Rhaena stood and went to Jonas’s side, offering her shoulder to support him to stand. ‘Please pull the bed out from the wall so we have room to work.’

The blanket fell from across Jonas’s shoulders, his dignity only maintained by a death grip on the one he held over his groin.

Llew moved to comply, her mind shrieking at her: a complication even beyond Aenuks. But Llew was Syaenuk. That had to mean something. She had to be able to do something to beat the bug robbing Jonas of his Syakaran powers. She just had to.

In the meantime, Jonas was about to lose his leg in the heart of Turhmos. They didn’t have the time to question Rhaena’s expertise, and Llew had nothing to heal from except these kindly women.

As they approached, Llew placed a hand on Jonas’s shoulder. ‘Do you feel safe?’ She peered at him closely, hoping the fever hadn’t addled his mind.

Rhaena lifted her eyebrows.

‘Merrid and Ard were good to us,’ Jonas said. ‘They can’t be the only ones, and I’m runnin’ out of time.’

He was right. On balance, they had to trust these women.

Rhaena supported Jonas as he maneuvered himself onto the bed and lay down before them all. At first, he seemed reluctant to meet an eye in the room, but once his gaze met Llew’s he held it. She placed a hand on his shoulder.

Rhaena lay a blanket across Jonas’s middle, offering him some warmth and dignity. She took a moment to examine his other injuries, rolling him on his side to see the one high at the back of his thigh. Her lips pressed tight, but then she said, ‘These look clean, at least. We should be able to prevent further infection.’ She let him roll to his back. ‘But this . . .’ Rhaena pressed her fingers into various points on Jonas’s leg, beginning with his upper calf and pausing above his knee, watching him closely for a reaction, then bent over him, hovering her ear over the area she was pressing, her expression grim. And when she nodded to herself, there was no satisfaction in it.

Llew nearly blurted that she was Syaenuk; she could save him. But Rhaena’s words hung in her mind: a complication even beyond Aenuks. And with Jonas’s life in the balance, she couldn’t risk some experiment now.

Jonas pressed his lips together and rolled his shining eyes to the ceiling. All Llew could do was squeeze his shoulder. His opposite hand came up to rest over hers, but he didn’t look at her.

Elka dug through Rhaena’s bag, bringing out a small brown bottle, grasped awkwardly in her twisted hand. Llew went to reach for it as Elka appeared to fumble, the bottle toppling against the edge of the bed beneath the mattress, ringing out as glass and metal met before Elka steadied the bottle again, giving Llew a flat look that suggested she resented Llew’s assumptions about her ability to handle the bottle.

Jonas’s breathing and blinking rates increased, and he didn’t seem to know where to look.

‘Relax,’ said Rhaena.

‘You won’t have a choice soon,’ Elka quipped as she shuffled alongside the bed, approaching Jonas’s head, bottle and rubber hose brandished.

Llew picked up Jonas’s hand, clasping it in both of hers.

A few weeks ago he’d been the most physically gifted man alive, apart from, perhaps, the Immortal Aris. When she met him, Jonas had oozed confidence. And why wouldn’t he? An attractive, highly capable man whose advantages were many and responsibilities few. And here he was, already stripped of his Syakaran powers, now left to choose between his leg or his life – no choice, in other words.

When had he ever been more vulnerable than in this moment? Even as a new-born babe he’d been under the protection of two Syakaran parents. Now? Now, he just had Llew. And her Syaenuk power felt wholly inadequate if things went wrong here.

Jonas’s eyes stopped darting about to lock with Llew’s, as Elka opened the bottle, fed a rubber tube into the top. That look was filled with so much fear. All Llew could do was breathe deeply and give him some assurance in a smile. Their lives were now in the hands of these two Turhmosian women. Llew had to have faith in them, if for no other reason than to give Jonas peace of mind as he was sedated.

Rhaena pulled a belt from her bag, fed it under Jonas’s thigh, strapped it tight and turned back to dig through her bag.

Elka offered the free end of the tube for Jonas to take into his mouth.

‘Breathe deep.’

Jonas accepted the hose between his lips, nodding his thanks to Elka before looking back up to Llew. His chest began rising and lowering more slowly and his eyelids grew heavy, but he refused to look away from Llew. She returned the steady gaze, having no idea how else she could support him on this journey.

A metallic scraping drew Llew’s attention. Rhaena had drawn a saw from her bag and lay it on the edge of the bed. What was about to happen became very real.

Thankfully, Jonas’s eyes were already closed.

‘You don’t have to stay,’ Elka said. ‘There’s a room you could wait in across the hall. It won’t take long.’

‘Plff. Dmph. Mngrr.’ Jonas’s eyes opened long enough to make his plea.

‘I’ll stay.’

As soon as Jonas’s eyes closed again, Llew looked back at the saw with its deeply serrated blade. Rhaena splashed liquid from a glass bottle over her hands and rubbed it in, then picked up a fine blade and waited. Llew felt sick.

‘You don’t have to watch,’ Elka said. She lifted one of Jonas’s eyelids, then nodded to her mother. ‘He’s out.’

With surprising dexterity, Elka held a cloth to the mouth of the same bottle the rubber tube was inserted into and tipped, soaking the cloth. She shaped the cloth into a loose cone and placed it over Jonas’s nose and mouth, extracting the rubber hose. While unused, her hands were normally either locked straight or curled, but put to use, her thumb and first two fingers proved no less capable than Llew’s own. Elka spared a sympathetic smile for the unconscious Jonas, then flicked Llew an unreadable look before turning to watch her mother’s progress.

In the time it had taken Elka to swap the hose for the cloth, Rhaena had already cut deep scalloped curves through the top and underside of Jonas’s thigh and wielded the saw. Llew turned her head and closed her eyes and wished she could do the same with her ears, but she kept a hold on Jonas’s hand. It took only a few seconds for the bone to be sliced through, but Llew still couldn’t watch whatever Rhaena was doing. Again it was mere seconds before a crinkly sound had her daring to look as Rhaena wrapped a thin sheet of metal over Jonas’s new stump.

‘To prevent infection,’ Elka murmured. ‘Carbolic acid and tin. Seems to keep the bacteria at bay.’

‘Bacteria?’

‘Germs. Bugs.’

Braph had mentioned bugs on the train to Duffirk when he’d admitted involvement in Jonas’s loss of powers, but he’d used a different word.

‘Micro—?’

‘Microorganisms? Yes.’ Elka smiled the smile a pleasantly surprised parent might give their clever child.

‘Does it just kill the bugs in his leg? Or can it fight them in the rest of his body?’

‘This is topical.’ Rhaena pulled a soft bandage roll from her bag and freed an end. ‘It only acts to prevent infection establishing at the wound site.’

Llew projected a look of curiosity satisfied, not the full disappointment washing through her.

‘We will address his fever while he rests. Hopefully I’ve removed the primary cause,’ Rhaena said. Llew hoped so, too. Although, whether it caused a fever or not, the bug weakening Jonas still needed to be dealt with.

Llew allowed herself to be mesmerized by Rhaena’s quick hands as they wound a bandage in a figure-eight over and around Jonas’s new stump. ‘So fast,’ she murmured. Not just those hands, either. The whole procedure seemed to have barely taken a minute.

Rhaena smiled. ‘I mentioned working the railways earlier.’

Llew nodded.

‘They brought out a select few Aenuks to work the lines,’ Rhaena spoke while she wound the final layers around Jonas’s thigh. ‘But healing those bigger wounds damaged the environment too much. They can’t risk killing farmland so close to the towns.’ She sighed as she reached for tape and tore off a section without releasing the end of the bandage. ‘I can’t help but feel there should be a better way. It wasn’t always like this.’

Of course there was a better way: grow Ajnai trees, free the Aenuks. Llew wondered if that was what Rhaena referred to with her last comment. If so, it seemed they had found allies as supportive as Merrid and Ard. Another beacon. The thought was more than a little reassuring when she glanced again at Jonas’s bandaged thigh. They weren’t exactly in a position to fight or run any time soon. Still, Llew would feel better with some sort of plan in place. They were still too close to Duffirk as far as she was concerned. ‘Where’s Keldely from here?’

Rhaena stepped back and nodded once to her daughter, who lifted the cloth cone from Jonas’s face and said, ‘Northeast, thereabouts. No train between here and there. A day or two, depending if you walk or ride.’ She nodded down at Jonas’s thigh. ‘Though he won’t be doing either of those soon.’

Jonas stirred, ending further conversation. Llew hadn’t noticed the tension in Rhaena and Elka, but the release was palpable. Whatever Elka had used had acted swiftly, and ceased its effect just as quick. Jonas blinked, looking from Llew to Elka, and recognition slowly dawned. After a few more blinks, he sighed.

‘It’s done, ain’t it?’ His eyes flickered through a range of minute expressions; confusion and something dour – Sadness? Anger? – dominant.

‘Yes. All done.’ Rhaena smiled at Jonas, but it wasn’t the smile of pride in a job well done. Everyone in the room knew what full physical prowess was to a Syakaran. It was who and what he was.

Jonas nodded at the ceiling. Then he blanched.

‘Bucket,’ said Elka, and immediately Rhaena passed one across to her. ‘This way.’ With a gentle hand, Elka guided Jonas over the bucket as his body convulsed. He retched once and then heaved. ‘Many p— patients react to the ether this way,’ Elka spoke across Jonas, as if she and Llew were enjoying a conversation over cups of tea. ‘He may feel unwell for a day or two, but it’s nothing to be con— concerned about.’

Rhaena slid the detached leg from the bed, wrapping it up in a sheet and placing it beside her bag, before continuing to place her used surgical instruments away.

Having had little food or water over the previous days, Jonas was soon dry retching until his body seemed too tired to try anymore. He rolled back, his eyes gaunt and streaming, his skin pale and moist, and his hands trembling, his breath shallow and fast.

Finishing up gathering her surgical utensils and that great, bloody saw, Rhaena pulled out a tiny bottle and coaxed Jonas to open his mouth enough for her to administer a dose of clear liquid. She handed the bottle to Llew. ‘Just when he needs it.’

Llew clapped her fingers around the bottle. Not long ago, she had needed its magic. Now it was Jonas’s turn.

Rhaena shook out a woolen blanket, and Llew and Elka helped pull it up around Jonas’s chin as footsteps sounded on the stairs. Llew looked sharply from one woman to the other. Elka had said her grandfather didn’t ‘do’ stairs.

‘Mama?’ A female voice reverberated through the door.

‘Leela,’ Elka whispered.

‘Elka’s sister,’ Rhaena clarified, collecting her bag and the bundle that contained Jonas’s leg from the floor. ‘Elka and I must go,’ Rhaena continued. ‘I’m afraid Leela never understood Elka’s admiration for Jonas, and certainly didn’t approve my encouragement.’ She turned to go. Turned back. ‘Elka.’

‘Yes, Mama.’ The young woman lingered a moment before reluctantly sidling out from behind the bed and drawing herself away.

Rhaena paused at the door. ‘He should sleep now.’ She spoke quickly and quietly. ‘Rest while you can. In fact, we will see to a bath for you soon.’ Rhaena and her daughter slipped through the door.

‘What were you doing in there?’ Leela asked.

‘Just looking for something,’ Rhaena said, as the door closed behind them. The footsteps retreated, heading back down the stairs, Elka’s slow efforts continuing several prolonged paces after the other two had disembarked at the bottom.

Llew turned back to Jonas. He lay, eyes expressionless, in an impassive face. Either he was in so much pain he daren’t move, or too exhausted to show it. Or he was simply off wherever the opiate took him.

In the absence of comforting words, she asked if he was warm enough. The fraction of a nod he gave nearly had him retching and Llew dived for the bucket. He waved her back, his hand falling heavily back by his side and his breath already slowing.

Llew let her eyes linger on the blanket covering him. The rounded end of the stump alongside his full-length leg a difficult contrast to fathom, let alone accept. Maybe it was best not to think about it too much.

Jonas soon slept.

Llew allowed herself to doze in one of the cushioned chairs, though she dared not let herself sleep; every bump or voice raised within the house pulled her alert. She had to remind herself they were as safe as they could hope to be in the heart of Turhmos, and even with Jonas incapacitated, she could fight for them. She hoped she wouldn’t have to.