Page 84 of Malady

Oh. It isn't warm this time.

A brilliant cold rushes through me, slipping beneath my ribs and spreading so quickly through my bones that my back arches clear of the mattress. Oh, it's lovely. Like plunging into a deep, cool river after days spent roasting beneath the summer sun, the chill reaching places I hadn't realised were still burning. I gasp and press myself closer to his hand, desperate for more of it.

And then, mercifully, the pain begins to ease.

My shoulders settle against the mattress, and the awful throbbing in my groin dwindles until I can finally unclench my jaw. Even the swellings beneath my arms seem less determined to make my life a misery.

“That feels good,” I breathe, sinking gratefully into the damp sheets. “Thank you.”

“Hm. Yes.” His thumb rests lightly against my breastbone while the blue continues to pour beneath it. “We will leave it there for a little while. Enough to dull the pain and take some of the heat from you. There is no sense asking your body to endure more than it already is.”

I let my eyes fall shut again, sinking deeper into the mattress as the wonderful cold spreads through me. Outside, a blizzard is battering the house, rattling the shutters so fiercely that I almost miss the scrape of something heavy being dragged along the cobbles below. Voices follow, men shouting to one another somewhere in the lane, though the wind snatches away their words before I can make sense of them.

I drag my eyes open. “What was that?”

Iscairn turns his head slightly towards the window as a gust throws itself against the cottage, hard enough to rattle the shutters in their frame. “The wind, most likely. It has been worsening.”

But then it happens again, louder this time.

My eyes drag sideways towards the window. “Iscairn⁠—”

The shutters rip open.

Wind rushes through the room, hurling snow across the bed and snuffing out the candles as smoke billows from the hearth. The curtains whip against the walls while Iscairn pulls his hand from my chest and turns towards the window, the blue fading from his fingers. Yet the cold light he has already given me remains, glowing faintly through my ribs and throat as the blizzard rages around us.

Smoke rolls through the open window in thick, churning folds, swallowing the shape balanced on the ladder outside. One hand grips the rung beneath the sill while the other clutches a little leather prayer book, but the fingers wrapped around it are blackened claws, the pages glowing red at the edges. His cassock whips in the wind, stretching and twisting into soot that climbs the frame and spreads across the sloping ceiling, while two points of fire burn deep within the smoke where his eyes should be.

“…for Thou art with me!”

The burning eyes sweep across the bed, and the scripture falters. “Ophi?”

“Brother Gideon,” Iscairn says calmly, rising from the mattress as wind whips around his cloak. “Your sister is under strict quarantine. You should not be here.”

The smoke writhes around Gideon as his burning gaze slips past Iscairn and catches on the blue still glowing beneath my skin.

“What have you done to her?” The edges of the prayer book burn brighter. “Why is she glowing? What have you done to my sister?”

“I am treating her.”

“You are killing her!”

“I assure you, I am doing quite the opposite.” Iscairn moves to shield me from view. “It is an old medicinal preparation of mineral salts and vinegar, though I have neither the time nor inclination to explain its workings while you cling to a ladder in a blizzard. Now climb down before you break your neck. I already have one Harrow to keep alive.”

The blackened fingers around the prayer book tighten, the leather creaking. “Witchcraft,” he whispers, staring straight at me. “Devilry. The Devil is in my parish.”

“Gideon, no,” I croak, but he’s already twisting away from the window, one arm hooked around the ladder as he flings his voice into the blizzard.

“Witchcraft!” His voice bounces off the thatched roofs and cobbles. “The Devil is in her! The Devil is in Beswick! Bring the fire!”

“Gideon, stop!” I push against the mattress, struggling to sit upright, but the soulglimmer has left my limbs as soft as butter. “Iscairn, they’ll burn the bloody shop with us still inside!”

“Breathe. Conserve your strength,” Iscairn rumbles, though his mask has already dropped briefly towards the floorboards, listening for whatever Gideon’s shouting might have stirred below.

Behind him, the smoke swells through the open window as Gideon drags himself another rung higher and hooks one knee over the sill. Snow whips around his cassock, feeding the black ash rolling from his shoulders, his two burning eyes fixed on the fading blue beneath my skin.

“You refused to repent!” he bellows over the wind. “You defied the Church, you spat upon the Lord’s mercy, and now look what you have brought upon us. This is the Devil’s rot, Ophelia. You invited him in!”

A tremendous crash comes from downstairs, followed by breaking glass and the thunder of boots across the shop floor.