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I turned to Luana to thank her, but my eyes caught the others lingering in the doorway. Chloe and Talia stood at the front of the group, and the others were gathered in the hall. Chloe clutched the Mentalist Wand, and Talia held on to the Seer Wand. The ends were glowing. Chloe’s features had turned ghost white.
“We can read her mind,” Chloe said hollowly. “It’s not word-for-word, but we can sense the message. I’m not going to speak or translate for her directly, because I’m not a skilled interpreter, but I can put the gist of what she’s saying together and get it across to you, as long as Luana’s fine with it.”
Luana must’ve read her lips, because she nodded to Chloe, telling her it was okay.
Chloe swallowed hard. “She says the babies are okay, but Nadine was poisoned.”
Time must’ve stopped, because I wasn’t sure how much I processed after that. I was aware that Verla and Talia were both freaking out. Their voices grew harsh as they discussed how this could have happened, in case there was a cure, but that was about all I picked up on.
It didn’t make sense that Nadine had been poisoned. We’d all been eating and drinking the same food all day, and none of us were sick besides my wife. It wasn’t that I didn’t think this could happen. The priestesses certainly wouldn’t hesitate to kill Nadine the first chance they got; she wasn’t useful to them anymore. I just didn’t know how they could slip anything past us. Our wards were iron-tight, and we didn’t source any supplies from the coven anymore. Besides, I trusted every person in this house, so I couldn’t even fathom where the poison had come from. The only thing that made sense was that something she ate had interacted with her meds.
I mentioned this, but Luana didn’t seem convinced of it. I insisted that we couldn’t possibly have a traitor in our midst. Luana suggested perhaps the poison was accidental—that maybe we’d been sold some bad herbs.
“What kind of poison was it?” I demanded.
“She doesn’t know for sure,” Chloe said. “It’s not a poison she’s healed before, so she’s not familiar with it. What Luana knows is that the poison targeted Nadine’s stomach and lungs, and she was able to heal those with her magic by healing Nadine’s organs. Unfortunately, she couldn’t process the poison out completely, because she’d have to heal her whole body, and that could trigger early labor.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Verla protested. “She should be able to heal Nadine of all ailments.”
Luana glanced between Verla and Chloe, then started signing an explanation.
“Healing magic can have poor effects on pregnant women,” Chloe explained. “She can target specific areas, or use her magic to observe and diagnose, but technically, the babies are foreign to the body. If she heals too much, the body might try to abort, and we can’t risk that.”
“Absolutely not,” Nadine agreed in a groggy tone. “I’m not going to do anything to harm the babies.”
“So what do we do?” I demanded.
“With time, Nadine’s body will process out the poison on its own,” Chloe said.
“We must be able to do more than that,” I begged.
Luana frowned, and Chloe said, “There comes a point where neither you nor the medical staff can do anything. We just need to give it time and hope it doesn’t affect the babies. Luana wants Nadine to remain on bedrest for the rest of the pregnancy.”
Nadine winced a little as she moved. “Believe me, I’m not leaving this bed until my due date. Then Lucas is portaling me straight to a hospital bed.”
Nadine looked really uncomfortable, and I took her hand. She squeezed as tightly as she could, though she didn’t appear very strong. She gave me a look I’d seen a thousand times before that said, All I want to do is sleep.
“Let’s give her some space,” I suggested.
“I’ll brew a cleansing potion that will get the blood stains out of the carpet,” Verla offered, before following the others out into the hall.
As everyone went their separate ways, I stopped Grant and pulled him aside. I lowered my voice so no one else could hear. “I want you to go through all the leftovers. Test everything Nadine ate today.”
“I can do that, but I might not have the results until morning,” he said.
“I don’t care. Just find out what caused this. And don’t let anyone in this house eat anything else until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Grant nodded. “On it.”
Chloe and Talia stayed to help interpret for Luana. “Nadine was very lucky,” Chloe said. “She could’ve died without an Anichi healer, but Luana got to her just in time. She says the rest of us have to be very careful. It could’ve been a mistake, but from her experience as a healer, she thinks someone might’ve tried to harm us.”
“Is Nadine going to be okay?” I asked Luana.
“She’ll be fine for now,” Chloe said while Luana signed to me. “She needs to rest. Luana wants you to portal into her office in the morning so she can come and check on Nadine. She promises to be back every few days to monitor her. If we need anything else, she wants us to portal her here immediately.”
“Thank you,” I told Luana, before I portaled her back to her office.
Verla returned with her cleansing potion and helped clean up, then left the room.
