Page 30 of Wench

Allen pulls them back like a curtain and gestures for Marian to step inside.

The scent hits her first. Not rot or sickness, but herbaceous with something bitterly metallic beneath it. It coats the air, not cloying, but insistent. Inside, the space smells of crushed herbs and warm resin. Beds are carved into the walls, little hollows lined with moss and woven mats. Fae of every shape and size move quietly from cot to cot, tending to the injured with hands or whispers of power. A woman with braids knotted through with feathers fans her palms above a soldier’s bruised ribs, and light seeps out like honey, golden and slow. Another wrings steam from a bowl without lifting a finger, holding a cloth above it until the vapour seeps into the fabric.

It isn’t crowded, but it’s not empty either. Every bed she passes tightens something in her chest. Fae, adults and children alike, lie in hammocks or on low pallets cushioned with lichen and woven blankets.

And several of them look . . .wrong.

Skin too pale. Breath too thin. Their eyes should be variations of green, from sun-warmed sage to the deep emerald of ferns, but they’ve all turned a misty, glassy grey.

Allen shifts the linens in his arms, his voice lowering as if the weight of what he’s about to say deserves quiet.

‘They came from Silverfen,’ he explains, glancing toward the nearest cot where a boy who looks no older than twelve lies with his chest rising shallow and slow. ‘Lyss’s village at the far side of Sherwood, east of Nottingham’s borders.’

Marian follows his gaze, her mouth tightening. The boy’s lips are cracked and pale, his lashes trembling faintly against his grey-veined cheeks.

‘Surely they have capable healers of their own,’ she whispers.

‘Elswyth’s connection to the ore runs deeper than anywhere else on this side of the forest, and it answers loudest during the month of the equinox.’

‘Fae ore,’ she repeats, breathless.

‘It sings clearer when the veil thins. Sickness doesn’t cling as tightly when the ground itself wants to mend it.’

One of the older healers, broad-shouldered and white-haired, beckons Allen with a lift of her chin.

‘Song-keeper,’ she says, ‘I need your hands.’

Allen gives Marian a glance. ‘Stay here.’ He’s gone without waiting for a response.

Marian counts five breaths, maybe six, before her curiosity wins out and she continues in the opposite direction. The infirmary unfolds in layers of curtained archways, with hanging herbs strung between carved beams. Each room hums with a strange energy. Grief held at bay by ritual and desperation.

And then she hears something entirely out of place – laughter.

Not loud or raucous. But a kind of wonder-tinged glee, fragile as glass but unmistakably alive.

Marian follows the sound, easing around a slatted wall and ducking beneath a fringe of ivy. The chamber beyond is smaller, warmer. No beds or pallets. Just a hollow in the tree, rounded like a womb, where the air pulses with quiet enchantment.

And Lox kneels at its centre.

He is barefoot, cloak shed, shirt unlaced at the collar. His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, revealing forearms etched with vines of dark ink that shimmer with life. His hands hover above the floor, palms splayed. Beneath them, the bark ripples and then splits.

A bud pushes up through the earthen floor, blooming in a slow, curling spiral. First one, then two, then a dozen flowers unfold, soft and pale and in every colour imaginable. They’re unlike anything Marian’s ever seen. Their petals glisten with dew, and, when they open fully, they emit a faint chime, clear and musical, like wind through crystal.

The children gathered around him gasp in delight and wonder.

Three of them, all thin-limbed and grey-eyed, kneel close to the blossoming patch. One claps her hands weakly. Another leans forward, and Lox steadies him with a gentle hand to the back. Then, with a flick of his fingers, the blossoms drift upward, rising into the air like stars freed from the sky. A flower lands in each child’s palm. The smallest boy giggles, pressing the blossom to his cheek, and Lox smiles.

Marian watches from the shadows of the doorway, the linen basket forgotten in her grip.

This is not the man who circled her like a predator in the court-chamber. This is not the fae who toyed with her lies or threatened to keep her like a trinket.

This Lox is . .. soft. Threaded with a gentleness so at odds with the power she knows pulses beneath his skin.

He lifts a flower and tucks it behind a girl’s ear, brushing her hair back with reverence. His thumb lingers just a breath too long on her temple, as though he could will her to be whole again through touch alone.

Uncertain if she’s trespassed on something sacred, Marian takes a step back before she’s seen, and nearly knocks over a tray of herbs. A healer glances up, frowning, and Marian mumbles an apology.

Allen reappears beside her like smoke. ‘I thought I told you to stay put?’