“Fucking Groundhog Day,” Layla grumbles. “He collapsed near the laundry intake, didn’t even make it to the battle. Shit, Rory. I don’t know how much longer he can carry on.”
Wump—ppp.
That poor kid. “He’s so sick. He needs help.”
Something occurs to me.
I whirl to face François.
He’s standing close to the cage, fastidiously wiping a smear of someone else’s blood off his sleeve with a rag, looking bored.
“You,” I say, my voice trembling with a mix of fury and hope. “You have to heal him.”
François doesn’t even look up. “I am not a vending machine for miracles, Aurora. And I’ve had a very long day.”
“I saw what you did for Tally!” I scream, my hand flying through the bars to grab his lapel. I yank him toward me, ignoring the dangerous flash in his abyssal eyes. “You made the bruises vanish. You brought Taliesin back from the edge, so do it for Imran. Use that green light, or the poison, or whatever the hell it is. Just save him. We all know you have magic.”
François sighs, a long, weary sound that sets my teeth on edge. He gently but firmly detaches my fingers from his coveralls. “You misunderstand the nature of my ‘gifts,’ma petite.”
“Don’t try to bullshit me.”
“Listen,” he says, his voice dropping to a low, icy frequency that vibrates in my bones. “My power is not that of a Healer. I do not carry the ability to undo disease. Iamthe disease. So if I poison someone, I can get the toxin back out of a man’s system if I so choose. That is all.”
I can tell everyone in the cell is amazed Frank just admitted that, but I only care about one thing. “But you can withdraw toxins, so fucking try with Imran. Try. What could it hurt?”
He steps closer, his face inches from mine. “I cannot rewrite a genetic failure or burn away a cancer that is woven into the boy’s very marrow. To my magic, his sickness isn’t an invader; it is him. If I tried to burn it out, I would simply burn him to ash.”
I stare at him, my hand falling away. “So you’re not as powerful as you like to make out.”
“I am powerful,” he murmurs, and for a second, I see a flicker of genuine regret—or perhaps just annoyance at his own limitations—cross his face. “But that does not extend to miracles. I cannot make a dying flower bloom again.”
As François opens the cage, pushing Taliesin inside, the hope that had suddenly exploded in me simply evaporates.
Resting my forehead against the bars, I’m aware Clay and Layla are shuffling off—no doubt going straight back to Imran.
I know they feel endlessly guilty. Imran followed them into a trap because he loved them, and now he’s going to die locked away from his parents, his brother.
“It’s not fair,” I whisper into the gloom. “He’s just a kid.”
Tally’s hand finds mine. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. We understand some things are beyond repair.
Finally, I look at François again. He has everything; status, magic, a future, and he can’t do a damn thing for a boy who has nothing.
“Go away, François,” I croak. “Just go away.”
I don’t hear him leave, but the sudden shift in the air tells me he’s gone. I stay on the floor, listening to Tally’s ragged breathing and the distant cries and shouts of a riot aftermath.
Imran cannot be healed. He cannot be released.
All we can do is try and make his final days beautiful.
Somehow.
???
The next morning I insisted that François let me out. “I’m going to sit with Imran.”
“Why?”
