Page 88 of The Prison Healer

Kiva was in the middle of brewing herself some yellownut tea, desperate for an energy boost since she was barely able to keep her eyes open. Naari and Jaren were slumped on stools, leaning against the worktable, both of them looking as tired as she felt. But still, they were with her, holding true to Jaren’s promise that she wouldn’t be alone.

“Is it m-morning?”

Kiva looked over to find Tipp pushing himself up in bed. She lowered her infuser and rushed to his bedside, Naari and Jaren right on her heels.

“Not yet,” Kiva answered, pressing her hand to his forehead. She wondered if maybe he was a little cooler than earlier, but that was likely wishful thinking on her part. “How’re you feeling?”

Tipp’s face fell, as if he suddenly remembered where he was and why, and he curled in a little more on himself. “My t-tummy hurts.”

“And your head?” Kiva asked, her fingers still warm from his fevered skin.

“No, just my t-tummy.”

Kiva’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure? It doesn’t hurt here?” She touched the side of his face, near his temple.

Tipp shook his head and repeated, “Just my t-tummy.”

Kiva removed her hand, looking at him closely. All of the other sick prisoners had horrible headaches accompanying their stomach pain, including the new patients who had arrived that day. It was one of the earliest symptoms they experienced, along with their rising temperature.

Reaching for Tipp’s blanket, Kiva pushed it aside and lifted the hem of his tunic, ignoring his weak protest when she raised it enough to expose the flesh of his abdomen.

No rash.

His skin was smooth.

Kiva tucked his blanket back in, offering his arm a quick, comforting squeeze to say she was done, her mind whirling as she sought to put a timeline on what she knew of the sickness. Fever, headaches, and vomiting came first, the rash usually appearing within twenty-four hours. Kiva didn’t know at what point yesterday Tipp had been struck down by the illness, but she’d left early in the morning with Naari. If he’d gone out to the garden shortly afterward, as Olisha had claimed, then he’d already passed the twenty-four-hour mark, even the thirty-six-hour mark and beyond. He should have the rash by now. And he should have had a raging headache since the beginning.

Maybe it was because he was young, the sickness taking longer to flood his system, with the missing symptoms still to come.

And yet Kiva recalled something her father had told her when trying to explain the difference age could play in illnesses.

Children often get it worse,he’d said, brushing his knuckles down her rosy cheek.It comes on you fast and hard, but leaves that way, too. Then you’re up and bouncing around much quicker than us oldies, fully recovered in what feels like the blink of an eye, while we’re still miserable as we wait for the lingering dregs to leave our systems.Winking at her, he’d finished,Cherish the gift of youth while you still have it, little mouse.

If her father was right—and he always was when it came to healing—then Tipp should be considerably worse than he currently was.

Kiva didn’t want to give herself false hope, but ... what if Tippwasn’tsick? Or at least, wasn’t sick with whatever was spreading around the prison? His symptoms were similar, but that was the problem Kiva had faced all along—that the symptoms were so generic they could have been caused by any number of ailments, from viruses to allergies to something as simple as having eaten spoiled food.

There was no way to know for sure, nothing to do except ride it out and see what happened over the next few hours.

And so Kiva sat back down beside him, clutching his hands with hers, and waited.

Four hours later, Tipp’s fever broke.

His stomach stopped hurting.

He asked for some bread.

He wanted to play with the rats.

Kiva wept.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“If you d-don’t go, I’ll push you out the d-d-door myself.”

Kiva pulled a face at Tipp, the young boy standing with his hands on his hips beside the rat pen, staring at her like a disgruntled puppy.

It was three days since she’d found him passed out in the garden. The first day had been hell, with her certain he would soon be heading to the morgue. But after his fever broke late that night, he’d improved dramatically, and it had been a struggle to keep him resting as what remained of the short-term bug he’d caught left his body. The only way she’d managed to keep him in bed was by promising to test the samples she’d collected the day he’d fallen ill, having put them aside to care for him.

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