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“I can do it now,” she says, “while he’s barely awake.”
Corrick’s eyes crack open a fraction and find mine before fluttering shut.
“I’ll do it,” I say. “Do you have a needle?”
I’ve stitched people up a dozen times before, but this is different. I’m so uncertain about the people in this room, and very aware that while Earle and Karri are helping, Lochlan hasn’t left, and I have no idea who might be waiting outside the door. I focus on threading the needle, listening to Corrick’s breathing.
Karri stands beside me, taking the muslin scraps to clean his less serious wounds.
“So he’s the father?” she whispers.
I almost drop the needle. “What?”
She glances at my abdomen and back at my face.
“Oh!” I’d completely forgotten the story I told her and Mistress Solomon. “No. That—no. I’m not pregnant. I was never pregnant.” I tie off the knot in the thread. “He made it look like he was captured and killed. I didn’t know he was the prince. He was always Wes to me.”
“He was always Wes to us, too,” says Earle.
“Well, he was always Cruel Corrick to a lot of people,” says Lochlan.
I look at him. “Shut your mouth or I’ll stitch it closed.”
He doesn’t look impressed. “Go ahead and try, girl.”
“Stop it,” says Karri. She casts a glance at the doorway where Lochlan looms, then presses the damp cloth to Corrick’s cheek, dragging the dirt away from the small cuts there.
“How long have you been working with them?” I say quietly.
She doesn’t look at me. “A few weeks.”
“Karri!”
She shrugs. “After the riots in the square, my parents heard of an opportunity to get enough medicine for our whole family.” She looks over to meet my eyes. “We’ve always had enough to support ourselves, but . . . ?the woman next door broke her leg and couldn’t work. She helped my mother so much when we were growing up. She’s been like a grandmother, really.” She turns back to her work, rinsing the cloth and moving to the rope burns on Corrick’s wrists. “My parents have never been rebels, have never done so much as speak out against the king, and they were too scared to do anything. But I . . . ?you’d clearly been in love with a rebel, and you’re one of the kindest people I know, so I thought I’d try to help. And here I am.”
Her eyes find mine again. “I kept hearing about Wes and Tessa, how they’d disappeared, and everyone thought you’d been captured by the night patrol. You were so upset at Mistress Solomon’s, and I began to wonder if Wes was the man you wouldn’t tell me about.”
“Oh, Karri. I’m sorry. I . . .” I swallow. I would have told her. I should have told her.
“I’m not my parents,” she says. She cleans another wound with such care. “I think it took me a little while to figure that out.” She nods at the needle in my hand. “Do it before he wakes.”
I look back at Corrick. His eyes are closed, and his breathing has slowed.
I don’t want to hurt him.
Karri is watching me. “I can do it,” she says softly.
“No—it’s all right.” I touch my fingers to the wound, pressing the edges together. Corrick doesn’t move, not even when I press the tip of the needle against his skin. I bite my lip and push through, making more blood flow. I loop the thread quickly, tying off a knot that Karri slices with a knife.
“So you’re doing what we were doing?” I say to her as I place the next stitch. “Stealing to give to people who have nothing?” I want to cast a glance at Lochlan. Corrick said he was one of the men raiding shipments. Is that what he is doing, too?
She nods. “Yes. There’s a wealthy man and woman who’ve been providing silver and Moonflower petals to anyone willing to raid the shipments, but they don’t want the medicine. They just want the attacks.”
“Why?”
“They have a grudge against the throne.” She slices through my next thread automatically. “I don’t know who they are. But many people call them the Benefactors.”
“Karri,” says Lochlan, his tone low with warning. “He’s the King’s Justice.”
