Arc 5: Chapter 18: Graveflower
It took some doing, but we got Emma up the stairs and into the inner halls of the mansion.
Those halls were carpeted, lined in metal braziers and decorated with paintings and tapestries, all of it old and lavish as anything I’d seen in a king’s court. Otherwise there wasn’t much to distinguish it from countless other noble dwellings I’d been in.
Other than the brass pipes. They ran across the walls and ceilings like veins, riddled with holes of varying sizes and shapes. Did they all connect to that instrument in the foyer, I wondered?
Did the whole forest connect to this place?
We limped along in silence for a time. Emma, propped between me and Hendry, eventually broke it.
“If no one else is going to say anything, I will.” I got the sense she was mostly just distracting herself from her injuries. “What the hell was that back there, Hendry? Since when were you strong as an ogre?”
We went ten steps before Hendry spoke. When he did, his voice was subdued. “I’ll show you after we see to your legs.”
Emma didn’t press him. Soon enough, I found an open room with light inside. It turned out to be a comfortable bedroom, with a clean bed replete with a curtain and a smaller adjacent room for washing.
We got Emma into the bed, and I inspected the damage. Bad, as I’d thought. Not for the first time, I cursed that I’d lost my healing touch.
You managed to call on a High Art not half an hour ago, I told myself. Maybe that’s not as out of reach as you thought?
There were rolls of linen on a table, and other supplies. Hendry and I got to work, getting Emma’s legs clean, sanitizing the wounds, then wrapping them up. I didn’t question how this had all been readied so quickly. We were in a wizard’s sanctum, and I had seen stranger things.