The Wolves were a band of thieves who were clever enough to invest a portion of their earnings with the City Guard. Untouchable.
'I see,' said Faella. She looked at Rieger, and a sudden wash of pity ran through her. She didn't love him, and he certainly didn't love her. But she did care for him. He was tender and talented and he made her laugh.
She looked down at him. The physician had cleaned away the dried blood, leaving the ragged knife wound fully exposed on his belly.
She took the physician aside. 'What do you think?' she said.
The physician looked at Rieger, thinking. 'I have a few preparations I can try, but I won't lie to you. It doesn't look good. I'd say he'll likely die as not, no matter what I do. The cut's too deep and has done too much damage.'
'I see,' said Faella.
She knelt again by Rieger, looking again at the wound. She couldn't take her eyes off of it. One tiny little cut, no longer than a finger. That's all it took to kill a man.
It seemed absurd. Laughable. How could something so small accomplish so much?
She wanted to touch it; she didn't know why. Ada was on the other side of the room with the physician, who was showing her how to apply a new poultice. Feeling guilty, Faella reached out and ran her fingers along the jagged red opening.
Things that were cut could be sewn. Faella's mother had been able to mend a dress so that you could never tell that it had been ripped. It was just a matter of concentration, she'd always said.
Faella concentrated on Rieger, and her mind shifted into a kind of daydream, imagining what sorts of things lay beneath a man's skin. Blood and bone, flesh, meat. She'd never seen those things, but she assumed that he must look rather like a side of beef inside.
Strange about healing. The body knit itself from the inside, like a torn hem taking a needle and stitching itself up. It was mysterious and wonderful. A kind of magic unlike the Gifts. The deeper magic of nature, which always desired to make itself whole. And couldn't such a thing be nudged in just the right direction? Faella had no idea how a body mended itself, but she understood desire.
'Remove your hand from the injury, miss!' came the physician's voice. Faella opened her eyes; the physician was standing over her, scowling. Faella looked down and saw her palm pressed against Rieger's belly, massaging it.
'You're killing him!' shouted Ada. She grabbed Faella's hand away.
The wound was gone, as Faella had known it would be.
The physician bent over and stared at Rieger, then at Faella. Rieger's breathing was already beginning to slow.
'I don't know what kind of trickery you mestines have gotten up to, but I don't appreciate being fooled!' the physician snapped. 'Play your glamour pranks on someone else!' She stormed out of the room, slamming the door.
When, an hour later, Rieger regained consciousness, he asked Faella what had happened. Neither she nor Ada had an answer.
A week later, Faella was shopping in the bazaar when she saw Malik Em out roaming the aisles with his friends in the Wolves. He laughed and winked at the stallkeepers, taking a piece of fruit here and a silver ring there, paying for nothing but thanking the vendors profusely in a mockery of propriety.
The body desired to heal itself, she had discovered. But what if it didn't? If that desire could be increased, could it be decreased as well? Removed altogether?
Faella watched Malik Em go, lost in this thought. When she learned a few days later that Malik Em had died of a simple ague, she shrugged. Albeit with a grim satisfaction.
Probably just a coincidence.
No, probably not.
Faella knew desire, and no matter how much she tried to enjoy her life as the proprietor of the Bittersweet Wayward Mestina, she knew that she never could.
More was waiting out there. More would come to her, whether she wanted it or not.
Someday Silverdun would return to her, she began to think. And she wondered, if it did someday happen, would it be because she herself had caused it?
It was something to ponder, but in the meantime there was always work to do.
In matters of war, as in love, things rarely go as expected.
