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“Every house I checked as well,” he said reluctantly. “I did a fair sampling between here and the manor as well as a few streets on the western side of town.”
I swallowed. It was even worse than I’d feared.
“So it’s already made it through the whole town.” My voice quavered with the unspoken words behind the spoken ones. This wasn’t the sort of sickness you just recovered from on your own—not everyone, at least.
Nik’s eyes never left my face, his own expression twisting as anguish filled his eyes. The sight of it leached all the strength from my legs, nearly making my knees buckle.
I knew him well enough to know that anguish wasn’t for the islanders who were strangers to him. It was for me. And seeing his fear brought the stark reality of the coming future into horrifying clarity. The whole town was infected with a mystery illness, and there was only one healer of any strength on the entire island. Me.
People were going to die—possibly lots of people—and my only two options were to watch it happen, or else kill myself trying to stop it.
ChapterTwo
Iswayed in place, and this time Nik didn’t stop himself from reaching for me, steadying my elbow and murmuring meaningless words of comfort. His voice was calm despite the raging fear in his eyes.
“This isn’t your fault, Delphine,” he said once I’d regained my balance.
He wasn’t entirely right, though. I had taken responsibility for these people’s health, but I had been too inexperienced for the task. I should never have canceled all the checkups so recklessly. I had assumed people would come to me if they needed a healer, but I had failed to consider the state of their feelings.
Their leaders—the ones they had been forced to revere since birth—had all died. And most of them hadn’t seen me in person to judge if I was telling the truth when I claimed I wasn’t responsible. None of them had attempted to attack me—not even verbally—and I had taken that as more significant than it actually was. Their passive response to me was only in line with their general passivity—a result of the subjugation forced on them. They could regard me with suspicion and hostility without actively launching an attack. And even to those who didn’t regard me negatively I was still a stranger.
And into this worst possible moment, before we had the chance to get to know each other, disaster had struck. If the first to fall ill had come to me at once, I might have been able to head off the epidemic. But it was far too late for that now.
My assumption about them taking the initiative had been wrong, and now some of them would pay for my mistake with their lives. I should have checked on the town each day instead of allowing myself to be distracted at the manor. I had focused on the haphazard records left by the Constantines, as well as the management of the manor itself, instead of being focused where I should have been—the people of the town.
“If you push yourself too far, it won’t help anyone,” Nik said, the alarm in his voice easy to hear. “Without you, they’ll be in an even worse position.” His expression turned dark. “If anyone is at fault, it’s me. If I had acted more quickly and saved some of the Constantines, you wouldn’t be the only healer now.”
“No.” Strength returned to my voice. His useless self-recriminations highlighted the foolishness of my own negative thoughts. “The blame lies with the Constantines. And even that is beside the point. The important thing is how we’re going to handle the situation in front of us.”
But despite the confidence of my words, I had no idea how to follow them up. How could we possibly handle a disaster of this magnitude?
“Delphine! Delphine!” A high, childish voice made us both turn toward the end of the street.
Two short figures ran toward us, their eyes wide and expressions animated.
“Lumi? Fergus?” I frowned at the brother and sister. “What are you doing here?”
The two were the only non-mesmerized people I had met in the town. Their minds were unfettered because of their mother’s avoidance of the Constantines, but that very caution should have placed them far from here. They had been the ones to tell me about the last fever. On that occasion their mother had fled with them into the jungle at the first sign of spreading illness, thus avoiding infection and the need for healing from the Constantines.
A fresh wave of guilt seized me. Had she failed to flee this time because the Constantines were gone?
“We were looking for you,” Lumi said. “Mother is sick, and we remembered you’re a healer too.”
I winced, but Fergus jumped in.
“But never mind that!”
Lumi gave him a reproving look, but he just shrugged.
“She isn’tthatsick. Not like the Tergins down the street.”
I winced again, but neither child noticed.
“We heard you were here, so we came to find you,” Lumi continued, and once again, Fergus rushed to take over the story.
“We walked past the harbor on our way here, and you’ll never guess what we saw!”
“The harbor?” I asked, sounding slightly dazed. My mind was too full of the epidemic to have room for any other topics.
