I should have been surprised at the words coming out of my mouth. I really wasn’t. I’d been doing nothing but idiotic things since I’d returned here. One more instance of suicidal lunacy wasn’t going to make a difference.

It took a while for my words to sink in, then everyone shot off to get me the things I’d requested. Only Uncle Tare’s wife remained, clutching her chest in bewilderment. “Cau… cauterize?” she squeaked.

Of course she’d caught that. I raked my hands through my hair. There was no nice way to put this, and if there was then I lacked the social graces to come up with it. “I will do what I can, but I am not a doctor.” I gave her a pleading look. Please understand. “I might need to amputate.”

“Amputate?” she repeated my words, looking about ready to collapse.

Why did everyone leave me with her?

I’m not good for this!

“Look… I… damn!” I paced the room, sank down in the only chair in the living quarters. My legs dangled uselessly above the ground and now I was looking up at her even more. It might have been better had I let her sit for this, I belatedly realized.

“This might kill him no matter what I do.”

There. I said it.

“I … understand.” She turned her back to me and leaned meekly against the table.

No, you don’t!

All I did was give you lot yet another reason to hate me the second this goes south.

I wisely did not voice that thought out loud. There were probably a million other things someone smarter than me should, and could, do and say to make all this less painful for her.

I was immensely grateful when Meg and Reya returned with the requested items. I let the town healer take care of setting everything up and fled outside. I needed to fetch some things from my own saddlebags, and catch a good breath of fresh air.

“Right. Now everyone out. Only Meg stays to help me,” I said when I walked back in. I had no idea if Meg would be of any use. Reya would be the logical choice. But I did not just need someone with medicinal skills. I needed someone I could trust. Gery’s wife was the only woman here that I felt I could come close to relying on.

They hesitated, began to protest.

“You asked me to do this,” I added before any of them could actually voice their complaints. “Now you either trust me, or I walk.”

I was being a tremendous hypocrite. I did not trust these people for one bit, yet I asked them to trust me with this man’s life. Nevertheless, I needed to send people out for my own safety. Having more people present would not change how far they trusted me right now. But it would make my work harder if I needed to convince three people to keep trusting me instead of one.

Some more needless stalling on their part later, and then Meg and I were finally alone.

“What do you need me to do?” Meg asked after I had settled myself in a chair next to the bed. She was standing in a corner, uncomfortably shuffling about. “I’m… I’m not very good with blood.”

“Define not very good.” I sized her up. She had acted a bit queasy earlier. I feared ‘not very good' would be an understatement.

“I… um… faint?” she offered in a meek little voice that did not fit her jovial face at all.

I groaned and closed my eyes in defeat. I should have seen the signs the moment she walked into this home. This wasn’t going to work. I didn’t need expertise, just an extra pair of hands. If she fainted all I’d get was an extra headache.

“Right,” I relented, after tiredly rubbing my eyes. “Just get Reya. I suppose we shall do this with the three of us after all.”

When Reya returned I only got more protests from her. “You only need one person. Meg should go,” she insisted.

“No. Meg stays,” I refused to concede. “That is not negotiable.”

She glared at me, then at Meg.

“It’s alright, Reya,” the redhead apologized in my stead.

Reya glared some more, then gave a very reluctant nod. “Fine. I’ll just brew him something for the pain.” She gestured towards Uncle Tare. “Be right back.”

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Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we were ready to begin. Gery had taken the wife to his place because Uncle Tare’s little house did not have a door between the living quarters and the bedroom. Sufficient light had been prepared for Meg and Reya to see by. Now the both of them were waiting for my instructions.

“Meg, Reya, I am only going to need you to do two things,” I began.

The look that statement brought to their faces made me sigh. It told me they were already expecting a catch.

“Yes, you are right.” I nodded to confirm their suspicions. “It is not going to be as easy as that sounds. The first thing I will require from you both is trust. Unconditionally.”

I fixed the both of them with an individual stare. “Can you do that? Meg? Reya?” I kept on repeating their names every other sentence. It was a cheap trick, but it would make me more relatable in their eyes, more trustworthy.

Meg nodded. Small nods, fast and way too jerky. That meant she didn’t trust me. Reya I couldn’t read at all. She’d been friendly at first, right up until Gery had lied for me. Now she was reserved, fearful. She’d given me plenty of signs earlier that betrayed she did not trust me, but now that I needed to read her she’d schooled her expression into one of passive compliance.

I continued on the assumption neither of them trusted me enough for this, slowly began working my way towards the points they’d have issues with. “I am not a surgeon. I am not a doctor. So I will need to rely on some healing magic for this.” I nodded at Meg. “Just like I did with you.”

I waited for them to acknowledge that. Meg nodded in return. Reya frowned.

Probably wondering how a monster can do healing magic.

“It is going to be a bit more involved than with you, Meg, and his condition is rather delicate. Infection is a serious risk… and um…” I motioned towards my outfit caked in dried blood. It was not the most sanitary way to start on someone with these kinds of grievous injuries. “So the first thing we are going to do is wash our hands and arms, yes?”

Meg nodded again, slightly more self-assured now that we were going to do something so banal and I was talking them through all the steps. Even Reya seemed somewhat appeased by my slow and reasonable pace.

“Right, then bring me some of that linen.” I smiled at them.

The second their attention was diverted I turned my back on them and did something I had never deliberately done in public. I took off my gloves, rolled up my sleeves, and plunged my hands in a bucket, all in quick deliberate motions so they wouldn’t see my claws until I took my hands out again.

With their attention back on me, I calmly soaped my hands and arms. It did not take them long to notice my claws, and then they both stared at me in utter terror. My composed calmness was an enormous lie. I was exposed, naked. This could end in so many horrible ways.

Once I was done I reached for one of those towels. I stopped halfway, waiting for them to hand one over to me. They didn’t. Far too terrified. They shouldn’t have been this shocked about this. There had been talk about claws while they’d left me in the water. Far too much talk to be a coincidence. Shae had blabbed. I was not pleased about that, but that issue would have to wait.

“Do you trust me, Meg?” I prompted gently, wearing my best concerned frown. Internally I was freaking out and begging her to respond. If I could get Meg to trust me then I could hopefully get to Reya as well. This was entirely the reason I had initially wanted to do this with only Meg. It was so much harder doing it with two people.

Meg stared at my claws utterly doe-eyed for a little longer, then she appeared to steady herself. After taking a big lungful of air she crouched down next to me. She did not just hand me a towel, she gripped my hand as well. “Please, please, save him.” She begged me. Then she washed her own hands.

I was confused. That was the second time now someone had reached out and grabbed my monstrous, clawed hands in just as many days. It wasn’t just Shae that was weird. Everyone here was weird. I had to put a stop to this before everyone turned this into a ‘touch the claws to prove ourselves’ game. If only I knew how.

At least I had been right. With Meg convinced it did not take long for Reya to follow. While they both dried their hands, I turned to Uncle Tare. He was still out cold. Reya had tried to wake him but hadn’t gotten much more than confused mumbling. We had decided to leave him be for now. Once we started he would either wake up from the pain, or he wouldn’t.

It would have been better to have him on a table instead of a bed. That should have been obvious to me from the start. I briefly considered moving him, but the tiny table in the living quarters would not hold him. Dragging either him or a bigger table across the village in the dead of night did not appeal to me either, so we’d have to make do.

“Now, let us take a look, shall we.” I started undoing bandages. Reya was quick to help. Meg appeared to pale a little as she saw us work and retreated to a corner of the room.

I began feeling along the edges of the first exposed injury, careful to not let my claws break the skin. Reya was staring at my claws with enough intensity to get her own hands tangled in the bandage she was unwrapping so I caught her attention with a clearing of my throat.

“The second thing,” I said, trying to keep her eyes trained on my face by talking to her.

“Oh… um… right?” she questioned.

“I will be going from wound to wound, starting with some of the lesser ones to get a feel for his injuries before moving on to his leg. I will treat the worst of it with some healing magic, then it is up to you,” I lectured. “Once I am done, wash out the wound, plaster a generous dose of honey, and apply fresh bandages.”

I made Reya repeat what I’d just told her. Then I made Meg do the same. Reya was not pleased with me treating her like an idiot. I did not care. I needed her to be able to do this blindfolded.

“There is a minor hitch with this whole procedure though. I am fairly competent at healing magic, but it is not healthy for me…” I hesitated.

Again I could not think of a nice way to explain this to them. Healing magic was Tonaltus based, just like the rune crafting I’d done earlier. Unlike with rune crafting, there would be no safe and slow way to go about it for me. This would hurt. A lot. A hell of a lot.

“Using healing magic kills me.”