Page 112 of Stolen Songbird

Ikept my hood up and my head down as I made my way from the library towards the Dregs. My light bobbed about in front of me and, unless anyone looked closely, I’d be mistaken for a troll. I was alone—Élise had gone in search of the ingredients I needed for the spell, but not before she’d convinced Martin to let us out the small back entrance. I didn’t need my guards following me—the fewer who knew about what I was going to attempt, the better.

Knocking on the door to the miners’ dormitory, I glanced surreptitiously up and down the street, hoping no one would notice my finery and question what a noble woman was doing at the door to a half-blood home. But everyone nearby walked with the hunched shoulders of weariness, too set on their own business to pay me mind. I was still relieved when the door swung open.

“Your Highness!” said the girl who answered, her eyes wide with surprise. She started to curtsey awkwardly, but I held a finger up to my lips and gently pushed her inside. “I’d rather no one know I am here,” I said, shutting the door behind me. “Where is Tips?”

Her face tightened. “This way.”

The smell of blood and sweat assaulted me the second I entered the room, but it was the sight of Tips lying on the bed, face contorted with pain, that made me feel sick to my stomach. The other miners in the room rose to their feet when they saw me, but not before exchanging confused looks with each other.

“Hello, Princess,” Tips said weakly. “I can’t say I expected to see your pretty face again.”

I smiled. “Why would you say such a thing—do you think I am such an inconstant friend?”

He laughed. “Never that—I’m afraid that I am the one you can’t be counting on these days.” He made a small gesture with one hand towards his covered legs.

Taking a deep breath, I raised the edge of the blanket. I immediately clenched my teeth to hold back the bile threatening to surge up my throat. From the knee down, the pulverized bone and flesh was barely recognizable as having once been a leg and foot. “God have mercy,” I whispered, lowering the blanket.

“I’m not so sure your god has much time for us,” Tips said through clenched teeth.

“Why not?” I asked, settling into a chair next to the bed. “You’re nearly as human as I am.” I turned my head to address the other miners. “Could you please leave us alone for a bit? I need to speak privately with Tips.”

Nodding, they all started to leave the room. “Send Élise up when she arrives,” I added, praying that would be soon. Once they were gone, I pulled the grimoires out of my pocket, flipping through the pages until I found what I was looking for. This wouldn’t be simple. And it would be far from perfect.

“If you’re thinking that you being here will stop the guild from ridding themselves of me, you’re wasting your time,” Tips said, his one eye fixed on the ceiling. “They won’t bother with the labyrinth—I’m done for without it.”

“Not if I have my way, you aren’t,” I muttered, my eyes fixed on the page, praying that I wasn’t being falsely optimistic.

The sound of him shifting on the bed caused me to glance up. Tips was staring at me, his one eye filled with anger. “What exactly do you think you can do to stop me from dying, girl? Your false hope is no kindness to me.”

“It isn’t false hope,” I replied. “I intend to heal you with magic. Human magic.”

His eye widened. “You’re a witch!” Despite the incredible amount of pain he must have been in, a smile stretched across his face. “I knew there had to be more to you than meets the eye.”

“I suppose we’ll find out,” I said. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and, seconds later, Élise came into the room. She smiled encouragingly at Tips as she handed me a sack of supplies.

“Did you find everything?” I asked.

She nodded and set to helping me spread the various plants and herbs out on the floor next to the basins she had brought. Once we had everything arranged to my liking, I sat back on my heels and took a deep breath. “Tips, there is something I need to tell you before we start.”

He gave a slight nod.

“This grimoire,” I began, “it tells me that spells can only speed along that which is humanly possible to heal.” I took a deep breath. “Which means that although I can save your life, I can’t save your leg.”

Élise pressed a hand to her mouth, but Tips didn’t flinch. “What do you plan to do?”

I dug my fingernails into my palms. “I think if we take the leg off just below the knee that I can heal the… stump.” Sweat broke out on my forehead—it had been one thing to think it, another to say it.

“You think?”

“I’ve never done this before,” I admitted. What I had done to Tristan had been something different—I’d somehow channeled his magic, not the earth’s. But comparing Tips’s and Tristan’s magic was like comparing a drop of water with the entirety of the ocean. His power wasn’t capable of managing this injury, even if I could replicate the circumstances.

“You want to cut off my leg.” His face tightened and a bead of sweat ran down his forehead to soak into the pillow.

“It is our only option,” I said. “The only way you are going to live.”

“Live?” He snorted. “Even if this works, what good will I be?” he asked bitterly. “What good is a miner with one leg—you’d be saving me from death only to see me sent off to feed the sluag.”

“Don’t say that,” I snapped, rising to my feet. “Your worth isn’t determined by your leg—it is determined by your heart and your mind. It is determined by what you do with your life.”

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