I peered over the top of my glasses, searching for magical residue in her bloodstream. She was clean. No trace of lycanthropy or other magical infection, but I saw no need to mention that until after I healed her injuries. I’d be damned if I was going to let anyone else suffer tonight if I could help it. “Do me a favor, Margaret, and stick out your tongue?”

She did so, and I used a dropper to transfer a tiny bead of Lucy’s potion onto her tongue. She swallowed, pain or shock preventing her from asking questions. Within seconds, her body started to relax. She poked cautiously at her knee. “That’s it? I’m . . . better?”

“One hundred percent human,” I said. “Not a trace of werewolf in you.”

She tentatively tested her bandaged leg. “Thank you.”

The EMT looked from me to Margaret and back. “I’m convinced. Bring that bottle and come with me.”

Next up was a young man on a stretcher, covered in blood-soaked bandages and shallow bite marks. The medic working on him shouted, “I can’t get the bites to clot up.”

I stepped past another man who lay shivering beneath several blankets. His sleeves were torn and his face bloody, but he appeared otherwise undamaged. “You’ll want to get that one in handcuffs until I can get to him.”

“Why?” asked Blackwell.

“Trust me.” I stopped beside the medic and removed my glasses. My brain automatically began cataloging the different species of werewolf that might have inflicted this kind of damage, studying the height and angle of the bites, the size of the jaws, the depth of the claw marks . . .

I could only make out scraps of magical text: remnants of the werewolf’s curse swimming through the injuries, preventing the body from healing itself. I reached for the worst of the bites, a deep wound on the forearm. “How many werewolves were there?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t know what was happening until one of the kids screamed. I saw a woman fall, and then something hit me from the side.”

Someone shoved a pair of gloves at me. I ignored them and focused on the text, letting the rest of the world blur away.

“This is going to feel weird.” I pressed my fingers into the wound like it was a book.

He cried out, more in shock than pain. I wasn’t physically reaching into muscle and bone, any more than I tore the paper pages when I performed libriomancy. I felt Nidhi step in beside me, heard her whispering to the EMT and the patient both.

Heat spread up my arm. I pulled the words and their magic into my own flesh, then dissolved them into nothingness.

“Did the werewolves say anything?” I asked, my voice low.

He shook his head.