* * *
THE corpse lay on a table, a large male about ten years older than Jason but with a similar skin tone. The flesh on the corpse’s cheek bore the same pattern as the scar on Jason’s face. The corpse looked fresh. Was it a rival, a long-standing enemy? Or more likely, some man off the street who happened to resemble Jason Parris.
Charlotte exhaled quietly. She had walked into this world on her own. She would deal with it.
Richard leaned against the wal , his arms crossed. The crime lord sat next to the corpse in a chair. Miko leaned against the wal as wel , as if mirroring Richard, one leg bent, her foot propping her up. She was a strange girl, quiet, her narrow face calm, but there was this odd hint of unpredictability about her, as if she was just waiting for the right moment to stab someone.
The disfigurement on the corpse’s face looked red and fresh. The marks on Jason’s face were more than a year old.
“How wil you age the burn?”
Charlotte asked.
“We have a necromancer,” Jason said.
“She wil age it. Is there anything you need to heal me?”
She shook her head.
The aftereffects of fatigue were stil there, pooling in her bones, but she’d recovered much faster than she had expected. If she had healed sixteen people yesterday, she would be in bed, unable to move. But now, she felt . . . refreshed.
Relieved, as if some heavy physical burden had been lifted off her shoulders.
The irony.
Healing is a noble sacrifice, Lady Augustine’s voice instructed from her memories. Harming is a selfish perversion.
The burden wasn’t truly gone,
Charlotte reflected. She had simply traded the pressure created by the imbalance in her magic for the weight of murder on her mind.
“So this healing, is it a special talent?” Jason asked.
“Yes.”
“Some magic can be taught.”
Charlotte nodded. “Yes. Flashing can be taught and improved through practice, even for someone from the Broken, assuming they have any magic at al .
Healing can be made more efficient, but you must be born with the talent.”
Jason was looking at Richard. “Your sword thing is a flash, isn’t it?”
Richard nodded.
Jason looked at her. “I’ve seen a lot of strange magic shit here but never what he does. I asked him to teach me, but he won’t.”
“You do enough harm as it is,”
Richard said.
Jason grinned. “Aww, you hurt me, old man.”
Richard raised his eyes to the heavens.
“I’ve unleashed you on this poor unsuspecting city. I simply feel sorry for the cutthroats of Kelena. If I teach you to flash, there wil be none of them left.”
“I don’t need flash for that.” Jason touched his scar. “Let’s get on with it.”
Charlotte took a chair and set it in the beam of light spil ing through the high window near the ceiling. “Sit, please.” He sat down. Charlotte stepped
closer, turning his face with her fingertips to better view the scar in the light. A second-degree burn, extending into the reticular dermis, the deep layer of skin that cushioned the body against stress.
She’d healed worse.
She raised her hand and let the golden sparks of her magic sink into his skin. He held completely stil , his unnerving gray eyes steady.
The damage was extensive. She sank into the task of repairing the tissue destruction. When a body sustained an injury, specialized cel s, which the Broken doctors cal ed “fibroblasts” and the Col ege healers cal ed “suture cel s,” sprang to the rescue. They moved into the wound and began secreting col agen, traveling within the clot until final y they anchored and closed the gash. The moment this anchoring took place was determined by many factors, and when the process went on too long, it led to the buildup of fibrous tissue and sometimes, if the scars formed on organs, fibrosis, which could be fatal.
The scar itself was comprised of the same col agen fibers as the regular skin, but instead of crisscrossing, these fibers aligned in the same direction. She had to soften the stiff tissue of the scar and then painstakingly shift the col agen fibers within the skin to approximate its normal basket-weave pattern. It was slow, methodical work. Facial scars required precision—the symmetry of the face was at stake. The room, Richard, Jason, al of them faded. Only the injured tissue remained, and she focused on realigning it.
As if through a wal , she heard muffled voices.
“You’re getting your scar healed, and you’ve procured a body double,” Richard said. “Why the sudden need to appear dead?”
“The Mirror is taking an interest in me,” her patient answered.
“What did you do?”
“Many things, none of them good, but none of them concern the spooks either.