Chapter 213

They carried me upstairs, not to the ward but to our room.

Dante would not let the smell of iron and tinctures be the first thing I breathed when the world steadied.

He laid me on the edge of the bed and knelt on the rug as if prayer could be stitched into wood. Mirella’s hands moved in clean, practiced circles—cloth at my mouth, bowl ready, vial uncorked, bitter drops on my tongue that made the