Lena Marsh's Arc

Chapter 21 of 24

When the guards were gone and the shop was quiet again, Lena sat with the silver needle in her palm and knew she did not know how to use it. Polona had told her the needle would draw essence without draining a life. She had not told her how. Her mother's notes said blood, breath, or essence. The needle was the tool. The hand was still hers. She swung her legs off the bed. The floor tilted, then held. Nell watched her but did not stop her. "I need the notes," she said. "And the shirt." Linny brought them up from the shop. She set the folded linen on the bed and the notebook on Lena's knee. Her purple hair was pinned back. Paint still marked her knuckles from before the woods. "You look like you'll fall over," Linny said. "I might." "Then sit." Lena opened the notebook. Her mother's hand slanted across the page. Blood is fastest. Breath is safest. Essence is truest. She read it three times. Breath. Not blood. Not the last of him. "Breath," she said. "I take it on the exhale. Not the inhale. I only take what he lets go." Nell's jaw set. "You're guessing." "I'm reading." The fox slipped in from the landing and lay across her feet, green tail curled tight. Its weight steadied her. Forge came up the stair with his shoulder bound. He looked at the needle and the shirt and said, "Tell me what to hold." "Him," Lena said. "If his hand shakes, hold it." They went into her father's room. Glen lay small under the blanket. His eyes opened when she sat beside him. The hopeful light was still there, thinner now. "Papa. Breathe out for me. Slow. As many as you can." He nodded. She threaded the needle with a strand she pulled from the air, pale as morning. She held the point above the linen collar, close to his mouth. He exhaled. She caught the breath on the needle's tip. The thread pulled through the cloth on its own. A faint warmth ran up her wrist. The linen brightened where the stitch closed. He breathed in. She lifted the needle away. "Again," she said. They worked like that. Exhale, stitch. Inhale, wait. Linny counted his breaths under her breath. Forge kept his hand under Glen's. Nell watched the color in Glen's face and the color in Lena's. After twelve stitches Glen's cheeks had more pink than they'd had in a month. After twenty, his hand steadied on its own. Lena's fingers still held. She stopped before she wanted to. She set the needle down. "It works," she said. "How much more?" Nell asked. "Days. The shirt has to be finished. Every stitch is a breath." She looked at her father. He had already fallen asleep, breathing easy. "And I have to be here for every one." Outside, the shop bell rang. Someone was at the door.