The Healer's Bargain

gone quiet in the wary way of a p

able, a hanging rack of pots, and a range large enough to roast an ox. The cook had gone home. The lamps were lo

ed in the

with her eyes, she found the other end looped over a beam, and hanging from it, precisely above the spot where

ted her foot, stepped high over the thread,

said to the room. "Sailor

l, aggrieved noise f

posed to tr

te tin clutched to his chest, a smear of it along his jaw. Twelve years old. Sharp cheekbones like his brother's, dark u

h the resentful dignity

id you

doorframe, which is a gift to anyone with eyes." She pulled a stool up to the table and sat. "I spent ten years in a pla

st his will, to be flattered. "The la

u enjo

"Sort of. It's better when they scr

landed somewhere beneath her ribs. She was al

re you

h." She set the pot on the range and began pulling ingredients from the larder without asking permission: a beef marrow bone, a handful of dried

ng over his pride. "You cook like the

ur's kitchen was the only room in the building where nobody was medicated or locked in. Siste

e in an

es

ten y

es

and then watch itself. Were you crazy? He didn't ask

ying Dad because you're de

pot, and the smell of it began to bloom in the warm air. "And before you tell me I'll leave like everyone else does,

d, with a small shock, that it was e

ed the chocolate tin over in his hands. "The w

e d

rs. Pell's sister. I th

brother this afternoon. I don't make promises about people or bodies. But I keep the ones I do make, and I'll

rply. "What if I d

he stirred the pot. "W

d she thought that, for a boy who spent his life being stared at or

oom," Milo s

Rushing him would end

it's storage. It's locked all the time. Not one lock, three, and I've never seen anyone go in or out except him, and only at night."

t down h

now what'

hy everyone's scared of the whole house, not just

r mo

lo pushed the tin away. "Dad won't say her name. Tha

time since she'd walked through Larkspur's gate Amara felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. It was not

telling me," sh

" His eyes were enormous, s

won

we

he reached out and, with two fingers, tapped the tin of chocolate. "Now finish th

ter. He picked up the black thread from the floor, coiled it ne

ime," Amara said, and