"No, no, no, no, no..."
Shardu paced, then stopped, then paced again. His boots clicked against the floor, uneven and erratic, like the heartbeat of someone standing too close to a cliff's edge.
Allen lay on the slab.
Not a bed, not a cot—a slab. Stone, cold, sterile, the kind of surface meant for corpses or things about to become them. He hadn't moved since they'd dragged him in, his limbs limp as overcooked stalkroot, skin pale, breathing shallow. His coat was shredded. Dried ichor clung to the lining. One of his boots was missing.
"Seven kinds of stupid," Shardu muttered, slamming down a rack of vials so hard one cracked. He didn't even flinch. "You absolute, blade-dancing, poison-sniffing lunatic."
He crouched beside Allen and peeled back the remains of his sleeve. The arm was swollen. Purple. Black. Veins like ink-lines crawled up toward the shoulder, pulsing slowly.
The bite mark was unmistakable.
"Willow spiders," Shardu breathed, eyes wide. "Gods below. Not one. Several."
He stepped back. Scratched his scalp with a hand still gloved in soot and something that glowed faintly. His fingers trembled, but not from fear. From calculation.
He whirled, grabbing a flask, then another, then three more. Shoved aside a bubbling cauldron with such force it nearly toppled.
"Think, Shardu. Think. He brought you the mushroom. You know its reaction. You tested it. It works on Widowling venom—but this… this is something else."
He turned to Allen again. The boy—no, not a boy. A weapon pretending to be one. Skin the shade of something fading. One eye swollen. The other still open slightly, staring without seeing.
"What in the hells did you do, Allen? Fight a nest? Crawl inside and ask them to bite you one by one?"
The venom signature was chaotic. He could see it without even needing a full draw—the way the veins discolored, how the sweat on Allen's skin turned iridescent under the torchlight.
He pressed two fingers against Allen's neck. Weak pulse.
He pulled a scalpel and slid it gently across a nicked section of skin. The blood that beaded was almost black.
"Right. Time's not your friend. Or mine."
He moved fast now. Flowing into the motions only years of half-mad alchemy could burn into someone. He added powder to a mortar, crushed it until it smoked, added a few drops of blue serum, then another of raw water from the Bleeding Fountain.
A hiss. Then a small flame leapt from the bowl.
Shardu grinned. "Good sign. Maybe."
He reached for a thin vial—the one he'd labeled W2 (willow trial 2). The result of the last week of distillations, trial runs, and one near-miss with a blind snake. The antidote built from the mushroom Allen had brought him, the one that nearly killed him getting it.
"You stupid, suicidal lunatic. You brought me the cure before you needed it. Who does that?"
Shardu crouched beside him again, vial in hand. He tilted Allen's head slightly, uncorked the antidote with his teeth, and poured it past cracked lips.
Allen didn't swallow.
Shardu swore. Fumbled for a dropper. Administered three slow doses. Tilted Allen's head back. Waited.
The boy jerked. Once. A shudder. Then still.
Shardu leaned in.
Nothing. Then a rasp.
A breath.
He exhaled hard. "All right. That's one in the win column."
He sat back on his haunches, sweat trailing down the side of his face.
"Still dying, though. Make no mistake. That antidote won't do more than delay things unless the body kicks in. You hear me, you stubborn bastard? I bought you time. Not a miracle."
He didn't expect a response.
But Allen's fingers twitched.
Shardu froze.
Another twitch. Then stillness.
He stood, turning to his bench. Grabbed another vial, a stimulant this time—one that would force Allen's heart to maintain rhythm, keep blood moving while the antidote tried to neutralize the venom.
He administered it via injection, into the his breast.
Allen shuddered.
Shardu leaned against the wall, watching the boy with narrowed eyes.
"I swear," he muttered, "if you survive this, you won't hear the last of me. How can you be this reckless not to mention stupid."
He turned to the side bench where Allen's equipment had been laid out.
Grabbed a flask,poured himself a cup of boiled bark tea, the kind that settled the mind and killed weak bacteria in the gut.
Took one sip.
Spat it out.
"Spoiled. Of course it is. Like everything else tonight."
Allen gasped.
Not a breath. A choke.
Shardu dropped the cup and rushed over, placing both hands on Allen's chest. Not for pressure, just to steady him. The pulse under the skin was still weak, but faster now. Unnatural. Chemical-driven.
Eyes fluttered. Then stilled.
Shardu leaned close.
"Listen, you little bastard. I don't know what the hell that satchel's worth, or what you were thinking going into spider country alone. But I'll tell you this: if you live, you owe me a bottle of Widow's Tincture and an explanation. And if you die...I will hunt your soul down and bottle it just to slap it."
An hour passed.
Then five.
Then a day,Two days.
Allen's breathing stabilized. Shallow, but steady. His skin remained pale, but some color began to creep back into his lips. The black in the veins dulled to a murky purple.
Shardu watched all of it.
Monitored. Measured. Muttered to himself.
"He's fighting it. Damned idiot. Might actually make it."
He sat down beside the slab, back to the wall, and let his head rest against the cold stone.
He didn't sleep.
But he did close his eyes.
Just for a while.
He needed to be awake when Allen did.
If he did.
And if he didn't?
Well.
There were worse ways to die than trying to keep a blade like that from breaking too early.
Shardu wouldn't admit it aloud, but he'd started to like the kid.
Mostly.
He glanced once more at the unconscious boy.
Shardu felt it in creeping cold, unlike ice,more like the beckon of the reaper, in the silence between torch flickers. In the way Allen's shadow stretched longer than the light would allow
And the real question wasn't whether Allen would survive.
It was whether what he'd brought back should have.