"Sadie?"

A cool compress lay across her forehead. Someone was speaking her name, but the sound was muffled, as though underwater.

"Sadie? Can you hear me?" The voice was clearer this time. It sounded familiar.

"Sister Mari?" Sadie's voice was hoarse, and someone pressed a cup of water to her lips. Sadie gulped the water, raising her arm to grip it.

Sadie froze. Something was wrong. Something was very, desperately wrong.

"Sadie, wait—"

"What..." Sadie whispered as she took in her left arm, bandaged from shoulder to elbow. For that was all that remained.

"I'm so sorry, Sadie. We tried our best, but we couldn't save your arm. The necrosis had already started by the time you reached us—"

"What happened..." Flashes of memory returned, slicing through Sadie's mind. The ferrifae. The icy burn as her spirits were flayed. The unnatural cold of dead, unfeeling flesh.

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Sadie began to hyperventilate as she relived the horrors of the deepest Darkwood. Sister Mari crouched beside her, holding Sadie gently as she cried.

✦✦✦

Sadie recovered slowly. After the first week in the healers’ hall, she returned to her own rooms. Her belongings had all been returned. No one had discovered the spirit vials, tucked neatly into her pouches.

She had told all who asked that she had encountered the ferrifae. She described them at length to the healers and alchemists who came to assess her. She told them of the flower that warded them away. Where she had found it. How she had cut it.

But she did not tell them about the spirits she had collected.

Sadie felt sick every time she thought of the pain of her spirits being torn away, shredded to nothing. She felt sicker still as she thought of the pain she herself must have inflicted while divesting the hare of its spirits.

She could not—she would not—share the knowledge which would allow others to inflict that pain on any creature, living or dead. She prayed Sister James’ research proposal would continue to gather dust.

As her flesh healed, and she was fitted with a new hand of wood and crystal, Sadie pondered what to do with the spirits she had collected.

She could not use them. She could not waste them.

She wished on shooting stars, praying for an easy answer. There were none.