To heal a Rogue

LYSANDER

I crossed the ward faster than I meant to, my irritation outpacing whatever relief I should have felt at seeing her upright and steady on her own feet.

"I told you to rest."

"I’m sorry." She didn’t sound particularly sorry. Her chin came up a fraction, the same stubborn tilt I’d already learned to recognize in the short time I’d known her. "But I couldn’t just lie there resting, knowing she was suffering because of something meant for me. I had to do something."

I wanted to argue further. I didn’t. Arguing with her rarely produced anything but more argument, and I had bigger things pulling at my attention right now than winning a fight I’d already lost the moment she’d walked out of that room on her own two legs.

I turned to Willow instead, who sat upright on her cot now, color returning to her cheeks in patches.

"How do you feel?"

She lifted one hand and snapped her fingers. A small flame bloomed between them, orange and steady, before she let it die out with a satisfied exhale.

"My magic’s really back," she said. "Thank you."

"That’s good to hear," I said. "It’s good to see you conscious at all, honestly. Now, is there anything you can tell us about whoever attacked you? Anything that might help us find him?"

She shook her head slowly, the motion careful, like even that small effort cost her something. "My memory of it is mostly blank. Fragments, nothing whole. But I can tell you this much. He’s frighteningly powerful. Stronger than anything I’ve encountered before. I don’t believe it was a Blossom witch now. My hypothesis was wrong."

Frustration coiled tight and useless in my chest. I nodded anyway, because there wasn’t anything else to do with it right now.

"Thank you regardless," I said. "That’s still useful information."

The head healer stepped in beside the bed. "We’ll want to run a few tests before we release her."

"I have no problem with that," Willow said, already settling back against her pillows.

I turned back to Bonnie. "Well. Since you’ve apparently taken it upon yourself to fix everything before daybreak, you should head back to your ward."

"I’m fine," she said. "I fixed myself too, you know."

"I know," I said, unable to keep the edge entirely out of my voice. "We’ll go back to my mother’s room, then. Delta isn’t here yet, but she should be there at least."

I reached for her hand, and she let me take it, and we started our journey to go down the corridor together. We nearly collided with Queen Edelina, who was standing behind like she’d been waiting there the entire time.

"Your Majesty," I said, straightening. "I didn’t realize you’d followed us in."

She cleared her throat, though her eyes never left Bonnie, sweeping over her slowly, taking in every detail with an intensity that made something protective flare up in my chest.

"I was curious," she said, "what a healer from the age of legend actually looked like, up close. The white hair is certainly striking. Interesting choice, whatever gave you that particular mark."

Bonnie shifted beside me, visibly uncomfortable under the scrutiny, and dipped into a small, formal bow.

"It’s a pleasure to see you, Your Majesty."

"I’ll tell you plainly, girl," Edelina continued, her voice going cool and precise. "I am not a fan of yours. You killed my husband. Whatever spell you’ve apparently cast over the rest of this estate, I see straight through it. I know exactly what you are. A killer. A siren, perhaps. Or something worse than either."

"The lack of sleep must be getting to you, Your Majesty," I said, stepping slightly in front of Bonnie before I’d consciously decided to. "We’ll be on our way now."

I didn’t wait for a response. I moved past her, pulling Bonnie along with me, and didn’t look back to see how she took it.

"Sorry about that," I said once we’d put some distance between us and the infirmary doors.

"I think her grief is valid," Bonnie said quietly. "She genuinely believes I did it. That’s not nothing."

"I don’t think it’s grief," I said. "I think it’s a much longer game than that. She had a hand in my uncle’s death. I know it in my bones, even without proof yet."

Bonnie let out a small, surprised laugh, quiet enough it barely carried. "Shouldn’t you at least leave room for doubt?"

"No," I said. "Monsters are easy enough to catch once you know precisely where to look for them."

We walked in silence for a few steps, and then her voice shifted, careful in a way that made me slow down without meaning to.

"Lysander."

"What?"

"There’s something I didn’t tell you," she said. "Back in the dreamscape. I ended up inside one of his memories. I think it was his memory, at least. He’d been cursed. By his own parent, from what I could tell." She hesitated, her brow furrowing like she was still working through the shape of it herself. "It felt very old. Long ago old. I don’t know if that makes any sense."

I stopped walking entirely.

"Do you know his name?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Does it sound familiar," I said, "if I gave you certain names to consider?"

"Not particularly," she said. "Everything about it was fragmented. Blurred at the edges, like trying to remember something from very early childhood."

I let it sit, filing it away carefully rather than pressing further, though my mind had already begun circling back toward that tube beneath the estate, toward the floating, hairless figure suspended in green water that Bradley had called the Lycan King. I didn’t want to say the name out loud yet. Not until I had something firmer to attach it to.

"Let’s just keep you somewhere safe," I said instead, "and awake, until Fia gets here. She’ll be able to make sense of far more of this than either of us can right now."

Bonnie nodded, then glanced sideways at me as we continued walking. "You know a lot about this Fia, don’t you."

"I’d say we’re fairly close," I said. "She’s been a friend for a while now."

"What are her abilities?" she asked. "I can heal, apparently, and now invade dreams too, whether I want to or not. Does she share either of those?"

"Perhaps some overlap," I said. "Mostly, she has visions. Fragments of what’s coming, sometimes clear, sometimes not."

"You told me she’s the reason you were so certain about us," Bonnie said slowly, working through the logic aloud. "So she must see the future, at least in pieces." She paused, something tightening in her expression. "Because when I touched that witch tonight, healing her, I saw something too. Like a vision of my own. Something I’ve never experienced before."

I stopped completely in the middle of the corridor, turning to face her fully.

"What did you see?"

"It’s strange," she said, her voice dropping lower. "I saw myself killing her. The witch. Not saving her. Killing her, with my own hands, and it felt so real I could barely tell it apart from actually happening."

Something cold settled low in my stomach at that, though I kept my face as steady as I could manage for her sake.

"Don’t let that get under your skin," I said. "The future isn’t fixed in place, not entirely, not even for someone with your kind of gift. Like I said, let Fia show up. Once the two of you have had a real chance to talk, I’m confident you’ll understand far more about what’s actually happening to you than either of us can guess at right now."

She nodded slowly, some of the tension easing from her shoulders, though not all of it.

"Thank you," she said.

"It’s my job," I said, resuming our walk, keeping her hand firmly in mine. "I’m your mate."

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