Of Metal and Wishes Read Online Free PDF Page B

a bristle brush and lather the antiseptic soap between my fingers, all the way up to my forearms. Then I dry my hands on a clean cloth and begin assembling supplies.
    I try to ignore the metallic taste on the back of my tongue as I prepare the soporific sponge. I challenged the Ghost to prove himself to me, and now this boy is lying on my father’s table. His blood is dripping between his broken toes and from the top of his foot, where two shards of bone have pierced his flesh and made it look like meat. He is shaking. His tan skin has paled to a sickly green. When he turns his head and sees me, his eyebrows come together and shoot upward. He recognizes me. And he looks terrified. Does he suspect what I’ve done? He couldn’t possibly know about the Ghost, could he?
    He squeezes his eyes shut as every muscle in his body tenses. My father is probing at his foot, wiping the exposed bones and torn flesh with purplish antiseptic. I swallow hard and step forward with my tray, which holds the sponge soaked in a solution of opium, mandrake, and henbane. The imp flinches as I come near.
    “His name is Tercan,” Melik says to me, watching my face.
    I duck my head and focus on Tercan. When I open my mouth, I speak hesitantly. “Tercan.” His name falls from my tongue all twisted and ruined, but the imp boy, despite his agony, actually tries to give me an encouraging smile. It’s merely a twitch of his pale lips, but it makes me want to get his name exactly right. What he did to me earlier seems insignificant in this moment.
    “Tercan, this won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt you,” I promise him, but as I look at the wound, I know his time at Gochan is over before it has started. He can’t work with a mangled foot like that. He may not even be able to walk again, which means possible starvation, both for him and for whomever he was planning to send money back to. He’ll be turned out into the Ring, far from his home in the west, and who knows if he’ll make it back there?
    Did I cause this? No. No, I couldn’t have. There is no Ghost, and this was an accident.
    With steady fingers I grasp the sponge between the metal teeth of the clamper and lift it to eye level. As I explain the ingredients, and how it will put Tercan to sleep while we fix his foot, Melik translates smoothly . . . until he hears the word “fix.”
    “You cannot fix this,” he says in a low voice, making one of those quick, sharp gestures at Tercan’s foot. He leans over his friend, and it is all I can do not to step back. His eyes are so round, so pale, the jade irises striped with flecks of amber and blue. His mouth curls up at one corner and he adds, “Unless you have some magic we don’t know about.”
    “I . . . I don’t—,” I stammer.
    “She means we can put his foot back together and stitch it up,” my father says, raising his head from his work to look at Melik, unflustered by this Noor boy who doesn’t seem to know his place. “You are correct that he will never be the same.”
    My father’s assessment is so blunt that Melik flinches like he’s been slapped. I wonder how the words translate into his Noor language. I’m not sure, but I notice he doesn’t translate what my father said for Tercan, whose head has sunk back onto the table. I turn my attention back to him, the reason all of us are hunched beneath my father’s brightest lamp. My hand trembles only a little as I gently touch his arm. “Let us help you,” I whisper.
    His eyes lock on to mine, and they are full of hapless innocence, of pleading animal fear. He stares at my face, searching for some sign of malice, maybe, for any hint that I might want to harm him.
    I do not look away. I can forgive you for today, I think.
    He blinks a few times and nods. “Sleep,” he says raggedly. “Yes.”
    I lower the sponge over his face, and he inhales while he looks hopefully up at me. It doesn’t take long for his eyelids to flutter and for his breaths to stretch long and deep.