Page 106 of Forest of Dreams and Whispers

The crowd shrank back further.

Faerie fever. Like Juliana had warned him. Probably not fatal, definitely unpleasant. He groaned; this was not going to be fun.

“Get him to his chambers!” his mother hissed. “Quickly, before he infects the guests!”

Juliana and another mortal servant escorted him back to his chambers. The second disappeared almost as soon as they arrived, leaving Juliana to help him towards the bed.

“You’ll be fine,” Juliana insisted, as if she wasn’t a massive liar and his head didn’t feel like she’d thrown an axe at it. He felt like the blade was cleaving his body in two.

He pulled at his clothes. They felt like chains.

Juliana hovered nearby. “How long have you been feeling this way?”

He tugged uselessly at the shirt that seemed welded to his body. “Not sure. Most of the journey, I think.”

Juliana tutted, helping him free himself of the clothes. “That’ll teach you to visit seedy taverns…”

A hot shaft of pain sliced through him. “I think I’m going to retch.”

Juliana handed him the first receptacle she could find—a chamberpot which was, thankfully, empty—and he promptly vomited the contents of his stomach into it. There was little to come up; he hadn’t eaten most of the day. Nausea swirled about him nonetheless, incited by pain. He’d never been in so much that he needed to be sick before.

The room was spinning again. Juliana seized the pot from his grip and steered him back to the pillows. A healer arrived seconds later, asking him a series of questions he couldn’t answer. Duration of illness, symptoms, level of discomfort.

It hurt too much to talk, and voices sounded more like noise. Juliana answered instead, a few potions were prescribed, and the healer swiftly left.

Hours passed. He tossed in his sheets like oil in a fire, unable to be still. The sheets turned to mush around him. Although there were a few mortal servants at the palace, even those seemed wary of him. A slim ghost of a girl was sent to cool him down, but she shrieked when he flailed beneath her touch and dropped the bucket.

Juliana groaned from the corner of the room. It was the first time he’d really understood that she was still there, and not outside his room or in the adjoining chambers. She seized the bucket from the floor, spat instructions about refilling it, and grabbed Hawthorn by the arms.

He winced at the touch.

“She’s trying to help you,” Juliana explained.

“Can’t. Be. Still.”

Jules rolled her eyes. The next thing he knew, a cold towel was pressed against his head.

”Is that… floor water?”

“It is water that has been on the floor which was scrubbed within an inch of its life less than a day ago. It won’t kill you. Now, stay still. I need to get you cooled down or else I’ll never get to sleep.”

“You’re sleeping… in here?” he panted.

“Queen’s orders. She doesn’t want you left alone in this state.”

Had his mother visited? He wished he could believe there was some touching motherly concern behind those instructions, and perhaps there was the hint of some—his mother didn’t want anything to happen to him, he knew.

But he also knew she wasn’t here.

Most likely, she issued those orders out of a sense of duty. And Juliana was obeying them out of a sense of hers. Would anyone ever express any concern for him that wasn’t out of some sense of obligation or greed?

“Dear gods, you’re disgusting,” Juliana remarked, sponging down his chest.

“Not quite… the ministering angel… are you?”

“No one hired me for my healing skills.”

The maid returned with a new bucket and fresh sheets. Juliana changed them around him, bathed him with as much diligence as he could really expect of her, and did a half-hearted job of tucking him in again. His chest still felt like a hot iron was resting on top of it, but it was better.

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