Chapter 121: Ronan's Wound

We got him up the stairs.

It took four of us. Colm took one arm and Oisin took the other and I went behind with my hands under his shoulders and Padraig went ahead with the lamp, and we got him up the back stairs and into his own room and onto his own bed.

The wound was not closing.

I had seen silver wounds before. I had seen the burn on his shoulder in the summer and I had cleaned it and packed it and told him it would heal. But this was a cut, a clean deep cut, and a clean deep cut on a werewolf closes in an hour.

It had been two hours and it was open.

I got his shirt off and cleaned it and packed it with comfrey and honey and bound it, and when I had finished I sat back and looked at it and it was the same as it had been before I started.

"Padraig," I said. "Come here."

The old man came and knelt down beside the bed.

He looked at the wound for a long time.

"Silver," he said. "Not a silver burn. A silver blade. A blade that has been quenched in silver and left in it."

"What does that do?"

"It puts the silver in the blood." He wiped his mouth. "A burn is on the skin and the skin heals. A blade puts it in the blood and the blood carries it and every time the wound tries to close the silver opens it again."

I sat on the edge of the bed.

"How long?"

"I do not know. A month. Two. It depends on the wolf." Padraig looked at me. "Healer. He has a true bond and a mate and a pack that has just taken its own house back. He has more to hold on to than most."

"And the false bond?"

Padraig did not answer.

"Padraig."

"The false bond is in your chest and it has been there for a month and it is at the bottom of you and it has been waiting for you to be weak enough." He looked at me. "You have been riding over mountains and going through boxes in cellars and fighting in a hall. You are weak enough now."

I sat on the edge of the bed with my hand on Ronan's chest.

"Then we do not have a month," I said.

Ronan's eyes came open.

"Fiadh," he said.

"I am here."

"You have got your healer face on."

"I have not got a healer face."

"You have. It is the one you use when you are frightened and you do not want anyone to know." He moved his hand and put it over mine. "How bad is it?"

I looked at him.

"Bad," I said.

"Say it properly."

"The blade was silver. It is in your blood and the wound will not close and every time it tries the silver opens it again." I held his hand. "You have a month. Maybe two. And I have a false bond in my chest that is going to start taking from me before that."

He lay on the bed and looked at the ceiling.

"Then we are both dying," he said.

"Yes."

"And the pack?"

"The pack is nine wolves in a house with the roof half gone and a Ravenscar flag that has come down and a Beta who has gone over to the enemy." I looked at him. "And there are fourteen more in the north who will come back when they hear."

Ronan shut his eyes.

"Fiadh," he said. "Come here."

I lay down beside him on the bed with my head on his good shoulder and his arm round me.

"There is a thing I have been thinking," he said.

"What?"

"The Council in the north has a ledger and a list and nineteen names and a witness in a cell and a keeper who has run and an envoy who has confessed." He turned his head. "And it has a healer with a founder's claim and a mate with a silver wound and a pack that has been declared vacant and given to Ravenscar."

"And?"

"And there is a bargain in that." He looked at me. "If you go back to the north and stand in that chamber and give them the ledger and the claim and the proof, they will give you anything you ask. And what you would ask is a healer for a silver wound and a surgeon for a shoulder and a pack for a coast."

I lay on the bed.

"You are asking me to go north and trade," I said.

"I am asking you to go north and win." He put his hand on my face. "You have been fighting this since the day you got off the bus. You have a book and a seal and a pact and a ledger and nineteen names. Go north and put it on the table and take what you need for the coast."

"And you?"

"I will be here." He looked at me. "I will be here in this bed with a silver wound and a pack of nine and a hole in the roof. And when you come back with a healer and a surgeon and a writ with the Council's seal on it I will be standing on that slip."

I lay in the dark with him.

"Ronan," I said.

"What?"

"I am not going to leave you in a bed with a silver wound while I go north and trade."

"Fiadh."

"I am not going to leave you." I lifted my head. "I have left you in a bed before and gone north and it nearly killed us both. I am not doing it again."

He looked at me.

"Then what do we do?" he said.

I got up off the bed.

"We do the thing I should have done in the cave," I said. "We get the false bond out of my chest and we use it."

Ronan sat up.

"Use it how?"

"The false bond takes strength and gives it to whoever holds the other end." I looked at him. "The other end has been in a stone and it has been in me and there has been nobody holding it. And there is a silver wound in your shoulder that will not close because the silver is in your blood."

Padraig stood up out of his chair.

"Healer," he said. "You cannot."

"I can. A false bond that is held by a healer who knows what she is doing can be turned. It can take the silver out of a wolf's blood and put it in the bond instead." I looked at him. "You told me the old books call it the drawing. You told me in the mill and I did not listen."

Padraig looked at me.

"The drawing will take everything you have," he said. "You will put the false bond into his blood and pull the silver out and you will have nothing left to hold it with."

"Then I will have nothing left." I sat down on the edge of the bed. "Padraig. Get the black pot."

Padraig did not move.

"Padraig."

"Healer," he said. "There is a thing in the black pot that your mother put there. It is not salve. It is a thing that makes a wolf of the old blood able to hold a bond that is not hers. And if you use it you will hold it and you will not be able to put it down."

I looked at him.

"Get the pot," I said.

And down in the harbour, a horn sounded.