Page 92 of Her Orc Healer

Brindle said something behind me, but it didn’t land. The ringing in my ears had become a hum now—low and steady, like pressure building under my skin.

I carried Maeve downstairs, moving like I was underwater, like every step was slower than it should’ve been. Her weight settled into me, head tucked beneath my chin, breath shallow and uneven. She made a soft sound, not quite a word. A whisper that slipped away before I could catch it.

“It’s alright,” I murmured. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

But I didn’t believe it.

The shop was still dark. The shutters still drawn. I crossed through the front room and into the back, where the desk sat against the wall—my father’s old desk, cluttered with too many drawers and too few answers.

Brindle followed close behind, her wings a nervous flutter. “What are you doing?”

I didn’t answer. Just shifted Maeve against my hip and yanked open the first drawer.

Scraps of paper, a dried inkstone, a broken clasp.

Next drawer—bundles of receipts, a half-empty jar of pigment powder. A spool of wire.

The third stuck. I cursed under my breath, tugged until the wood gave way with a sharp crack. Maeve stirred weakly at the sound. I shushed her and kept digging.

Brindle landed on the edge of the desk, her brow furrowed deep. “She needs time. I can reinforce the rune—give it a stronger anchor. We don’t have to—”

“She doesn’t have time,” I said, too sharp. “We keep saying later. Tomorrow. We keep hoping someone else will fix it—someone with more training, more answers, more… anything.”

I shoved the drawer closed and opened another.

“But no one has,” I said. “Not the Guild. Not Selior. Not Sylwen. All they ever offer are warnings. Wardings. Slowings. Not one of them has given me a way to stop this.”

My fingers closed around the edge of another drawer. I opened it slower this time, bracing for more useless paper, more ink-stained scraps. But there, beneath a folded length of cotton muslin, I saw it. White. Smooth. Cool as bone.

The stone the woman in blue had given me at the Night Market.

I stared at it for a breath too long. Then I picked it up.

Brindle hovered closer. “Rowena—what is that?”

I didn’t answer.

The memory came back too clearly now. The stall at the market. Her slate-gray eyes watching Maeve. That strange, hollow question:Do you bind magic often, ink-maker?

And later, in the alley—the way she'd appeared out of nowhere, the way shadows moved at her feet like they belonged to her.

There are ways to protect her, she’d said.

Not delay. Not dampen. Not "slow the unraveling."

Protect.

She had been the only one to say it plainly. The only one who didn’t flinch from what Maeve was becoming.

I looked down at the stone in my palm. Its surface was cool and unmarred. No glow. No pulse. Just stillness. But it felt alive, somehow—waiting.

Behind me, Brindle landed on the back of a chair, her tone sharpened by alarm. “Rowena, I don’t know what that is, but it reeks of old magic. Not the good kind.”

“She said she could help,” I murmured.

Brindle’s wings snapped open. “And you believed her?”

“I don’t know if I do,” I said, gripping the stone tighter. “But she didn’t offer comfort, or hope. She just looked at me like she knew what I’d do when it came to this.”

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