Page 101 of A Heart of Bluestone

Eric offers me his hand. His schooled expression is a mask that covers the softness of his eyes. If I look long enough, I will see the pity.

I don’t want to see it, so I rest my wrist on his palm and let him steer me up the staircase, through the clearing trails of sticky wood and a burnt rug.

I don’t look back at them.

But I have little doubt that if I did, they would be watching me. Both Dray and Oliver. I can picture the simmering rage in their glares.

I keep my back to them and leave behind the foyer.

I’m not first to arrive at the infirmary.

Students who were struck by the wave on the upper corridor, they had enough foresight to get themselves to one of these sickbeds before the blisters could even form.

I wasted time on the Snakes—and I don’t regret it.

My weight sags on Eric with each hobbled step closer to the nearest available bed.

He deposits me on the mattress, gentle, and draws back a step. Teacher hat on today, not a fellow student.

I flop onto the bed—and wait.

Eric turns a glance around the sickbeds, as though he assesses the apparent health of the students on them. Some are slumped, others are fussing over their reddened legs and arms, a particularly pretty boy is inspecting his crimson cheek in a handheld mirror. Most of them are without warts.

Got the salves and balms in time.

I am not so lucky.

The witchdoctor advances on me, snapping a pair of large metal scissors menacingly.

My teeth bare in a grimace as, without a word, she pinches the torn and melted fabric of my tights. She starts to cut them off, revealing the sores and the burn-scar ripples of my pale legs. White, branded, hot and angry.

It’s not very pretty and I’m glad that Eric has turned his back to give me some privacy.

He sets my bag down on the sidetable, then wanders over to the other sickbeds, pausing to question other students.

He isn’t wearing his robes today. But when Headmaster Braun called for his assistance, his attendance, he slipped into the role with ease.

It’s an odd thing to see a student also have the part of teacher. There’s an edge to it that whispersmask, mask, mask, as though I am watching him play pretend, and it’s a bit cringe, I think, but I throw the thought from my mind before it can take root.

Eric doesn’t return to my sickbed.

He just casts a look back at me. It lingers a moment, runs down my blistered legs to my red, bleeding feet, then he leaves the infirmary.

I’m glad for it.

I sink into the pillows and brace myself as the witchdoctor sets out jarred balms on the metal trolley.

She massages an ointment into my flesh. The warts and blisters pop under the pressure of her fingertips—and the smell is too close to the bile itself.

A sickly moan hums through me.

I turn my cheek to her, to the green puss that oozes from my sores, and I bury my face in my hooked arms.

It goes on a while. Longer than she tends to the other students, and so I suspect a little favourable treatment here. I don’t doubt that Father has paid her some gold to take extra care of me.

Is there anything money can’t buy?

Freedom.

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