“Hold him down,” she said to the Prince, as she gathered what she needed. Her movements were automatic, swift but unhurried. There was a strange calm that came upon a physician in these moments, when quick action was needed to save a life.
“What?” The Prince looked stunned, then furious as she slid a bellied scalpel from its leather holder and laid the sharp end between two of Anjuman’s ribs. “At least give him some morphea if you’re going to cut him—”
“He’s had morphea already. And more will stop his breathing,” she said. “Blood is pressing on his heart, crushing his lungs. I have to drain it.”
“Gasquet was going to put leeches on him—”
“And he would have died.” Lin kept her hand steady; still, she was reluctant to cut with no one stabilizing the patient. He was likely too drugged to feel the pain, but if he did, and jerked with movement, the blade would skid, perhaps even nicking an artery. “Are you going to help me or not?”
When the Prince did not move, she glanced toward her grandfather, who stood a few feet from the end of the bed, his face mostly cast in shadow. His arms were crossed; he looked grim, inexorable.
“I could get Jolivet,” he said, in response to a swift look from Prince Conor, but apparently that was not a pleasing suggestion. The Prince swore, clambered onto the bed, and put his hands on his cousin’s shoulders, holding him firmly against the cushions.
“If you kill him—” he began, but Lin was not listening. Anjuman’s lips were cyanotic blue. She began to cut—a short, precise incision—working the tip of the scalpel between his ribs with a practiced accuracy. Blood welled, spilling quickly down his side; his body jerked reflexively, but Prince Conor’s arms flexed, keeping him still.
The Prince was stronger than Lin would have guessed.
Among her tools was a bag of treated reeds, hollow and flexible. Lin transferred her scalpel to her left hand and picked one up. The Prince was looking over his shoulder at her, his gray eyes narrow. The lace cuffs of his shirt were smeared with blood.
Lin began to insert the reed, feeding it carefully through the incision. She felt it hit the rib and angled it upward, away from bone, toward the cavity of the chest. She could sense the Prince’s gaze on her like the pressure of a knife’s tip, sharp and searching. The back of her neck prickled as the reed slid in farther—
There was a rush of air from the wound. A moment later, blood poured through the reed. Lin snatched up a bowl from her satchel, but it was already too late for her clothes: Blood drenched her tunic, wetting her sleeves. She maneuvered the bowl to catch the liquid, vaguely aware of the Prince shouting something at her about how if she was going to bleed Kel, they might as well simply have kept Gasquet.
She ignored him. With the scalpel, she cut the reed so only a millimeter or so protruded from Anjuman’s skin. “You can stop holding him down now,” she said quietly, and the Prince shot her a blazing look, his hands still on his cousin’s shoulders.
“Have you ever done this before?” he asked, in a tone that indicated he felt this was very unlikely. “This ridiculous procedure—”
“I have,” Lin said, and did not add that one of the aspects of it that she found most satisfying was how quickly it worked. Kel Anjuman sucked in a breath, and the Prince sat up, looking down as his cousin’s eyelids fluttered. Anjuman’s face was speckled with blood, but he had stopped gasping. His breaths were deep and regular, his lips no longer blue.
His eyes opened—slowly, as if the lids were weighted. “Conor,” he said, tiredly, like a child asking for its mother. “Are you—” He blinked. “Is that you?”
The Prince shot Lin a quick, worried look. “He’s still in shock,” she said, “but the blood is no longer crushing his heart and lungs. He will live.”
She heard Mayesh make a restless movement; she knew he disapproved. It was never a good idea in medicine to promise life. Anything could happen.
“Did you hear that?” the Prince said, catching at his cousin’s hand. Their hands were very similar in shape, though the Prince’s glittered with rings, and Anjuman’s were bare. “You idiot. You’ll live.”
Anjuman whispered something in response, but Lin was not listening; blood had stopped draining into the bowl. She set it aside, knowing her work was far from done. Anjuman was no longer in danger of suffocating, and that was a relief, but his wounds still required treatment. Puncture wounds especially held a terrible risk of infection, which could take hold deep within muscle tissue. Wounds could swell from within, bursting their stitches, the skin turning black and putrid. Death came soon after.
Now that there was time, she began to organize her spilled tools, setting out what she would need on the table beside the bed: glass jars of tinctures, ampoules of medication, bandages of soft cotton spun from reeds.
After washing her hands again—turning the water in the bowl to a deep pink—she returned to her patient. She gently probed around his wounds, checking for broken bones, contusions, while the Prince held his cousin’s hand in a death grip. “Kellian. Where were you?” he demanded roughly. “Who did this to you? Were you wearing the—your necklace?”
Necklace? Lin wondered. Aloud she said, “Do not interrogate him.”
The Prince shot her an incredulous look. “I need to know who did this to him—”
“Not this very moment, you don’t.” She seized up a towel and began to mop away the dried blood on Anjuman’s chest and stomach. As she did, she inhaled and was relieved to find no telltale stench emanating from his wounds; it seemed the viscera had not been punctured. Things were not as bad as she had feared. Still, there was much to be done.
“You said he would be fine—”
“Not if you exhaust him,” Lin said sharply. As she cleaned the last of the blood from Anjuman’s chest, she saw something gleam at the hollow of his throat. The necklace the Prince had asked about?
“He’s strong,” the Prince said, not looking at her. “He can endure it. Kel, tell me. What happened? Who would have dared to touch royalty like that?”
“Crawlers,” rasped Anjuman. “It was Crawlers. Jumped down on me from a warehouse roof. No chance—” He winced, his gaze flicking to Lin. His pupils were blown wide with pain.
The Prince flushed scarlet along his high cheekbones. “I’ll have Jolivet go down into the city. Burn the Crawlers out of the Maze—”
“No,” Anjuman said sharply. “They had no idea who I was. Leave it, Conor.”
His right hand scrabbled among the bedclothes, fretfully, as if he were searching for something. When he lifted it, she saw that a talisman on a chain hung, jangling, from his fingers. An Ashkar talisman. Mayesh must have given it to him, for healing.
She moved to gently take the amulet from her patient. As her fingers brushed the silver, she felt a sharp pain at her side, like a bee’s sting. She jerked her hand away, and the talisman fell back among the bedclothes. Drat. Probably the sting had just been a muscle cramp, but Lin had no attention to give it right now. She could feel the rage emanating from Prince Conor, like heat from a fire. And she could tell it was bothering her patient. Anjuman might be in pain, but the tenseness around his eyes and mouth had nothing to do with physical discomfort.