CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

YOLENKA TAPPED ON THE CABIN door and pushed it open.

“Gabrielle?”

It was dark in the little room, just one wall lamp casting a small pool of light. Yolenka could make out Gabrielle’s form sitting close by the girl’s bed. She was hunched over her patient, head drooping.

Fallen asleep, thought Yolenka. Like Féolan. Not used to staying up all night.

She laid down her tray and lit another lamp. Then she crossed the floor and laid a hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder, shook it gently.

“Gabrielle, wake up! I bring dinner.”

She felt the other woman start under her hand. Gabrielle straightened. She looked bleary.

“Sorry to wake you. Féolan asked me to make sure you ate.” Yolenka smiled. “Is good. Captain get fresh stores at Niz Hana market.”

“Well...” Gabrielle seemed reluctant, her gaze turning back to Madeleine. “Yes, I guess I had better, at that. Thanks.”

She ate, as they all had, with the steady indiscriminate efficiency of the very hungry. Neither of them spoke while Gabrielle loaded in the first restorative mouthfuls.

“Where’s Féolan?” Gabrielle asked.

“He say he is very tired and is going early to his bed,” answered Yolenka.

Gabrielle’s spoon paused on its way to her mouth and her brows creased, but she said nothing. Yolenka shrugged. “We will all join him soon. My bones are wanting death.” She guessed from Gabrielle’s startled glance that the expression hadn’t translated very well into Krylaise. My bones long for the grave, meaning heavy with the need to rest. Oh well.

“How is the girl?” she asked gently. Death was, perhaps, not the best word to use in a casual expression right now.

Gabrielle shook her head. “She lost a lot of ground during that ride. The membrane on her throat is really big now. It’s making it hard for her to breathe.”

Yolenka nodded. “Yes, I have seen that,” she said softly.

“I was thinking...” Gabrielle’s features were wide awake now, her green eyes dark and intent in the lamplight. “That membrane—it could suffocate her, couldn’t it?”

Yolenka gave a reluctant nod. “It happens sometimes.”

“Do your healers ever remove it? If it impedes the patient’s breathing, I mean? Could I not peel it away like a scab?”

Yolenka was shaking her head so hard her hair swung across her face.

“No! No, you must not!” Every child knew this. “You cannot pull aside the Veil. Beyond the Veil lies Death.”

Gabrielle stared at her. “But why? What happens? Is it because of the bleeding?”

Yolenka tried to think. It was folk knowledge in her country, not something she had ever seen done. What had her mother told her? “There is bleeding, yes, but that is not the problem. Whenever it has been tried, the patient dies soon after,” she said. “They say the Veil is angry and sends an evil spell on the patient, but that is just...”

Gabrielle didn’t know the Tarzine word Yolenka resorted to, but she thought the phrase “country nonsense” might be close.

“But the danger is real,” Yolenka insisted. “The patient loses his muscles, he shakes, his heart stops. He dies.”

“His heart...” Gabrielle stared into space, her face still and closed. The remains of her dinner lay forgotten on the tiny side table. Long moments ticked by so that Yolenka wondered if her presence had become an intrusion. She had just reached across to gather up the tray, when Gabrielle spoke again.

“Yolenka, could you stay just a bit longer? I think I am close to understanding something here.”

Yolenka sat down. She didn’t know what Gabrielle thought she could do—children either recovered from the Veil or they didn’t, and there was little the most skilled healer could do about it—but if Yolenka’s sketchy knowledge could be of help, she would share it.

“You say when the Veil is removed, the patient’s whole body collapses? His heart stops, his limbs...”

“Yes, is like the sickness that was in his throat goes all through him.”

“Like a poison,” suggested Gabrielle.

Yolenka had a vivid uncomfortable memory of Turga convulsing at her feet. What would this gentle woman think of what she had done? But her idea was right.

“Yes,” she said, “I have seen poisoning. Is like that.”

It was remarkable the change that had come over Gabrielle. All signs of fatigue were gone. Her face was excited, eager even.

“I need to get to work now, Yolenka,” she said. “Thank you—for the food and even more for your knowledge. If my idea is right, and I pray it is, you may have just saved Madeleine.”

Strange woman, thought Yolenka, as she eased the door shut. Gabrielle was slumped over the girl’s bed again, to all appearances fast asleep. A ghost-chill ran up Yolenka’s back. Not asleep. Yolenka wasn’t sure what Gabrielle was doing, but it was something very different from sleep.

LIKE A POISON. Gabrielle had always felt there was some ominous power to this disease that she was not touching. What if it was a poison? What if that membrane, the Veil, was not only infecting Madeleine’s throat like any other illness but making a poison that spread throughout her body? It would explain why Gabrielle made so little progress as she worked. It would explain why removing the membrane was deadly—maybe that released the poison in a great flood, and the open wound on the throat absorbed it all at once. The poison would rush through the bloodstream and enter all the vital organs...

So, she could not pull aside the Veil. But she could look behind it. She would go there and discover the secret that lay behind its protective skin.

She calmed her own urgency, let her breath come slow and steady and weightless as thistledown. She let the little room fade away, let herself float on the swell and fall of the ship. She let the healing light fill her until it seemed the glow of it could brighten the darkest deepest crevice in the ocean floor. Then she let that light pour into her niece, taking her inner vision with it.

SHE HAD IT NOW. This illness, this Gray Veil, made a double attack. Madeleine’s throat infection was real and aggressive, and Gabrielle’s fight to push back its spreading inflammation had not been useless. But it had not been half enough. For the hateful membrane on Madeleine’s throat was also making a powerful toxin. Even knowing what to look for, it was barely discernable in the infected tissues—like looking for a glimmer of candlelight in a room full of lamps. But as the membrane grew, so did the quantity of poison that oozed from behind its leathery surface. And like a dead pigeon in a well that taints the drinking water and sickens a whole village, the poison seeped into Madeleine’s blood, causing harm everywhere it traveled: heart, liver, kidneys—no wonder she had sickened so quickly!

But she was young and strong, her own body fighting hard against the invasion. There was no lasting damage yet. And Gabrielle knew what she was fighting now. For the first time in two days, she was confident that Madeleine would live.

The membrane was held at bay, and her circle of light would hold for a time. Madeleine’s breath was slightly obstructed and uneasy, but not to the point of true suffocation. All of Gabrielle’s power now could be trained on the evil alchemy taking place on the underside of the membrane.

The night ahead would be long—her second without rest. No sense wasting energy holding herself upright. She climbed into the narrow bed beside Madeleine, wrapped her arm around her niece’s waist and sank into a deep trance. Gabrielle looked up with a start as someone entered the room, confused by the sudden pull back to the world. Normal comings and going didn’t usually disturb her, so what...?

Féolan stood in the flickering lamplight. Why does he have a scarf wrapped around his neck, she wondered vaguely, noting the bulky silhouette he made above the shoulders. It’s a warm night...

“Sorry to disturb, love.” Féolan’s voice was a husky rasp.

“Féolan!” Gabrielle sat up in alarm, tearing free of the cobwebs that lingered from her trance. He wore no scarf, she realized. That was his neck, swollen to monstrous size right up to the ears.

“Whatever this Gray Veil is, it seems Elves are all too susceptible,” said Féolan. He lay on the other bed, and Gabrielle saw how his legs buckled as they lowered to the mattress. “I woke up like this. I’ve come here to protect the others, but—” He held up a hand as Gabrielle scrambled to his side. “You stay with Madeleine. I felt her weaken with every mile of that journey. She needs you now.” He closed his eyes and fell silent, as though that short speech had used up his strength.