"Paste!" I'm already at Brennan—pressing my ear to his chest. Fluid crackling in there. Wet. Wrong. "All of it. Everything we made this morning—"
I stop.
The paste sits on skin and the poison is in their lungs. I cannot smear paste on the inside of someone's—
Think.
Paste binds poison on contact. Skin, wound, surface.The poisoned tissue is inside. I can’t reach inside.
Smoke went in. Something has to follow it.
"Steam." My head snaps up. "Steam. We need steam. Boiling water, the biggest pots we have, and now."
Kestria's already running. Dara is right behind her.
"Move that fire." Pointing. "More wood. Build it hotter. Maren—pots. Every pot, every kettle, every cooking vessel. I need water boiling in thirty seconds or I lose them."
Tarek is the worst by sound—rattling, shallow. I drop next to him. His lips are gray. Spit in the corner of his mouth gone the same color.
"Hold him sitting up." To whoever's closest—turns out to be Axan. "Sitting. Not lying. His lungs need to be up."
Axan hauls him.
"What are you doing?" Keer. Right behind me.
"They inhaled it. Paste won't reach. Steam will." I'm at the first pot Kestria's hauling over—water sloshing, half from the bucket, half on her tunic. "Same route. Smoke went in, steam comes after. Drop it."
I scoop paste into the boiling water. Stir hard with the handle of a knife because I do not have time to find a spoon.
"I need cloth. Big cloth—wool, linen, anything. I'm tenting their heads so they can't escape it."
Dara throws me a hide-blanket. Good enough.
I drag the pot to Tarek. Axan bracing him upright. I throw the blanket over both of them, the pot underneath, Tarek's face over the steam.
"Breathe."
He coughs. Hard. Body seizing—convulsing under the blanket, hands clawing at the wool, gray spit hitting it from the inside. Axan holds him through it. Doesn't let him pull away.
"Keep breathing, Tarek. Through it."
The cough goes on. Gets worse first. Then drier. The wet rattle changes pitch.
He breathes. One clean breath. Another.
I'm already moving. "Next pot. Bring it. NOW—"
Nugget is underfoot. Literally underfoot. I almost go down trying to reach Brennan and she does not move. She never moves. "Nugget. Move."
Brennan. Same protocol. Pot. Blanket. Steam under. Face over.
"Hold him up, Dara. Up means up. His head goes over the pot."
Dara holds him up.
"Breathe."
He breathes. He coughs. He seizes. Gray spit on the inside of the wool.
