Page 127 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

That’s the difference, I realize, even as I say the words. Back in Kahnzoka, if monsters had been tearing the Sixteenth Ward apart, I would have gotten as far away from it as possible. The ward boss didn’t have a responsibility to defend the ward, only to enforce the rules. The only promise I’d made was the promise of pain for those who’d stepped out of line. But here—

“I know,” Meroe says.

“You were the one who wanted to save everyone.” My throat feels thick.

“I know.”

There’s a long silence. Meroe’s hands are clenched tight in her lap, skin stretched across her knuckles.

I let my voice drop. “You have to heal me.”

She blinks. “I can’t.”

“You need me up and fighting. I’ve seen how much Zarun and Karakoa can do, but it’s not enough. Another Melos adept—”

“I can’t.” Meroe looks down at her clenched fists. “I tried healing people before we left, and I couldn’t do it. The power wasn’t there.”

“What happened to Berun wasn’t your fault,” I say. “You told me you couldn’t do it, and I pushed you into it. That’s why it went wrong.”

“You don’t know that,” Meroe says.

“You healed me once.” I touch the line of blue marks across my face.

“Maybe I just got lucky.”

“I’ll bet on that luck again.”

Meroe shakes her head. “If it … goes badly, then we won’t have any way to find the Garden.”

“At the rate we’re losing fighters we’re not going to make it to the Garden.” I’d seen the wounded stumbling back from the head of the column, and the bodies pushed to the sides of the bridge.

“I…” Meroe looks up at me. “You’d trust me to try? After … after everything?”

I nod, wordlessly.

She unclenches her fingers, one by one, and I can hear the joints pop.

Finding privacy in the midst of the tight-packed column isn’t easy, but fortunately Soliton’s twisted architecture provides. The camp sprawls out around a support pylon and its ring-shaped platform, and a spiral staircase wraps around it, leading to more ledges above and below. Meroe helps me negotiate the staircase down an agonizing couple of turns until we reach another, smaller platform, thickly overgrown with mushrooms and mold. Meroe tells Thora to wait at the top and not let anyone bother us.

“There could be crabs down here, you realize,” Meroe says, as we take the steps one at a time.

“I’ll handle them,” I manage, between gasps. It’s a joke, because I can barely support my own weight.

Finally, we reach the ledge. There are no crabs visible, just a thick carpet of spongy gray-green mushrooms broken by towering spires of larger growths. Meroe helps me sit, and the fungus makes for a surprisingly comfortable surface. The noise of the camp above us is a distant buzz, and a little bit of lantern light outlines the platform and the bridges leading off from it. In every other direction, there are only the distant motes of the Center’s colored lights.

“Okay.” I’m sitting across from Meroe, suddenly uncertain. The last time she did this, I was unconscious. “What should I do?”

“Lie down, I guess.” Meroe tugs nervously at her hair. “You might pass out.”

I lie down. “Do I need to undo these bandages?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t need to see the injury. I can … feel it, I guess? It’s hard to explain.” She takes a deep breath. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

I nod, quickly and decisively, trying not to betray the roil in my gut. Sitting by my side, ready to lay her hands on my skin, is a ghulwitch. Foul, unclean, the incarnation of filth.

And if she gets it wrong, I’ll end up like Berun, bloating and bursting and screaming the whole time.

But she won’t get it wrong.