“You’re alive,” Keasley said. “That’s no easy trick while under an I.S. death threat.” He adjusted the lamp until it shone right in my face. I closed my eyes, starting as he dabbed a cold pad at my swollen eyelid. Matalina took over stitching my neck, her tiny tugs almost unnoticed. She ignored us with the practiced restraint of a professional mother.

“I’d be dead twice over if it wasn’t for Nick,” I said, looking toward the unseen shower.

Keasley aimed the lamp at my ear. I jerked as he dabbed at it with a soft square of damp cotton. It came away black with old blood. “You would have escaped Kalamack eventually,” he said. “Instead, you took a chance and got Nick out as well. I don’t see the failure in that.”

I squinted at him with my unswollen eye. “How do you know about the rat fight?”

“Jenks told me on the way over.”

Satisfied, I winced as Keasley dabbed a foul-smelling liquid on my torn ear. It throbbed dully under the three pain amulets. “I can’t do anything more about this,” he said. “Sorry.”

I had all but forgotten about my ear. Matalina flitted up to eye level, her gaze shifting from Keasley to me. “All done,” she said in her china-doll voice. “If you can finish up all right, I would like to, um …” Her eyes were charmingly eager. An angel with glad tidings. “I want to tell Jenks about your offer to sublet the garden.”

Keasley nodded. “You go right ahead,” he said. “There’s not much left but her wrist.”

“Thanks, Matalina,” I offered. “I didn’t feel a thing.”

“You’re welcome.” The tiny pixy woman darted to the window, then returned. “Thank you,” she whispered before vanishing through the window and into the dark garden.

The living room was empty but for Keasley and me. It was so quiet, I could hear the lids popping on the pots of water in the kitchen. Keasley took the scissors and cut the soaked cotton off my wrist. It fell away, and my stomach roiled. My wrist was still there, but nothing was in the right place. No wonder Jenks’s pixy dust couldn’t stop it from bleeding. Chunks of white flesh were lumped into mounds, and little craters were filled with blood. If my wrist looked like that, what had my neck looked like? Closing my eyes, I concentrated on breathing. I was going to pass out. I knew it.

“You’ve made a strong ally there,” he said softly.

“Matalina?” I held my breath, trying not to hyperventilate. “I can’t imagine why,” I said as I exhaled. “I’ve continually put her husband and family at risk.”

“Mmmm.” He put Ivy’s pan of water on his knees and gently lowered my wrist into it. I hissed at the bite of the water, then relaxed as the pain amulets dulled it. He prodded my wrist and I yelped, trying to jerk away. “You want some advice?” he asked.

“No.”