Page 210 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

That was my woman, my brave, pragmatic lover. She knew as well as I did what must be done, fears or no.

Wyn began unwinding the bandages of her right hand. I could hear Cirri’s heart racing, the quickness of her breath, and squeezed her gently.

Wyn discarded the piles of white gauze and turned her attention to untying the splints, frowning all the while. She tossed the sticks aside, and we all leaned over to examine Cirri’s hand.

It was slightly paler than the rest of her, because it was silvery-pink with scars. Her nails were thin and new, her knuckles still swollen, and her pinky and ring finger were ever so slightly crooked.

But it was whole, more or less. I looked up at Cirri when she sighed, her eyes brighter than usual.

“Oh, well done, me,” Wyn murmured, gently flexing and prodding. “The scars will never fade, Cirrien dear, nor will the bones be fully straight in some of them. It was simply too much damage to erase. And your fingers will be stiff for some time—you’ll have to exercise them, limber the muscles and loosen the joints. But they will fully heal.”

Cirri made her soft huffing sound, happy laughter spilling out of her. Almost giddily, she offered her other hand to Wyn.

We looked at them side by side when it emerged. Her hands would forever bear the signs of what had happened, but they were complete, painstakingly repaired.

She raised her hands, frowning as she tried to flex them. Her movements were clumsy and stiff, but she had the linebetween her brows—the one she got when she was dead-set on something.

Wyn sighed. “I suppose telling you to take it slow would fall on deaf ears?”

Cirri nodded, spreading her fingers wide.

“Well, don’t cry to me when you’re in terrible pain, then—” Wyn started to say waspishly, but Cirri leaned forward and threw her arms around her, hugging the bloodwitch tight.

Wyn’s scowl wavered, and finally broke. She patted Cirri’s arm. “There, there, dear. All will be well. But do try not to ruin this work. Putting entire hands back together… that took more effort than most of my art.”

Cirri released her and wiped her cheeks on the backs of her stiff hands, still smiling.

“It’s time, then?” I asked, moving aside as Wyn gathered the cast-off wrappings. “You approve?”

“Yes.” Wyn looked at her consideringly. “I’ll expect you to ride in the wagon for most of the way, Cirrien, but yes. The healing has gone well. Let me go collect a few final samples before we leave. I don’t want to have to return to this benighted dungheap of misery.”

She left us, and I helped Cirri out of bed, cautious of her hands. We dressed, and she used her own fingers to carefully lift her bag over her shoulder.

My lover took my arm, standing in front of me.

She frowned, and slowly, carefully said,I did not leave on my own.

“I know,” I said gently, inwardly wincing at her sluggish, pained movements. “You don’t have to—”

She shook her head.Listen to me. Artist could… imitate. He wrote a letter. I did not.

Artist… she meant Miro, unable to spell names phonetically with her brittle fingers. With the way she was moving, stiff andhealing but determined to say her piece, it was already a struggle to understand.

“Miro wrote it?”

I had realized, almost too late, that Miro was almost certainly the fox in the henhouse. I had rejected the letter she had left me, determined to have her back, and at times, I had wondered if he had forced her to pen it… or if she had written it, and Miro had merely taken advantage of her plans to leave.

Cirri pushed me until I sat on the cot. It creaked alarmingly under my weight, but she stood in front of me, forming her words with deep concentration. Some were difficult to decipher, her fingers too swollen and stiff to move with her usual grace, but she moved slowly enough to follow along.

He imitated my words perfectly, she said.And he used… the girl. Maid.

The maid. Ellena. And I knew instantly what was coming.

He said any writing he saw, he could recreate. He sent letters in her writing, too. And he took me from the castle. He told me what he had written. I would never write such a thing, Bane. I was coming back to you when he took me.

I thought of the letter, the words that had carved out pieces of my heart until there was nothing left in my chest but a hollow cavity, an endless abyss of nothing.

But I had ignored those words, turning on them, choosing to disbelieve them… because deep down, I didn’t truly believe she had meant it. Or written it.

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