"Aye." She lifted the cloth, let the steam disperse, set her fingers back on his wrist. "Better. Lie back." She helped him down, her movements infinitely gentle.
He lay back. His eyes were heavy. The particular heaviness of a body that had spent everything it had on the last forty minutes and was now asking to stop. His lashes fluttered against his cheeks, dark and wet.
"Sleep," she said. "I'll be here." She smoothed the damp hair from his forehead.
She sat on the edge of the bed, kept her hand on his wrist, and watched his chest. Rise. Fall.
The wheeze still present but lighter, the airway open enough, the rhythm finding itself again with the slow patience of a body that was, despite everything, still fighting. The peace in the room was brittle, but it was peace.
There. Stay there.
Behind her, Anthony had not moved from the window. He was as still as the stone walls themselves.
She heard his breathing. Faster than usual, shallower, the breathing of a man who had been standing in a room for forty minutes with his hands clenched at his sides and nothing useful to do with them. She could feel the heat radiating from him, a frantic, trapped energy.
She had been aware of him the entire time, the way she was aware of the brazier. A source of heat, present, not touching, at her back. He was an anchor she hadn't asked for, and yet she felt the weight of him.
She did not turn until James's eyes had closed and his chest was moving in the slower rhythm of genuine sleep. She waited until the boy's hand went limp in hers.
Then she turned.
Anthony stood at the window with both hands pressed flat on the sill. His knuckles white, his jaw set, and his eyes on James. He had mud on his boots. He'd come straight from the yard, she guessed, when someone had run to tell him. The raw, jagged edges of his fear were visible in every line of his body.
He had not changed. He had not stopped.
His eyes moved from James to her. The intensity of his gaze was a physical shock, dark and searching.
She stood from the bed carefully, not to disturb the boy, and picked up her satchel. The leather strap felt heavy across her shoulder.
"He's stable," she said. Her voice was low, careful not to break the quiet.
Anthony's jaw moved. "Aye." The word was a choked, hollow sound.
"The episode was severe, but the preparation held. I'll monitor him through the morning." She felt the exhaustion finally beginning to seep into her bones.
She sorted the jars back into their pockets, methodical hands knowing the order without her looking at them.
"I want the room kept warm and quiet. Nay visitors until midday. If the wheeze returns, send for me immediately. Daenae wait, daenae decide it will pass on its own. Send for me." She met his eyes, her gaze a steady, uncompromising command.
"Aye," he said again. He didn't move from the window, his hands still fused to the wood.
She looked at him then.
At the white knuckles on the windowsill. At the line of his jaw. At the particular quality of stillness in him that was not calm. Had never been calm, she understood now, but was what he did instead of falling apart. She saw the cracks in the armor, the depth of the wound he never let anyone see.
Six years of that, she thought. Six years of standing at this window watching that boy breathe. A sudden, sharp wave of empathy nearly undid her.
She picked up her satchel.
"I'll be in the courtyard," she said. She turned and walked out, her feet feeling strangely light.
The rain had started while she was inside. The sky was a uniform, heavy grey, weeping over the stone.
She knew it was raining before she reached the door. Heard it on the stones beyond the entrance, smelled it on the cold air coming through the corridor gap. She pushed through the door, walked into it, and let it hit her. The first touch of it made her gasp.
Cold. Immediate.
The shock of it on her overheated face, on the back of her neck, on her hands that had been working over steam for forty minutes and were still flushed with it. She felt the steam being washed away, replaced by the biting Highland winter.
