Lilith Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 10 of 21

The cold box kept the food, but the animals kept coming. Three more arrived at dawn: a limping badger, two shivering hares. Lilith healed their wounds by noon. Then she stood in the crowded apothecary and saw the problem she could not fix. Pens filled every corner. The healed fox pressed against the wall to make room. New arrivals huddled by the door, in the draft, because there was nowhere warmer to put them. Her single room could mend an animal, but it could not house one for long. "They recover, and then they crowd the sick," Lilith said. "I heal them, and I have no place to send them." Liko leapt onto the counter. The gray cat had watched her since childhood, and he studied her the way she studied a wound. "You are treating the symptom," he said. "You built a hospital. You never built a home." Lilith opened the medical guide for the tenth time that morning, as if a page might hold an answer. It held remedies, not rooms. She shut it. "Tell me plainly." "The field gives you wool and straw for healing," Liko said. "Ask them for more than supplies. Ask them to help you build." Lilith wrapped her cloak and crossed the snow to the field's edge. The lions rose from the frost and listened. She told them the truth: her animals healed, then had nowhere to live. The largest lion bowed its head. That night the creatures worked beside her. They hauled timber and lifted beams. The clipped-wing crow rode her shoulder, watching, unable to fly but unwilling to stay behind. By the third dawn a house stood near the apothecary. Two floors. Twenty-three rooms. The creatures had filled each one with soft beds, blankets, bowls, and toys. The floors gave off their own warmth. Fresh water ran clean in every room. Lilith walked through it with the crow on her shoulder and could not speak. She carried the healed animals over one by one. The fox found a bed by a window. The badger climbed the stairs and claimed a corner. Along the hall she set long wooden shelves, draped them with blankets, and lined them with beds so the smaller creatures could nest at any height. The demon kitten trotted ahead of her, horns bright, choosing the softest cushion for itself. The apothecary emptied. Now the sick could rest without the well pressing in on them. Lilith stood in the doorway of her new home for the forsaken. "It holds," she whispered. Then she saw the trouble already coming. The house was large. It rose two stories where days ago there had been nothing. From the town, anyone could see it. The crow shifted on her shoulder. She had made a shelter no one could miss, and the town had promised to watch.