Page 66 of Blood & Ash

The first twelve doses left the clinic while Delphine’s heart struggled to maintain its rhythm.

Luca carried the insulated case. Gabriel walked beside him, one hand beneath the base as if sharing the weight might keep the medicine stable. They had agreed on the route before the working began: packhouse first, then the ridge cabins, with one of the doses sent to Richmond by the fastest driver available.

Marcus remained beside Delphine. He had promised to oversee administration, but he couldn’t leave while her blood pressure stayed below seventy and the monitor inserted an extra beat every sixth cycle. June took his place with a page of written instructions and the portable diagnostic unit.

“One vial per patient,” Marcus told her. “Oral dose if they can swallow. Use the feeding syringe if they can’t. Record pulse, temperature, oxygen, and time of administration every fifteen minutes.”

June accepted the paper. “And if one of them crashes?”

“Call me.”

Her gaze moved to Delphine. “You can’t be in two places.”

“Then don’t let them crash.”

June folded the instructions and put them into her jacket pocket. She didn’t tell him the demand was unreasonable. Everyone in the room already knew.

At the packhouse, Elise received the first dose. She lay in an upstairs room beneath two blankets, her skin hot enough to warm the glass when June pressed the vial to her lips. Mara supported Elise’s head while June delivered the medicine in small amounts.

The liquid smelled faintly of metal and bitter herbs. Elise swallowed without waking. The monitor showed a heart rate of one hundred forty-six and an oxygen level of eighty-eight.

“How long?” Mara asked.

“Marcus said the first change may take twenty minutes.” June started the timer on her watch. “The fever should begin falling within an hour if it works.”

They moved to the eastern boundary runner next. He was conscious enough to drink from the vial himself, although his hand shook too badly to hold it. Luca supported the glass and ignored the suspicion in the wolf’s eyes.

“If this kills me, I’m haunting you,” the runner said.

“Get in line,” Luca replied.

The third and fourth doses went to wolves in the downstairs dormitory. The fifth was driven toward Richmond in a car that left gravel spraying across the yard. By the time June reached the sixth patient, Mara called from Elise’s room.

Elise’s temperature had dropped from one hundred five to one hundred three. Her oxygen level climbed to ninety-one. The change was small enough to distrust, but it continued through the next reading.

Word moved through the packhouse faster than June did. Wolves appeared in doorways and at the foot of the stairs, watching the numbers on the portable monitor. No one celebrated.

At the clinic, Marcus kept two fingers against Delphine’s wrist. Her pulse weakened, recovered, and weakened again. The telephone on the wall rang thirty-eight minutes after the case left.

He reached it without removing his hand from her. “Marcus.”

“Elise’s fever is down two degrees,” June said. Noise filled the line behind her: footsteps, voices, someone crying. “The runner shifted his hand. Only the hand, and it hurt like hell, but he shifted.”

Marcus closed his eyes. “Continue monitoring. Don’t repeat the dose.”

“What about Del?”

He looked at the monitor. “Still here.”

June understood what he couldn’t give her. “I’ll call after the next readings.”

Marcus returned the receiver to its cradle. Delphine lay beneath the oxygen mask, colorless and motionless. He bent until his mouth was close to her ear.

“It worked,” he told her. “All twelve received the dose. You don’t have to do anything else.”

Her heart stumbled on the monitor. Marcus tightened his fingers around her wrist and waited through the pause before the next beat arrived.

The cure broke town-wide inside the hour.