"Eskir!" I raced to his side and shook him. The blood had left his face, leaving it far too pale. His breath shook with each rasp, and his skin was cold. His hair was scattered across his face and the floor in an absolute mess created as he tossed and turned in his unconsciousness. He was still alive, but faintly.

I didn't even know what had happened. If only I had stayed awake instead of falling asleep with Ana, I might have heard something, I might have stopped this. But there was no time to think about the what-ifs right now.

Lucian came up behind me, eyes wide at the busted-down door. "Xera!" he said. "I realise you're leaving, but I still have an inn to run! If you wanted to express disappointment with my management style, you could have just cussed me out!"

"Lucian," I said, ignoring him, "I need water, rue, holly, and lovage. Now!"

He froze, staring at Eskir laying in front of me. "Wha—"

"I think he's been poisoned," I said. "I need those herbs. I can make antidotes with them."

"What kind of poison?"

"I don't know, but I can treat most things with those herbs."

"We don't have any holly," he said, his face whitening. "Berries are too toxic. Children don't know."

"Mistletoe, then! There's an oak tree fifty paces south of the tavern, a mass of mistletoe's growing up in the branches." Mistletoe was a parasitic plant, and I'd meant to remove it from the tree. It was poisonous as well, with stunning white berries, and children did love to wander and climb. Most knew what plants to avoid where they lived, but this was the inn at the crossroads. Everyone here was a traveller, and would not necessarily recognise the native foliage.

"Now!" I yelled at him, spurring him after a few more moments of hesitation into a sprint downstairs. I knew he kept rue and lovage. He used rue for poultice and lovage for seasonal soups. But they wouldn't be enough without holly. Even mistletoe likely wouldn't do enough. The only magic I had was my ring, Stoneguard, and it was useless against poison. It was just a weapon.

Lucian was only gone for a few minutes, but Eskir's breathing had shallowed by the time he returned. His arms were covered in scratches from his climb and his lungs breathless from the run. When could Eskir have been poisoned, if it was killing him this quickly?

"I have it!" he shouted, handing me the plant. "As much as I could carry."

"I still need the rue and lovage! And water!"

He ran off, and I pressed the bark of the mistletoe into the floor. Normally, I would have ground it into a pulp, but I had no time to be delicate. I clasped my hands around as much of it as I could and pulsed my ring against the bough, more gently than I had against the door, but enough to crush it. The berries had all fallen off with the winter behind us, but the pulp of the leaves coloured the bark on their own. When Lucian returned with the rest of what I needed, I mixed the mistletoe with water and pressed it down on Eskir's throat, wrapping it all the way around as best I could.

"What are you—"

"Never mind, just hand me the lovage."

He passed it to me, and I stuffed it down his throat. This had to work. Eskir was a total stranger, and he was the key to the answers I had only dreamed could exist.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"What in the hell is all of that going to do but choke him?"

"It's magic," I said.

"You don't have any magic!" he cried out. "You told me yourself! All you've got is that ring!"

I mixed the rue, flowers and stem and all, with the rest of the water, and covered Eskir's mouth with the resulting paste.

Only then did I sit back to watch him. His breathing was growing ever more faint, and I doubted Lucian could even tell if he was still alive, but I waited.

And I waited.

"Please explain this to me," said Lucian. "So that I understand. What magic?"

"I only know a little." I adjusted my seating. "Barely anything, really. Just enough to stop some fast-acting poisons."

"How long does it take to work?"

I sighed. It should have worked by now. It should have drawn the poison out. Was this it? Were my answers going to die with him?

I turned to Lucian, a glimmer of realisation hitting me. "That guest from the other day. Do you remember? Red hair, a scar on his wrist?"

"What about him?" he asked.

"He's Kindred. If he's still here, he might know more than I do."

The innkeep brought the man, who grumbled with annoyance. His demeanour changed when he saw me. We were, after all, kin.

"Poison?" the Kindred assessed at a glance.

"Do you know any magic?"

"More than you. Move."

He was very abrupt, pushing me aside to get to Eskir. I didn't complain. I would have rathered this harsh and sudden attitude than time-wasting pleasantries as my only hope lay dying.

He pulled some dried herbs from his boot. They reeked of swamp and sweat.

"You keep those in your shoe?" Lucian's face was greener than the herbs.

"The herbs are what smell, not my feet." He crushed them and murmured a spell in what sounded like Old Oleran, some adaptation of Lef. Light trickled from his fingers like raindrops, scattering themselves across Eskir. He ripped open the man's shirt and let the drops fall on his bare chest. They fell into his skin, soaking all the way through.

An uncomfortable silence fell over us while we waited. "What spell was that?" I asked.

He confirmed my suspicions. "Lef."

"I don't know much about magic," I confessed. "Just the basics."

"You're not very educated for a Kindred, then."

I should have been. Lyana made sure I knew how to fight, but I was awful at magic. Unusually so. Kindred were as equal in our abilities as humans were in theirs. We were faster, stronger, better. It was the magic part that escaped me, a failing in my studies that I never quite seemed to be able to grasp.

"I learned," I said. "Not much of it stuck. I know the names of the spells that haven't been lost, and which languages most of them come from."

"Xera," Lucian cut in, "your new friend is dying. Stop talking to the nice man about spells."

"Sorry," I mumbled. "Just really tense."

"Yeah, I can see that. Your knuckles are bone white."

A few moments later, Eskir coughed. The sound of his breathing flooded my ears, and I sighed with relief.

"Now," said the Kindred, "I'm going back to ponder on my Path. Keep his head upright, and get that gunk off him before you poison him a second time."

I wiped away the paste from his mouth and pulled the lovage from his throat. It wasn't shameful to need help, but still, my face was red in embarrassment. I had never needed to use the remedy, it was only something I had been taught for emergencies, to protect Lyana if no healers were nearby. The first time I had ever needed to use it, and it had failed me.

I urged Lucian away, back downstairs to help Ana tend to the patrons before the tavern opened. I brought him to my room and sat beside him as he shifted from his barely conscious stupor to a point where he could nearly speak.

Instead, he croaked out a long, hoarse groan.

"Sleep," I said. "It's too late to leave today anyway, and you've just avoided a narrow death. I don't need you dying from exhaustion, trying to trek across the country."

He glared at me in protest.

"Sleep," I commanded.

He slept. I did not. My eyes were fixed between the locked window and the door, furniture braced against it. Ana brought me food, but I did not leave him, from the light of noon until the morning after.

Nobody would touch him.