Page 70 of Blackwicket
In the small corner cupboard behind the door, I discovered my sister had continued Isolde Blackwicket’s habit of overstocking medical supplies. Balm, iodine, rubbing alcohol, aspirin, adhesive bandages of varying sizes, and rolls of cotton gauze filled the shelves, enough to supply a small hospital. I didn’t want to think about why she needed so much.
When I returned to the parlor, Inspector Harrow was sitting on the piano bench, arms resting on his knees. He reminded me of the boxers who’d exhibited in Devin, an event that Ben had taken me to for reasons beyond my comprehension. But I’d attended, smiled, clapped, and cheered, all the while longing to be home.
He said nothing as I approached to stand behind him, my heart skipping unpleasantly at the sight awaiting me. Mirroring his chest and stomach, his back was a map of brutality.
Scars marred his flesh, accompanied by multiple bruises at varying stages of healing. But none was more vicious than the blue and purple discoloration that spanned his left shoulder. Thegash in its center continued to weep blood. As I suspected, the Inspector had been unable to reach it, and it remained only partially cauterized.
There was something about manipulating living flesh that made magic recoil, rendering even minor repairs to the body highly complicated and requiring a focus that was impossible to achieve when pain was meddling. That Harrow had managed to seal the cut on my chin while enduring this wound was a testament to the concealed virility of his power. As I examined the other marks, I pondered their origins and whether anyone had ever been there to help him mend.
“I’ll have to do this slowly. I’m not practiced in this kind of magic, but a bandage won’t be sufficient on its own,” I said, preparing him for the process.
“You can’t hurt me, Ms. Blackwicket.”
“Yes, I can.” I gently rejected his assurances that he was an inhuman creature who couldn’t feel the ache in his own body.
His head turned a fraction.
I’d never attempted to soothe with magic, and I doubted the Inspector would lower his guard and allow me to try. Keeping my touch as tender as possible, I disinfected the opening with alcohol, hovering my touch above the last two inches of flayed skin. I ushered my magic to act, fusing skin like metal met with a soldering iron. The demand of the effort caused my hand to tremble. The results wouldn’t be pretty.
He remained deathly still, but here and there, he winced, the swell of muscle in his arm twitching. I tried to distract him, opting for questions that might draw his ire, the best of pain medicines.
“You helped dig my sister’s grave. Why?” I asked.
“It cost me nothing.”
“She was Brom.” It was the first time I’d admitted this, accepting it as true.
“She belonged to you. While I don’t believe you’re innocent, I’ve seen enough to conclude you’re not a Brom woman.”
A clenched jaw followed this proclamation as my fingertips swept along the jagged tear, his teeth grinding. Driven by empathy, I rested my free hand upon his right shoulder blade, allowing a small portion of magical energy to flow warm and free. Its purity would serve as an analgesic, softening the misery of this process.
He sucked in a sharp breath as his power responded radically, entwining with mine with a starving urgency.
“Eleanora.” The murmuring of my name was a warning, and I withdrew.
“I’m sorry, I was trying to help with the pain.”
He grunted in response.
When I’d finished wiping the last of the blood, I pressed the gauze into place and began to wrap it. The method required me to stand at the Inspector’s side and tuck my hand beneath his arm, knuckles brushing his ribs. My face was close to his, the smell of his hair still smoky under the clean scent of soap.
He watched me, eyes half-lidded, as I fastened the gauze. We lingered like this, so near one another, and at last I gave in to the deranged urge to graze my thumb across the scar on his cheek.
He caught my hand, neither encouraging me closer nor pushing me away.
“You said a Brom did this to you.” I spoke quietly, confounded by the compassion I’d found in myself.
“He was fighting for his life,” he answered with poorly concealed contempt for the memory. “He lost.”
“You killed him?”
I needed to know, even though I hadn’t been fully honest myself.
“Yes.”
“Have you killed many people, Victor?”
His grip on me contracted ever so slightly, and my pulse picked up pace for too many reasons to name.
