In the end the morning came. That’s what matters.

“So you healed that man.” Snorri led the way across the mountain face, looking for a way down that would not be accessible to the corpses in our wake.

“No, I didn’t.” Deny everything was a policy I’d adopted at an early age. “Shit!” I missed my footing and set my boot down harder than intended. The white-hot needles of pain lancing up from my ankle let me know that getting down off the mountain was going to hurt.

“He had a rip in his arm deeper than the cut I’ve got on my belly.”

“No. Just his jerkin. Big hole in his jerkin, little scrape on his arm. He bled a lot. That’s probably what fooled you. I just wiped the blood away some.” I could see where this was going. Snorri wanted the same treatment. Well, no. The cut on Meegan’s arm had sucked out too much of my energy as it was. A whole night with the DeVeer sisters might have left me more go in my legs. Snorri’s injuries would leave me crawling. “Sorry but I— Ouch! Christ bleeding, that hurt!” A light knock of ankle against boulder.

“Of course,” said Snorri, “a man who could erase a gash like that would have mended his own ankle by now. I must have been mistaken.”

I took three more painful steps whilst that one sank in, then sat on the nearest suitable boulder, “You know, it does hurt quite a lot. I’ll just try to rub some life back into it.” I tried to be surreptitious about it, but he just stood there watching, with his arms folded, like some big suspicious Norseman. The thought of walking down on a sound ankle proved too much temptation. With teeth gritted and jaw set, I bound both hands around the joint and strained. Snorri raised a brow. I reached for whatever magic had burned in me and pushed harder.

“I, erm, can leave you to it if you need a quiet moment.” The tight line of his lips in that black beard gave no indication that he was mocking me.

“You’re mocking me, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

I let go and gave my ankle an experimental wiggle. “Motherf—” Words became an inarticulate howl.

“Not fixed then?” Snorri asked.

I stood up slowly. It seemed that whatever I’d done to Meegan was, like tickling, something you can’t do to yourself. And all in all, healing Meegan had been a complete waste of effort given that Snorri had pushed him over the ledge a minute or two later. Perhaps it had been a one-off thing. I hoped so.

“You want some?” I held out a hand towards Snorri’s waist.

He took a sharp step back. “Best not. Bad stuff happens if we touch, and I’ve got a feeling it would be worse than last time.”

I remembered reaching for his hand as I slipped down the mountain. In retrospect the damage done to my ankle might have been the lesser of two evils. If I had managed to grab hold we might just have burned up like the dead man.