Page 84 of Bone Year

“A patient, one of hundreds who pass through these wards every year. Some live. Some die. Some lose limbs. The corruption hasn’t reached her core yet, has it?”

I shake my head, unable to speak.

“Then the solution is simple. Cut off the wing before it does. She won’t die and can live a perfectly normal life without it.”

“A perfectly normal—” I choke on the words. “She’s a vampire. Flying is everything to her. You can’t⁠—”

“I can’t?” One eyebrow rises. “I’m not the one who can’t do anything, Miss Rose. You came to me begging for a miracle. I’m giving you the practical solution. The wing is infected, so remove it. The girl survives. This is not complicated.”

“It’s not just about surviving. It’s about⁠—”

“What? Quality of life?” he laughs, completely devoid of warmth. “How touching. How idealistic. How utterly naive.”

My hands are shaking.

“Do you know how many people have stood where you’re standing and begged me to use my blood to save someone they loved?” His dark eyes bore into mine. “Hundreds. Thousands perhaps. Students, professors, nobles, peasants, they all have the same look in their eyes. The same desperate hope and pathetic belief that their person is special, that their tragedy deserves my attention.”

He leans closer, and his voice drops to barely a whisper. “None of them are special. None of their tragedies matter to me. And neither does yours. I’ve watched students like you come through these halls for longer than you can comprehend, bright-eyed little healers who think caring is enough. Some patients cannot be saved. Some wounds cannot be healed. The sooner you learn that, the less time you’ll waste.”

“She’s a child.” My voice breaks. “She wants to fly again.”

“And I want to be left alone.” His smile is thin. “We don’t always get what we want, Miss Rose. That’s the first lesson of being a healer. I suggest you learn it.”

He starts to turn away.

“Why?” I cry out. “Why won’t you help her? It would cost you nothing. A little blood. A few minutes of your time. You have the power to save her and you just...won’t?”

He looks back over his shoulder.

“You’re right. I have the power.” His voice is soft again, almost gentle. “And I choose not to use it. That is my right. My blood, my choice.”

“That’s cruel.”

“That’s survival.” His dark eyes hold mine, and there’s something ancient in them, cold. It makes me want to scream. “The world is full of dying children. I stopped trying to save all of them a very long time ago. The ones who survive are the ones who learn to save themselves.”

He walks away, and I stand frozen in the courtyard, the winter wind cutting through my cloak as I watch him disappear around the corner.

He could save her but won’t.

The question that haunts me as I walk back to find Jace isn’t how I’m going to tell Nella. It’s what kind of person has the power to save a child and chooses not to? And what made him that way?

I almost brought up his deal with Draven. If only I knew more, I could have used it as leverage to get him to help me. Even then, I don’t know if that would have worked.

I find Jace’s room on the third floor of the men’s dormitory.

“Hey.” He’s sprawled across his bed, boots off, a book open on his chest that he clearly wasn’t reading. His face lights up when he sees me, but the smile falters almost immediately. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” I close the door and lean against it. “Long day.”

He doesn’t believe me. I can see it in the furrow of his brow, the way he sets his book aside and sits up slowly, blue eyes tracking my every movement.

“Mae.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I push off the door and cross the homey room with the worn quilt his mother made, the anatomy sketches pinned to the wall with his chicken scratch notes in the margins, the small wooden shelf cluttered with medical texts and a framed drawing of his family’s farm.

I want to crawl inside that warmth and disappear.

My cloak hits the floor. I don’t bother hanging it up. My boots follow, kicked off carelessly, and then I’m climbing onto the bed, climbing onto him, straddling his lap before he can ask any more questions.