Chapter 174 — One Question

Chapter 174: Chapter 174 — One Question

~Raven~

By the third time the nurse asked when Isolde had last slept properly, even Raven was beginning to understand that pretending not to hear the question was not going to work.

Isolde sat on the edge of one of the infirmary beds with her sleeves pushed back while the nurse held two fingers against the inside of her wrist. She had answered almost everything else with varying degrees of impatience, but whenever the subject returned to sleep, her attention found somewhere else to be.

The nurse apparently had more patience than Isolde had energy.

"Marchmont."

Isolde closed her eyes briefly. "Two nights ago."

The nurse’s fingers stopped.

"Two nights?"

"I know how long two nights is."

"Good. Then you understand why I’m concerned."

Isolde looked as though she had several responses to that and disliked all of them equally. In the end, she settled for a sigh and allowed the woman to continue checking her without another argument.

The nurse asked when she had last eaten properly, whether she had been dizzy or nauseous and if she had noticed anything unusual about her essence.

Isolde answered each question more reluctantly than the last, but the woman refused to be hurried. She checked Isolde’s pulse again, watched the faint flow of essence beneath her skin for several seconds and then repeated one of her earlier questions in slightly different words, apparently to make certain the answer had not changed.

Raven stood a few feet away and heard almost none of it.

That bastard hasn’t let me sleep in two fucking days.

The sentence had followed her all the way from the corridor.

Two days.

Raven had understood what Isolde meant the moment she said it, but watching her sit beneath the infirmary lights while somebody checked whether two sleepless nights had done actual damage made the situation feel different.

Isolde had felt him.

She had known something foreign was inside her head, and somehow she had spent the last two days fighting against it without even knowing for certain what she was fighting.

Raven knew that feeling far too well.

Cassian had believed her when she told him about the Dreamwalker. He had helped her investigate, found information she never would have known to search for and taken the threat seriously when almost anybody else might have told Raven she was exhausted or imagining things.

But Cassian had never experienced it.

He had never opened his eyes and wondered whether he had actually woken up. He had never watched somebody wear a familiar face inside his own memories or felt the sick uncertainty that came afterward, when even something ordinary could make Raven stop and wonder whether it was real.

Isolde had.

The thought settled strangely inside her. Raven had spent so long treating the Dreamwalker like something trapped entirely between herself and the bastard hunting through her head that it had never occurred to her how much she wanted somebody else to understand.

"Rivers."

Not simply believe her.

Understand.

"Rivers."

Raven finally looked over and found the nurse watching her.

"What?"

The woman’s eyebrows rose. "I asked whether she seemed dizzy when you brought her here."

Raven hesitated just long enough to ruin any attempt at pretending she had been listening.

From the bed, Isolde’s mouth twitched.

The nurse noticed too. "Have you heard a single thing I’ve said for the last minute?"

"I heard some of it."

"That usually means no."

Raven opened her mouth, but Isolde spoke first.

"She’s been like this since we arrived," she said, glancing toward Raven with the faintest hint of a smile. "I think seeing me voluntarily enter the infirmary has damaged her ability to process information."

Raven slowly turned toward her.

"That is complete bullshit."

Isolde’s expression remained perfectly composed, although the slight brightness in her eyes ruined the effect.

The nurse looked between them for a moment and wisely decided she had no interest in discovering which one was lying. She returned to Isolde instead, taking her wrist again and checking her pulse one final time.

"You’re going to eat something proper tonight, and you’re going to sleep. No training and no unnecessary essence use until you’ve rested."

Isolde’s lips parted.

The nurse looked up immediately.

Isolde closed them again.

Raven almost smiled.

The woman clearly knew exactly who was sitting in front of her, and even then she did not move away immediately.

"If you become dizzy, if your breathing changes or if anything about your essence feels worse, you come back here. You do not decide you’re First Seat and therefore exempt yourself from basic sense."

Isolde stared at her.

"I would never."

The nurse’s expression suggested she had heard enough lies for one evening.

"I mean it, Marchmont."

"I gathered."

Apparently that was as close to obedience as the woman expected to get. She gathered what she had used during the examination, gave Isolde one last suspicious look and finally left.

The door closed behind her.

Raven waited.

Isolde leaned back slightly on her hands and watched Raven with an amused expression on her face as she crossed the infirmary, reopened the door and looked down the corridor in both directions.

"Very subtle."

Raven ignored her.

The nurse was still walking away. Raven waited until she disappeared around the far corner before closing the door again, then returned to the bed.

Isolde had not moved. She looked exhausted enough that the shadows beneath her eyes seemed darker beneath the infirmary lights, yet there was still a trace of amusement waiting when Raven stopped in front of her.

"Start talking."

Isolde lifted one hand before Raven could continue. "One question first."

Raven stared at her for a moment, then let out an exaggerated sigh and folded her arms.

"Of course. Because you dragging me across half the academy wasn’t enough. Fine. Ask."

A smirk briefly touched Isolde’s mouth.

Then it disappeared.

Something about the sudden seriousness in her expression made Raven straighten slightly.

Isolde studied her for several seconds before asking, "You’re the Alpha Queen of this generation, aren’t you?"