The Healer's Bargain

every note of it: the shriek of iron on iron, the heavy clang, the bolt sliding

as quieter than she'd i

es pressed a knotted cloth bundle into her hands. It smelled of dried lavender and th

her life: mortar and pestle, glass vials, a hand-copied book of remedies whose margins were crowded with her own cramp

nd for you out

. Your family has petitioned for your release. Not asked. Not apologized. Petitioned, as i

herself every night since she was eleven years old. Seventeen, she corrected.

arp mineral smell of the road. Autumn. She had misse

ople stood beside it, and it took Amara a moment to understand why they looked so strange. It was because s

rather she had aged the way expensive women do, into something smoother and more finished, pearls at her throat and a smile arranged like a place setting. And Della, once a giggling thirt

pen. Amara stepped back, and the arms lowered without

m disuse. "You buried my mother in the morning and had me committe

cal, sweetheart.

father flinched. "Why am you here, Selene? You di

ing underneath it slipped, and what show

ne said. "A significant

eastern seaboard and, if the rumors were right, several of the men who worked them. But what Amara remembered best wasn't the money or the menace. It was the other story,

Amara said slowly,

small, stra

through with it. She was never suited to a house like that. You, on the other hand, survive

eant as a

osses have never met either of you. The match was arran

night she had lain awake counting the bars on the window, six of them, until counting was all she was. She thought of her mothe

ed. It was not

he favor is marrying a man who's buried or broken four wives alr

it worth y

account, every deed, every piece of jewelry you took the week I was committed. In

closed reflexivel

aughter, or your obligation. You will not write to me. You will not call. If any of you appear

h that she thought Selene might

f it told Amara everything. They wer

again. Amara felt nothing where grief should have been, only a s

r stepsister's hand caught the frame and held on, and for one second her caref

hat house clean," Del

and Larkspur shrank in the rear window until

car would take her as far as the Cross gates and not one inch f

at the Cross estate, she ha

almost s