Chapter 54: Curing
On the bed, wrapped in thin blankets that had been mended so many times they were more patch than original fabric, lay a girl who couldn’t have been older than twelve.
Her name was Mira, Pip had told him. She had her brother’s sharp features and dark hair, but that was where the resemblance ended. Her skin was gray and waxy, her breathing shallow and labored.
Dark veins stood out against her temples like cracks in porcelain, and every few seconds her body would shudder with a cough that sounded wet and wrong.
Red Cough. The plague that had swept through the outer districts last winter, killing the poor and leaving the rich untouched behind their stone walls.
"She’s been like this for three days," Pip said quietly. "The healer said if the fever doesn’t break by morning..."
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
Nacho approached the bed and crouched beside it, studying the girl’s face. Her eyes were closed, but he could see the movement beneath her lids, the restless twitching of someone trapped in fever dreams. She couldn’t have weighed more than eighty pounds.
"The feather has to be dissolved in purified water and administered orally," Pip said, the words coming out in a rush like he’d memorized them. "The healer said the fire essence will burn the sickness out of her blood, but it has to be done carefully or it could... it could..."
"It could burn her instead." Nacho nodded slowly. "You got the water?"
Pip produced a small ceramic bowl from somewhere, already filled with liquid that seemed to shimmer faintly in the feather’s glow. "The healer prepared it. Said it was all she could do without the main ingredient."
Nacho took the bowl and set it on the edge of the bed. Then he uncorked the vial and held it over the water, watching the feather drift down like a leaf on a still pond.
The reaction was immediate.
The feather touched the surface and dissolved, releasing a pulse of heat that made both of them flinch backward. The water began to glow, shifting from clear to amber to a deep, burning gold that seemed to contain its own inner sun.
Steam rose from the bowl, but instead of dissipating into the air, it curled back down and was reabsorbed, as if the liquid refused to let any of its essence escape.
"Beautiful," Pip breathed.
"Help me sit her up."
Together they lifted Mira’s limp form, Nacho supporting her head while Pip held her shoulders. The girl’s skin was hot to the touch, fever-warm, but her body was so light it felt like holding a bundle of sticks wrapped in cloth.
"Mira." Pip’s voice was gentle, coaxing. "Mira, you need to wake up. Just for a minute. I need you to drink something."
Her eyelids fluttered. A small moan escaped her cracked lips.
"That’s it. Come on, just a little more."
Her eyes opened, glazed and unfocused. She didn’t seem to recognize either of them, her gaze drifting past them to fix on something neither of them could see.
Nacho lifted the bowl to her lips.
"Drink," he said softly. "All of it."
The first drop touched her tongue and her body went rigid. Her eyes flew wide open, finally focusing, finally present, and for a terrible moment Nacho thought they’d made a mistake. That the healer had been wrong. That instead of saving her they were going to watch her burn from the inside out.
Then she swallowed.
The golden liquid flowed down her throat, and with it came light. It spread through her veins like fire through dry grass, visible beneath her skin as a network of glowing lines that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. The gray pallor of her complexion began to fade, replaced by something warmer, healthier. The dark veins at her temples receded. Her breathing deepened and steadied.
She drank the whole bowl without stopping, her small hands coming up to hold it as if afraid someone might take it away before she was finished. When the last drop was gone, she lowered it and looked at her brother with eyes that were clear for the first time in weeks.
"Pip?" Her voice was scratchy from disuse but strong. "What happened? I had the strangest dream."
Pip made a sound that was half laugh, half sob. He pulled his sister into a fierce hug, his shoulders shaking, his face buried in her hair. Nacho stepped back to give them space, watching as the kid who’d been holding himself together with nothing but desperation and prayer finally let himself fall apart.
"You’re okay," Pip was saying, the words muffled against his sister’s shoulder. "You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay."
Mira patted his back with the confused patience of someone who didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. "Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be okay? And why are you crying? Big brothers aren’t supposed to cry."
"I’m not crying. I have something in my eye."
"You have something in both eyes?"
"Shut up."
Nacho found himself smiling despite everything. The scene in front of him was so achingly normal, so purely human, that it caught him off guard. Two siblings bickering through tears and relief, oblivious to everything else. It reminded him of things he’d tried not to think about since dying and waking up as a tentacle monster in a world that made no sense.
He turned to leave, figuring they deserved some privacy.
"Wait."
He stopped at the door and looked back. Pip had extricated himself from the hug and was staring at him with an expression that was hard to read in the candlelight.
"You saved her life." The words came out rough, like they’d had to fight their way past something in his throat. "You robbed the Sanctum for someone you barely know. Why?"
Nacho considered the question for a moment. The honest answer was complicated. Partly because Pip had helped him when he first arrived in the city. Partly because the kid reminded him of himself at that age, desperate and willing to do anything to protect the people he loved. Partly because watching someone die when you had the power to prevent it was the kind of thing that ate at you, even if you weren’t human anymore.
But none of that would mean anything to Pip right now. So instead, he shrugged.
"Because I could."
He left before the kid could respond, slipping out into the night and letting the door close behind him.
