There was a knock at my door before it inched open slowly and Burn stood there. I lifted my head from the pelt, my eyes burning and my head pounding.

“Ryker’s looking for you.”

Shit. Late again.

I nodded, pushing up and wondering why it was so frigid in my room. Burn lingered as I got up and watched as I bent over, my body racked with a cough.

“You okay?” he asked from somewhere a little closer.

“I’m fine. Just a cough.” I straightened, feeling like I might’ve gotten the worst sleep in my life. I waved him off as he continued to shuffle closer. “Really, I’m good.”

He left, slowly, but he left.

It took me fifteen minutes to make my way to the place we practiced, or had been practicing before the spectacle of yesterday, stopping along the way to cough up a lung. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I was in good shape, but the healer had gotten me a six-month extension. I wasn’t dying. This was just your run-of-the-mill sickness. I’d be okay. Just had to clear out my lungs, was all.

Ryker stood with his arms crossed as he waited for me in the field. He looked more resigned than angry. I realized he might’ve tossed me in the lake yesterday, but I’d come out the victor. I was breaking him down, slowly but surely, like I had everyone else in my life.

“Did you have a nice sleep?” he asked. The edge in his voice was along the lines of a well-used blade, instead of razor sharp.

“Yes, actually, I—” Hacking interrupted my words, and it took a second before I got out “did.”

By the time I looked back at him, his eyes were narrowed on me. “What was that?”

“Coughing? I’ve heard it’s a pretty common occurrence.” I waved my hand toward where he stood. When he didn’t move, I added a little more vigor to my actions. “What are you? My nursemaid? Let’s get this going.”

He didn’t move, and I forced myself to stand up straight and tried to put on a healthy, strong appearance. He was eyeballing me, but he chanted, and another day of banging into invisible walls was about to commence—until he eventually figured out I couldn’t do this.

I coughed again but tried to hold it back. I wasn’t weak and didn’t want him to think I was. I could give as good as I got and wouldn’t have anyone, especially him, thinking otherwise.

I banged into the ward, bouncing off it as I’d done a hundred times before. I bounced again. His brows dropped closer to his eyes, skepticism shining through. I rammed harder. I wasn’t weak.

When I went to ram again, I pushed right into his arms. He’d dropped the ward.

One of his arms wrapped around my back and the other went to my forehead. Both of my palms flat on his chest, I pushed off him, but he didn’t ease up the pressure of his arm. He dropped the hand from my face and let me go. “You’re sick.” He said it as if my warm skin was a personal insult.

“I’m not sick.” And why was it that he seemed to get mad every time something happened to me?

I took a couple more steps back, making sure there was plenty of space in case he got any other crazy ideas.

“Go rest. You’re useless today.”

“I’m fine—”

“I’m not arguing with you. I’ve got more productive things I could be doing.”

I was going to argue, but a cough hijacked it. Ryker was walking off before I could get my breath back to fight.

Whatever. He didn’t want to practice, there were plenty more productive things I could go do too. I headed back toward my room, thinking he was long gone, only to notice he’d stopped and waited for me a few feet down the path.

“I can walk back on my own.”

He waited, pretending I hadn’t spoken.

* * *

I was curled up on my pelt when Ruck woke me with a plate of food. He sat down beside me, putting the plate down by my head and a candle a little farther away. “Heard you weren’t feeling so good?”

“I’m fine. Just a cough. Who told you I was sick?” I wrapped the pelt tighter.

“Ryker.” He nudged the plate toward me. “You going to eat?”

“Yeah, thanks.” I reached out and took a piece of the chicken off the plate and went through the motions, even if the last thing I wanted to do was eat. I reached for another piece, since Ruck was watching me like a hawk.

He leaned closer. “You sure you aren’t sick? You look sick.”

“A little sleep and I’ll be better.”

He nodded, but his lips were downturned.

A hand on my forehead woke me again and I tried to swat it away. I knew it was Ryker without opening my eyes. I could feel his magic, but at least it was behaving itself tonight.

His hand shifted from my forehead to my cheek. “Ruck said you barely ate.”

“Because I’m sleeping.” I knew I hadn’t eaten much. People didn’t eat and sleep at the same time. I’d meant to, but that pile of food was a lot of work, and I’d drifted off before getting far.

He was still right beside me. What did he want? It couldn’t be practice time yet, could it?

“You threw her in the lake and now she’s broken,” Ruck said from somewhere in my room. How many people were in here?

“You broke her. You need to fix her,” Sinsy said.

I opened my eyes to find that my room was packed. My entire crew was gathered around Ryker, giving him the evil eye.

The sky was tinged with early morning sun. I’d slept almost straight through since yesterday.

“I’ll fix her.” Ryker pulled the pelt snugly around me, and then I was pressed against his chest as he lifted me off the ground.

“What are you doing? I’m sleeping.” If I could just get my damn arms free, I’d zap him this time for sure. Why did he have to always be so pushy?

“It’s too damp in here.” He was walking, and I felt the air hit my face, my crew sounding like they were following behind us.

“I want to stay in my room. This is my place. I don’t care if it’s—”

“Bring her to my room. She can have my bed,” Ruck yelled over me.

“She should be with us,” Sinsy said.

There was the sound of shuffling, and I was pretty sure Sinsy was trying to push past Ruck. They all argued as we walked somewhere or other. I couldn’t see anything the way Ryker had me tilted, but all I cared about was going back to sleep.

Then we stopped. “She okay?” Burn asked.

I tried to lift my head out of the cocoon and tell Burn I was fine, but I couldn’t get enough clearance. Then a cough conspired to end my attempt. Instead of giving me a little room to breathe, Ryker smothered me closer to his chest.

“Find the healer. Tell her she needs to come now,” Ryker said.

“I’m not that sick,” I said, but I wasn’t sure Burn heard me through the pelt.

We were off and moving again, but the only thing I noticed was the massive heat Ryker threw off. I hoped wherever we were going would take a while. It was the first time my bones had felt warm since yesterday.

I didn’t groan as I hit a bed, even though I wanted to. The pelt dropped away from my face. Wait one damn second. This wasn’t Ruck’s room.

“Why did you bring me here?” I demanded as I tried to uncurl myself from the pelts. Ryker was standing by the bed as everyone piled in around him.

“Don’t get off that bed.” Ryker pointed as if I needed help understanding the order.

Really? Did he have to say it like that? Now I felt compelled to get off the bed and I didn’t even want to. What I wanted was to fall asleep until I felt human again, but then he said that? Didn’t he know me at all by now?

He must’ve seen the fire building in my eyes, and not the one caused by the fever, because he walked over and leaned a knee on the bed. “Can you for once not be so stubborn? I’m not your enemy.”

Okay, he might’ve figured me out a little. I was still lying there, pelt half over me, as he looked at me, his face a foot from mine. I felt another cough building in my chest as I thought it through. What was wrong with me? I was sick. There was no denying it. Did I really want to crawl out of here half dead?

I curled the pelt around me again as I snuggled deeper into the bed. Maybe he was right occasionally.

He straightened and added, “But don’t think you’re staying there all night. Half dead or not, you get kicked out at seven. I’ve got those manly bonuses I’ve got to cash in on.”

I knew he was making fun of me, mocking my mockery of him. It felt as if a boulder was on my chest, and I still felt the laughter bubbling up. It quickly turned into coughing that racked my body.

By the time I was done, Ryker had lost all his humor and my crew looked like they were going to go dig my grave.

“I’m fine,” I told them.

“I’ll be right back,” Ryker said. “Ruck, Sinsy, if she tries to get off that bed, tackle her.”

They nodded as if they were his soldiers, which they definitely weren’t. They both squeezed onto the bed with me, sandwiching me between them.

* * *

I woke up to the healer holding a large cone to my chest and listening through the small end of it. It was only Ryker, the healer, and me in the room.

She took the cone from my chest. “She’s got bad spirits in her lungs. You realize that she’s not a hundred percent, and tossing a girl who can’t swim into deep water isn’t a bright idea, right? I gave you an extension, but that doesn’t mean she can’t die. Because—”

“I know what she’s got. I need you to do a speed and split,” Ryker said, cutting to the point.

“It’s better if she heals naturally.” She put the cone in her bag and turned toward the door.

“I’m not asking for your opinion. I’d do it myself, but you know I can’t.” Ryker blocked the doorway, appearing as if he’d tackle her before he let her out the door.

“You shouldn’t keep drawing from the well when you don’t need to. It brings bad mojo.” The healer was standing with her hands on her hips.

“You’re not going to get bad mojo. Now do what I need.”

I’d never had someone held hostage for my benefit. I wasn’t sure if I was flattered or not. Technically, I wasn’t willing to be here either. Considering Ryker looked at retaining people against their will as a grey area, it really didn’t hold much weight.

“You don’t leave until you do it,” Ryker said, only shifting out of the doorway to let Burn walk in.

I knew I could fight my way through being sick. It was the other deadline looming. If I was sick, I didn’t have a chance of getting any better with the wards. If I couldn’t do the wards, I’d be dead before the six months ran out.

“I need to at least ask her,” the healer said in a huff before turning to me. “You can be better tomorrow, but the next twelve hours will be horrible.”

“But then I’ll be good?”

“Yes. But it’ll be—”

“Do whatever you have to do.” I had five and a half months left. I wasn’t wasting a day more than I had to in a bed.

Ryker handed the healer her bag, as if to say, Get busy.

She started shuffling through her things, mumbling, “I don’t know why I come when you call.”

“Because you don’t want to piss me off, and I pay better than anyone else.” Ryker was staring a hole through the healer’s back, and appearing as if he might take over if she got any slower.

The healer shrugged and dug out a black wax stick.

Ryker turned to Burn. “Explain to her people that they have to stay out while the magic works or they can get sick.”

“Got it. I’ll keep them out.” Burn turned to leave.

The healer grabbed his arm, holding out her black stick. “If you don’t mind?”

Burn lit a finger, and she waved the stick over it a few times. “Now you I like,” she said before she threw Ryker a nasty look. Burn left and she turned to me. “Raise your shirt.”

Ryker turned around without me having to ask.

The healer took the warmed stick and drew with it on my flesh, making marks from my collarbone down to my lower ribs. “Just remember, you asked for this,” she said as she finished.

I dropped my shirt, settling down farther into the bed.

She walked over to Ryker. He yanked his shirt over his head and tossed it on the bed. The healer took her stick and drew on him.

“Why are you doing that?”

The healer didn’t answer, since she was mid-chant, and neither did Ryker.

Speed and split. “Wait, you’re going to…” My mouth dropped open, and this time it wasn’t to cough.

“I can’t have you sick for weeks.” He looked down at his chest before he told the healer, “Give me as much of it as you can.”

The healer added more marks, and seemed to do it gingerly, too. Not that I faulted her for it. He could be a bit of a bastard.

His entire chest was marked by the time she was done. He was doing this because he needed something from me. He wasn’t a good person. This was motivated. Now, I just needed to repeat that to myself a thousand times so I didn’t feel bad.

And why should I feel bad? He was the one to throw me in the lake. I had punched him in the mouth. But he had pushed me first. He was also holding me hostage in exchange for help with the Debt Collector. He wouldn’t have gotten his hands on me if I hadn’t been scoping out his place to rob. My head was spinning with the back-and-forth. Maybe we were both bastards.

The healer left, and I tried to crawl out of the bed. I’d go tough it out in my room. I didn’t want to do this alone, but I could do it alone. I’d be fine.

“Where are you going?”

“Figured I’d give you your bed back, since you might need it more than I will.” I wrapped my pelt around me as I sat up.

“Stay there. Your room isn’t comfortable.”

“You sure?” Was he going to leave? I couldn’t tell if he was putting on a fresh shirt because he was leaving or just because. I certainly wasn’t asking him to stay. No way. If he stayed, though, maybe that wasn’t so bad. If he left, whatever. I could do it alone.

“We have to stay in the same room for it to work,” he said.

I settled back down. At least if it got too bad, I had a way to stop the magic and release him from what he’d just done.

“How bad is it going to be?”

“Hard to say.”

It was a little pain, that was all. No big deal. No reason to break into a cold sweat. I swiped my arm across my brow and wrapped the pelt a little tighter around myself, waiting for whatever was to come. I certainly didn’t want to be curled up in a ball sobbing in front of him, that I knew for sure.

“I’ve seen grown men, twice your size, piss their pants and cry like babies, though.”

I nodded. Okay, so as long as I didn’t pee all over myself, I was ahead of the curve. I had a surprisingly strong bladder. “They really cried?”

“Sobbed like babies.”

Large buffer zone for embarrassment. That was good to know. I guessed it wouldn’t be too bad that he had to hang around, knowing he expected the worst. Most people looked at me as if there was no way I’d be as tough as a big, burly man. They were always wrong. Ryker probably expected the worst, probably thought I’d be begging for mercy.

Considering he might get it worse than me, why did he look like he wanted to laugh? “You’re screwing with me about the crying like babies.”

He smirked. “Maybe a little.”

He walked across the room to a table that sat in the corner and appeared to be used as a desk. “Since you’re awake and we’ve got some time to kill, thought I might go over the game plan for Bedlam.”

I felt a clamping feeling across my chest. As soon as that subsided, I said, “Sure. No reason to waste the day.”

He came around to the side of the bed with another one of his maps and sat down, his hip not far from my head on the pillow. He handed me a flask. I tilted it to my lips and took a long swig.

When I would’ve handed it back, he nudged it toward my lips again. “It won’t be horrible, but it’s not much fun, either.”

It was probably a good idea. I took another large swig. He took it back when I handed it to him this time. He took a long swig himself before he placed it on a table beside the bed.

He shifted down slightly, held out the map in front of both of us, and pointed to a spot along the border of Bedlam. “That’s where we’re going to get you close enough to drop the ward.”

I nodded, breathing through a sharp, stabbing pain that was hitting my midsection. I turned on my side, settling in as I looked over the different spots on the map he pointed out.

Wards were fine and dandy, but Bedlam had bigger defenses than wards to deal with. “What about the dragons?”

He turned his face toward mine, with a real smile this time. “Dragons won’t attack Wyrd Blood.” His eyes narrowed for a second, and I knew he was getting some of those shabby pains, too.

“They won’t?” I asked, looking to distract him as much as he was doing for me.

“No. Most people don’t know that.” He turned back to look at his map as I watched him. For a total bastard, he had a nice profile.

“Why won’t they?” I wanted the answer, but I liked hearing his voice, too, the way I could almost feel the deep rumbling of it when we were this close.

“It’s said that whatever magic brought dragons into creation is the same magic that Wyrd Blood carry. They might sense something of what they are inside of us.”

I listened as the waves of pain came closer together, and tried to stay focused on his words.

He tilted his head slightly toward me again, and then his eyes focused on mine and my breathing hitched a bit—and it wasn’t from the bad spirits this time.

A cough attacked my chest and I turned the other way, breaking whatever spell had been building between us.

When I finally stopped, he said, “Do you want to hear about the first dragon ever found?”

“Sure.”

“A few months after magic had come into existence, a man called Xavier Windfrost was stuck in a winter storm along the High Cliffs of Marander. He found a small cave to weather it out in. That’s where he found these large eggs, a kind he’d never seen before that were the size of his head, with shells the color of the most vibrant sunsets ever seen.”

I curled tighter into a ball as the pain continued to grip me. It felt like someone was taking a saw and trying to open me up from the inside out. I tried not to focus on the pain as I listened to him talk about how Xavier watched the eggs hatch during the worst of the storm and then saw the small dragons fly off.

I felt Ryker’s eyes on me then, and met them. He nodded slightly. “This should be as bad as it will get.”

If this was the worst, it was bearable. Not pleasant, but I’d make it without embarrassing myself.

He put the map to the side. “Want to hear about the Ruined City before the war?”

He might still be my enemy, but it didn’t feel like that right now. I nodded, curling deeper into the covers as he described what everything had been like hundreds of years before I was born.