The Serpent's Shadow

With immense satisfaction, Maya inspected her work and found not a trace, not the least lingering taint of the disease. There was some damage, that was inevitable—but Norrey was cured, and having been cured, would not suffer from the White Plague again.

Maya drew a deep breath of her own, and dropped Norrey's hands.

Dazed, the girl slowly came back to herself, reaching up and scrubbing away her tears with the back of one hand. 'Wotcher do?' she demanded hoarsely. ' 'urt! Bloody 'ell! Tha' didn' 'alf 'urt! Felt loik y'lit a fire in me chest, it did!'

'Breathe,' Maya ordered. 'Take a deep breath.'

Automatically, Norrey obeyed, pausing for an instant at the point where her coughing fits usually began, then continuing to fill her now-clean lungs. The more breath she took in, the wider her eyes grew, until they looked as big as a pair of prize bronze dahlias.

'It's—gawn!' she gasped. 'Bloody 'ell! It's gawn! 'Ow the 'ell didjer do it?'

Maya decided to risk the truth. 'If I told you it was magic, would you believe me?'

The admission didn't seem to trouble the girl in the least. 'Blimey! Dunno 'ow it cud be ought else.' She gave Maya a long hard stare. ' 'Ow long y'bin doin' this?'

Now Maya laughed aloud, partly out of relief, partly out of elation. 'I've never tried it before you,' she admitted. 'I knew it wouldn't hurt you, but I didn't know if it would help or not.'

Norrey only shook her head. 'Reckon I owes yer a bleedin' lot,' she sighed. 'Reckon I oughter gi' up th' ketchin' lay loik yer ast me.'

'Reckon you ought to,' Maya agreed, with just a touch of sternness. 'I don't think it's too much to ask of you, considering. I don't ask you to give up anything else, or go into a sweatshop—just stop picking pockets and helping your friends cosh the swells for the swag.'

'A'right. I will,' Norrey said, with sudden determination. 'Not a sparkler, not a wipe, not if th' King hisself came an' dangled 'is in front'a me. Ye got me word.'

She held out her hand, and Maya shook it, sealing the bargain.

Maya let Norrey out into the night, and the girl frisked away out of sight like a young antelope. Maya wondered what she'd tell her friends about her new-won health.

Probably not that it was tuberculosis. Probably that it was something I made go away with a pill. This was a great secret, and one of immense value; Norrey would only let it go at a price, though given her good heart, for some the price would be very, very small.

Maya saw three more patients that evening before it grew too late to expect anything other than a terrible emergency. All three were women, and all the complaints were trifling in comparison with Norrey's, and dealt with by means of treatments any other doctor could give. That was just as well. Maya wasn't tired precisely, but she didn't think she'd be able to replicate anything like Norrey's cure for another day or so at least. A day? Well, probably more than a day.

Finally she locked up, turned out her lamp, and went to the conservatory for a little relaxation before she went to bed. As she had anticipated, Gupta had left a pitcher of iced lemonade there for her. The fountain sang in the corner, and as soon as she sat down in her chair, the punkah stirred up a delicious breeze. She could not imagine a more perfect evening—except that Peter was at the Exeter Club instead of being here.

She had—she freely admitted it now—been tempted to cast a little magic of attraction Peter's way. But she had resisted that temptation, and now she was glad. If she had given in, she would never know if what was happening between them was due to nature or the intervention of magic.

She allowed the memory of his face, out there on the boat, to linger in her thoughts; the far-seeing eyes that never hid what he was feeling from her anymore, the firm jaw, the way the sunlight touched his hair. When had she first realized what he meant to her? And how had she failed to notice it for so long?

Charan leaped into her lap, and offered her an apple gravely. She took it and thanked him; he should have been sleepy-eyed at this time of night, but he was unusually alert.

In fact, all of the pets were alert, even Mala, who was always asleep by now. Rhadi flew down to perch on the back of her chair, and Rajah paraded slowly back and forth in front of the fountain, his tail fanned. Sia and Singhe were nowhere to be seen, but that wasn't unusual. They were probably in the cellar, hunting mice.

Nisha was gone as well as the mongooses, but that only meant she was hunting early tonight. No one had to let her out in this weather; there was a platform just under the peaked roof of the conservatory that extended outside the glass. One pane had been left out and replaced with a hatch, which when open, gave Nisha and Mala a means to get outside to hunt. Just as Maya noticed that the eagle-owl was not in the conservatory, she heard a thud on the platform, and a moment later, the owl waddled ponderously into the light,