“We are drawing the poison out of him,” Willo said, “with heat and smoke and purgatives. Because there is no entry point, we can’t use snakebite root, the way we have with you. We’ve taken him to the healer’s spring also, but the heat is nearly intolerable to him, and he fights us. Last time, he nearly drowned Bright Hand.” Willo nodded toward one of the apprentices, a boy about Raisa’s age. “I imagine the poison has affected him the same as you—it has confounded his senses.”

Raisa imagined being dipped in a hot spring just now, and shuddered.

“He’s been having seizures,” Willo went on, “but that seems to be easing off some.” She turned to her apprentice. “Bright Hand, has Hunts Alone eaten? Has he drunk anything?”

The apprentice shook his head. “We’ve tried. He refuses. He’s been confused.”

Even if he lives, what if he never recovers his wits? Raisa thought.

“Shouldn’t you—shouldn’t you try a wizard healer?” she asked. “There might be something that could be done for him with high magic.”

Willo nodded, seeming unoffended. “I agree. We don’t know much about high magic and charmcasters. They usually refuse to allow us to treat them. But who could we trust from Fellsmarch? We could fetch someone from the academy at Oden’s Ford, but I believe Hunts Alone will either recover or die before someone could make it there and back.”

Raisa took Han’s hand. Power buzzed weakly through his fingers, a faint shadow of his usual leakage. Which made her think.

She lifted the blanket that was drawn up to his chin, and peeked underneath. Then looked up at Willo.

“Where is his amulet?” Raisa asked.

“He carried two,” Willo said. “I hid them away before the Demonai could take them from him.” She reached underneath his pallet and pulled out a deerskin pouch. “I didn’t want anything to happen to them.”

Raisa weighed the pouch in her hand, then untied the strings and dumped the contents onto the coverlet next to Han. There were, indeed, two amulets—one the serpent amulet she remembered, the other unfamiliar—a bow hunter carved out of gemstone.

“Mother Elena made the Lone Hunter amulet for him,” Willo said. “This other one—I’ve never seen it before.”

“He wore the serpent amulet at Oden’s Ford,” Raisa said, remembering how it had reacted to her the last time she’d touched it. “Maybe one of the masters there gave it to him.” She bit her lip, looking down at it. “I don’t really know anything about it,” she admitted. “But I think it might help him, to have it on. It might keep his magic from leaking away.”

Willo glanced toward the common room, then looked back at Raisa, put her finger to her lips, and nodded.