“I know, Runt. I know.” Bastiaan shed his coat and bunched it up to stopper the wound around the arrow shaft.

“It’s poison! Poison!” Runt shrieked. “My blood will kill you! Like Kravin! It’s what they want!” He coughed. It sounded wet.

Bastiaan tried to make sense of Runt’s babblings. Poison? “I don’t understand.” They were wasting time.

“She . . . gave me a cursed Talent.” Something had happened to Runt in the schloss. “You’ll die, Bastiaan.”

Cursed Talent? She. The woman from King Mattias’s council. Coralythe. She’d done something to Runt to make him think his blood would poison Bastiaan. But people couldn’t give Talents.

“Coralythe gave him a Bane,” Myrthe breathed.

“You know of her?” Bastiaan’s mind spun. King Mattias had hinted that she could give Banes, but Bastiaan thought it was because she brought Nightwell water to the king, not because of her own power.

The scout shot Runt, not Bastiaan. He must have counted on Runt’s blood doing the job. The Bane must be real. “I . . . we . . . won’t touch your blood, Runt. I’ll be very careful. I promise.”

This mollified the boy, though he still wept.

Myrthe stepped into Bastiaan’s line of sight. The fear on her face ran deeper than the fear drumming in his chest. She trembled and knelt beside Runt, careful to avoid his blood.

She seemed on the verge of tears.

“He’s going to be okay,” Bastiaan said, both for her and for Runt. And for himself.

Myrthe blinked fiercely and swayed. “Are you sure? He won’t . . . die?”

Runt shuddered, possibly against the same question.

Bastiaan had no idea, but he knew the power of hope could heal even greater than that of a Talented. “Of course he won’t die.” He refused to speak within Runt’s hearing about the chances of death. Refused to think about it. “The arrow is in a good place.”

Except it wasn’t.

“Now give us a wish!” he wanted to shout. His hands trembled. He didn’t know what to do first—cut away clothing? Stopper the wound? Change Runt’s position?

Runt’s breathing leveled out. Myrthe’s features turned controlled and practical. “Very well.” She seemed to fight some internal battle and came out of it with a flash of relief. “There’s a healer in Sven’s camp.”

She wouldn’t look at Runt. Wouldn’t look at Bastiaan. She seemed almost disinterested in Runt’s pain.

“What about . . . ?” Bastiaan jerked his head toward her. Your Talent, he mouthed.

“If you think he’s going to be okay, you don’t need my help.” She had the gall to sound bothered. As though Bastiaan were trying to inconvenience her. Earlier she had said she couldn’t give a wish. But now it sounded like she simply didn’t want to. She seemed to shrug it off like one would an easy decision between fish or fowl for dinner.