resting place. “Help me get him inside, Lucena.”
Lux’s blood slowed, ice hardening her veins. “I’d rather not.”
“Excuse me?”
Lux bit into sore lips and immediately regretted the action as sharp pain sliced into her.You may as well tell her. “Warm blood, Riselda. It bothers me.”
Her aunt scrutinized her a moment more before she chuckled to herself. “And to think I spent so much time attempting to make you into Ghadra’s next Healer. How wrong I was.” She sighed in resignation. “Grab his feet at the least. That should be a safe distance for you.”
Riselda didn’t wait for her to comply, but instead, grabbed beneath the boy’s arms, lifting his upper body against her own. Not a sound left her lips, even though he would never be described as small. Reluctantly, Lux gripped his boots. Theywere much nicer than her own, and she scowled. If he had died, maybe she could have afforded a new pair.
With one arm around the boy’s chest, Riselda used the other to open the door, and Lux held back a grunt of protest as she carted his legs in after her. Down the stairs, and onto the smooth worktable he went. Riselda lit several dust-coated candlesticks tucked away in a corner before eyeing the shelves in contemplation. Why she didn’t use a lamp was beyond Lux.
“If you don’t need me—”
“Are wyvern claws not hard to come by? I would have thought them more difficult to procure than howlers.” Riselda studied the jar with interest, her finger sifting through them.
A rattled breath wheezed from the body at their backs.
“The north has a population problem, I’m told. They grow docile and fat, spending more time lounging on mountain peaks than taking to the skies and terrorizing villages. Also, they apparently mate like rabbits.” Though that could have been the marsh-grass cigar speaking for the woman from whom the tale came. And it certainly hadn’t brought the price down any.
Riselda huffed a laugh, replacing the lid, and then the jar, back on the shelf. The decanter she selected next had its top removed. “Witch hazel.” She pulled down several jars of various mushrooms and a vase of dried petals Lux had never paid much attention to. With her selection of ingredients displayed before her now, Riselda took to measuring.
“I thought you were no longer healing, Riselda?” Lux watched a drop of blood ooze from within the boy’s ear, splattering onto her table. She grimaced.
The pestle continued to grind petals against the mortar in a rhythmic pattern beneath her aunt’s hand. “I’m no longer Ghadra’s Healer, Lucena. That doesn’t prevent me from using my brilliance when I choose to do so. Besides, he’s just a child.There’s still hope for him. Hope that he won’t turn into a despicable man.”
It must be the exhaustion clouding her mind, allowing Lux’s lips to move so freely. “Did something happen between you and the mayor?”
Her aunt didn’t pause, instead dumping the contents into a small wooden bowl before pouring a generous amount of the witch hazel into the mixture. She laughed, low in her throat, and counted out a handful of mushrooms.
“You believe my view on men to be tainted? Perhaps it is.” She shrugged unapologetically before bending to inhale the concoction. The flowery scent wafted toward Lux, stinging her nose. “Or perhaps, darling girl, you are naïve.”
