Page 10 of Cursed Shadows 5

The healer’s words are slow to sink into my mind, but once they do, I shift my weight onto one elbow, then reach a hand back for my scalp.

The pain stops me.

My good shoulder takes the upper body weight, supports me, but the bad shoulder can’t arch back like that.

I give up, then let my back touch the sheepskin again.

I lift my chin and elongate my neck, and I look over at the open glass doors. Beyond them, the wind batters the parted sheets of the tent only partially set up at the front, then abandoned for the inside of the bakery.

I look beyond the doors, the sheets, to the street.

Still swamped by fae.

Guess I wasn’t out for long.

I turn my cheek to it, then stare up at the ceiling. It has that awful textured paint, like a spread of popped corn kernels.

My breaths ease with every gentle dusting of lesser powders that the healer rubs in with oil, then massages all over me like she’s basting me for a roast.

It lulls me.

There’s something comforting about it, that the bakery is so packed full of beds and wounded that there are no visitors swallowing up more space.

It means I am alone.

And, maybe, just for now, I am ok with that.

I let the healer work on me.

It isn’t everything I need, but it’s everything I need for the moment. She mosses the cut on my temple and the scratches on my mouth and forehead that I think I got from the tree I fell into; she smears my legs with an oil that stinks of those kars in the human realm; her hands work in a balm around my ribs; she lifts my sweater and exposes my breasts before she covers them in that same stinking oil.

I sink into the sheep-fleece beneath me and the thin mattress. The cushioning is too flimsy for the comfort of my aching back, but it’s better than anything I’ve had in eleven phases.

Besides, I’ll need to roll over soon to let her reach my back, but I am assuming that is after she has tended to my legs now that she unbuttons them at my waist, then shimmies them to rest at my ankles.

In silence, the healer scoops more of that stinky oil and reaches for my belly, the part hidden by my trousers not a moment before—

And she stills.

The healer frowns at my belly button for a moment, as though only just now seeing it, then turns a curious look on me. She might never have seen one before. Not all halflings have them. No full fae do.

I just blink at her.

She sniffs, then slaps the oil down on my skin.

Beneath her hands, my stomach grumbles. I don’t quite feel it grumbling, but I hear it.

The healer doesn’t react, doesn’t acknowledge it at all. She looks up at the sudden commotion that ignites in the doorway.

I trace her attention.

A light male and his female companion are blocking the doorway, trying to get inside of the bakery.

But a stern-faced healer is hitting them away with a roll of bandages. “Injured only! Out, out!”

She whacks them over and over, each strike sounding a little too hard to be merely bandages, and so I wonder if she’s snuck a rolling pin in there at some point.

The litalves listen. They retreat. Even if their teeth are bared as they scuttle their steps back, they leave all the same.

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