Page 109 of A House of Cloaks & Daggers

“You,” I groaned.

“No, you said Wren. Wren is injured. What happened to him?”

“Oh, for High Mother’s sake—”

“Wren!” He was shouting. “Wren-lock! Where are you? Wren-lock!”

I almost smothered him with my hand, but I figured his insanity was loud enough to draw attention, and we needed help. “Pleasego to the bed.”

He rolled his eyes but sauntered towards the bed and lay down. Somehow, he remained completely oblivious to the spike sticking out of his stomach. I didn’t want to leave him, but I had to go for help, so I placed one of the washcloths across his forehead and turned towards the door.

Batre was standing there, wide-eyed, and I sagged against the nearest bedpost in relief.

“By the Elements,” she whispered. “He’s been stung by a locust. We need to take out the spike.”

“A locust?” I repeated with uncertainty. “Like a grasshopper?”

She gave me a stern look as she rushed over to the bed. “Not in Faerie, they’re not. That spike is poisoned, and every second it stays in his body, the poisoning is getting worse.”

I swore at the High Mother, at the Elements, at myself.

Batre wasted no time in pulling the spike from Wren’s stomach, immediately applying pressure to the wound with two of the damp cloths I handed to her. His scream almost sent me to my knees—a tortured sound, like the echo of pain I’d heard in my dreams every night for three months—

“We need more,” she told me.

I didn’t move.

His scream.

I’d heard it before.

Where have I heard it before?

“Aura! Towels!”

Batre’s voice startled me back to reality, and I nodded, mumbling an apology as I raced back into the bathroom to wet the remaining washcloths.

When I returned, she was unbuttoning his leather clothing, and he was glaring at her.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” he huffed, lifting a hand to stop her. “I am a person, not some piece of meat for you women to have your way with whensoever you like.”

“Hush,” she hissed, placing his hand back on the bed at his side. “You’ve been poisoned. I need to close the wound before we give you the antidote, or it will bleed straight out of you.”

“I’ve not been poisoned, wench,” he argued.

“Quiet,” I scolded him. “You’re not yourself. You’re unwell.”

His eyes fell upon my face, the golden light slowly leaking out of them. “You. This isyourfault.”

Hurt stabbed through me, but I pushed it away. He was not himself. He was poisoned.

Wren turned his attention back to Batre, who had managed to rip open the buttons of his shirt and peel back the leather to expose his chest and the gaping wound on his side. She covered it with fresh cloths, slowing the bleeding.

“I’ve not been poisoned,” he repeated. He raised a hand, forefinger extended in my general direction. “If Iamunwell, then it isherfault.”

I almost growled at him like some kind of feral animal. Even on the brink of death, he was still such an asshole.

He blinked a few times as he swung his gaze back to me. “I knew this would happen,” he murmured, beginning to slur as his eyes fought to slam shut again. “I’m so in love with you, it’s made me sick.”

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