Chapter Text
The automaton exploded.
Jem had thrown himself behind a pillar just in time, but from the scream he heard, it sounded like Nate had not been so lucky. He could see Charlotte and Henry huddled together behind a nearby pillar, but he couldn’t see Will or Tessa from where he was. He could only hope that they were safe and protected from the blast.
The explosion seemed to last forever, but it was really only a minute or two. When it was finally over and there weren’t shards of razor-sharp metal flying through the air, Jem used the pillar to pull himself up and quickly looked around the side to make sure the danger was over. His leg was still healing and was very sore, but he didn’t care. He had to make sure his friends were alright.
Jem stepped out from behind the pillar in time to see Tessa running towards her brother. He was standing against a pillar with a large shard of metal going straight through his chest and apparently pinning him to the pillar. If he survived, he would definitely need medical attention, but Jem couldn’t go help Tessa now. He had to find Will first.
Jem’s eyes followed the path Tessa had taken to her brother back to where Will was just starting to prop himself up on his elbows on the floor. He was shaking and looked like he was in no condition to be getting up. Jem immediately took off towards him, but his still-healing leg slowed him down and Will was already up on his hands and knees before he could get there.
As soon as he got close enough, Jem could tell that something was wrong. Will was gritting his teeth as if in pain and his hands were clenched in fists. From where he was, Jem could see drops of blood hitting the ground under Will, but he couldn't tell where they were coming from.
It all became clear when he finally got to Will.
Jem dropped down to his knees next to Will and was about to ask him if he was having trouble breathing when he saw Will's back. Dozens of razor-sharp shards of metal had ripped through his gear and were now stuck in his skin. Jem put his hand over his mouth in shock and sat back on his heels. “By the angel,” he whispered. “You need to be laying down right now.”
Jem was trying to figure out the best way to get Will back down on the ground when he heard Tessa call Will’s name. He turned around to make sure she was alright and by the time he turned back towards Will, he had pulled one leg up under himself in an attempt to stand. It was bad enough already that he wasn’t laying down, and standing would be even worse. He needed to do something before Will got all the way up.
And then Will started coughing.
Jem didn’t have to worry about Will standing up anymore because his arms were apparently too weak from the pain and blood loss to hold him up and they gave out a minute into the coughing fit. Jem caught Will just before he hit the ground and slowly lowered him down with his head in his lap.
“Just breathe, Will,” Jem said, gently running his fingers through Will’s hair. “You’ll be fine, you just have to breathe.”
The coughing fit finally died down after a minute or two, but that didn’t mean the danger was over. Will was still gasping for breath in Jem’s lap and there was blood pooling on the floor under them. It seemed to be everywhere. It was on the floor, on Jem’s hands, on Will’s gear, and it had somehow gotten in Will’s hair, as Jem soon discovered. Jem quickly pulled out his stele and drew an amissio on the closest uninjured patch of skin he could find. It wouldn’t do much, but it could help with the blood loss until they could get the metal out and use an iratze.
“Jem?” he heard from behind him. He turned around to see Charlotte and Henry standing there, looking very concerned at the amount of blood on the floor around them. “What happened?” Charlotte asked, kneeling next to Will.
“I think he protected Tessa from the blast,” Jem said, turning his attention back to Will, who was blinking slowly and staring off into the distance. “He’s lost a lot of blood and he was coughing, which probably made it worse.”
“The Silent Brothers need to see him,” Charlotte said. She reached down and put her fingers on Will’s neck to check his pulse.
Will was so still and pale in his lap that Jem would have thought he was dead if it wasn’t for the wheezing he could hear every time Will exhaled. He was still losing blood, though not as quickly as before, and Jem wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to stay awake. He was worried that he wouldn’t wake up again if he passed out.
“We have to get him back to the Institute first,” Jem said. “We’ll have to find something to carry him on. I don’t want him moving around on his own and coughing more.”
“Did you use an amissio?” Charlotte asked. Jem nodded and was about to ask if he should put another one on Will when he heard the sound of shuffling feet and then, “Will?”
Jem looked up to see Tessa standing behind them, staring down at Will. She had blood on her hands, which he assumed was from her brother, and blood was running down her face from a large cut on her forehead that she hadn’t seemed to notice yet.
“Where’s Nathaniel?” Charlotte asked quietly.
“He’s dead,” Tessa said. “What happened to Will?”
“He covered you to protect you from the explosion,” Jem told her.
Her face instantly changed from confusion to guilt. “Will he be alright?”
Jem nodded, trying to reassure both her and himself. “He’ll be fine.”
“Can’t you use an iratze?” Tessa asked. “That would heal him, right?”
Charlotte shook her head. “If we used one, his skin would just heal over the metal. It needs to be taken out first.”
“Then we have to get him back to the Institute. Is there some way we can carry him without making it worse?”
Jem reluctantly pulled his focus away from Will and looked up at Tessa. The blood from the gash on her forehead was still running down her face and it was obvious that she still didn’t know it was there. He didn’t want her to help move Will if she was injured, for both their sakes.
“Tessa,” he said, “do you know you’re injured?”
She looked down at the blood on her shirt and hands from Nate and said, “It’s not mine. I’m alright.”
Jem shook his head. “No, that’s not it. You have a gash on your forehead.”
Tessa frowned in confusion and reached up to touch the gash. As soon as she felt it, her eyes closed and her legs buckled. Jem would have caught her, but he was too preoccupied with his injured parabatai to be there in time. Luckily, Henry had been standing right next to her and caught her just in time. Charlotte jumped up and helped him carefully lower her to the ground, then pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it to the gash.
“I’ll take care of her,” she said to Henry. “Go find something to carry Will on and then we’ll get them both home.”
INFERNAL.DEVICES.INFERNAL.DEVICES.INFERNAL.DEVICES
The carriage ride back to the Institute was a very stressful one. Charlotte, Henry, and Tessa were all on one seat while Jem knelt on the floor next to Will. They had laid him on his side on the other seat and Jem was there to make sure that he stayed awake and didn’t roll onto his back.
From where Charlotte was sitting, she couldn’t see Will’s face, but she immediately knew something was wrong when Jem tensed up and started calling Will’s name. He moved over a little bit, just enough for her to be able to see Will’s face, and she saw that his eyes were closed. That had happened a few times already, but he had opened his eyes again a few seconds later. That wasn’t happening this time.
As soon as they pulled up in front of the Institute, Cyril jumped down from the driver’s seat and ran inside to get a stretcher from the infirmary. Henry followed soon after with Tessa, but Charlotte wasn’t sure where to go. She wanted to go inside and help with Tessa, but Will was hurt worse than she was and he had passed out. She didn’t want to go inside and have him suddenly get worse with only Jem to help.
Jem must have noticed her indecision, because he smiled up at her and said, “We’ll be fine out here for a few minutes. You can go inside. The Silent Brothers still have to be called, right?”
“Yes, of course,” Charlotte said. She took one last look at Will, then left the carriage.
Jem watched her go, then turned back to Will. He had been trying to stay calm for Charlotte, but he was worried. Will had been unconscious for a few minutes now and nothing Jem did was waking him up. He kept telling himself that Will would be fine, but he was starting to think that he wasn’t going to wake up again.
Cyril finally came back outside with the stretcher a minute later and helped Jem very carefully get Will onto it. They carried him inside and then had to repeat the process to get him onto a bed in the infirmary. Once that was done, Cyril left to put the stretcher away and Jem went over to the shelves on the wall to find a pair of scissors. They usually tried to repair gear when it was ripped or damaged in some way, but the metal had already destroyed it and there was no point in trying to get it off in one piece.
When he had found the scissors, Jem went back to Will and started cutting the gear away. He cut straight up the middle as much as possible, but it ended up looking like more of a jagged line when he had to go around the metal a few times. It was a bit difficult to pull the remnants of the gear out from under Will since they had put him on his stomach on the bed, but after some tugging, the ruined gear was finally in a pile on the ground, with Will’s shoes quickly joining them. He pulled the sheet up over Will just as Charlotte walked in and stopped next to him.
“How is he?” she asked.
“He still hasn’t woken up,” Jem said. “And I wish he wasn’t lying face down but that’s the only way he can lay right now. How’s Tessa?”
“She’s alright,” Charlotte said. She pointed over to one of the beds a few beds away from where Will was. “She’s right over there.”
Jem turned to look and sure enough, Tessa was lying in a bed a few feet away. The wound on her forehead had stopped bleeding and someone had wiped the blood away, but it didn’t look like she had woken up at all.
“I didn’t even notice that she was here,” he said.
Charlotte put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. “It’s alright. You were focusing on Will. He’s probably a bit worse off than she is right now anyway.”
“That he is,” Jem said, nodding. “Are the Silent Brothers coming?”
“They’re on their way.” Charlotte moved closer to the bed and looked at the amount of blood that had soaked into the sheets in the short time that Will had been there. “I’d say it’s time for another amissio.”
Jem pulled his stele out and drew an amissio in roughly the same place as he had done the last one. He wished he could just draw an iratze and not have to worry anymore, but that would just make everything worse and make what the Silent Brothers were coming there to do a lot harder.
By the time the Silent Brothers arrived, neither Will nor Tessa had woken up and Jem was starting to panic. Will hadn’t gotten much worse, but he certainly hadn’t gotten any better and there was a slight rattling noise when he breathed that hadn’t been there before. It sounded like his physical therapy needed to be done, but Jem couldn’t figure out how it could be done with him unconscious and a bunch of metal in his back.
Jem was just starting to think of what they could do to wake Will up before he got much worse when Charlotte came in with Brother Enoch and Brother Micah behind her. He stood up from where he had been sitting on the edge of Will’s bed so he could get out of the way quickly and make more room for whichever Silent Brother to help Will.
What is the extent of their injuries? Brother Enoch asked.
“Tessa has a gash on her forehead, but we aren’t sure if it’s just a cut or if she hit her head,” Charlotte said. “She fell unconscious in the warehouse and hasn’t woken up since.”
And William?
“He protected Tessa from the explosion and the metal shredded the back of his gear,” Jem answered. “I’ve already used two amissios but he’s still bleeding. He’s also not breathing very well.”
Brother Enoch nodded. I believe he is the more serious case, then. Brother Micah will examine Tessa while I examine him.
Brother Micah went over to Tessa’s bed and Charlotte followed him there. Brother Enoch came over to Will and Jem and immediately started examining the shards of metal in Will’s back. You said he was not breathing well, he said as he worked. What did you mean by that?
“He was wheezing before, and now there’s a rattling sound when he breathes,” Jem said. “It’s probably just mucus but I want to make sure it isn’t serious.”
It most likely is caused by his illness, Brother Enoch said, but there could be blood in his lungs. Any of these shards could be long enough to damage them.
Jem immediately paled. He had thought about the possibility of there being blood in Will’s lungs or the metal causing some sort of internal damage, but he had pushed those thoughts out of his head as soon as they appeared. Having his thoughts voiced by a Silent Brother, even if it was still just a possibility, cemented them into his mind. “What can you do if that turns out to be the case?” he asked.
If that is the case, the iratzes that we will use to heal his back should also heal the internal damage. If it does not heal the damage, then there is not much else that can be done. Brother Enoch straightened up from where he had been bent over Will and said, Now, we must prepare. I will need a pair of tweezers, a bowl to put the shards in, supplies to clean the wounds, and bandages. The tweezers will have to be sterilized.
Jem went to the shelves where he had found the scissors again and located a pair of tweezers first. He took them over to the fireplace and put them in the pot of boiling water that Sophie had at some point put there for this exact purpose. While they were being sterilized, he found the other supplies and carried them over to Brother Enoch in the bowl for the shards. Included in those supplies was a smaller bowl that he would undoubtedly be using to catch something else later. As Brother Enoch was setting up, Jem went back to the fire for the tweezers and brought them over.
I would suggest applying a painkilling rune and another amissio before we begin, Brother Enoch said. Jem nodded and drew the two runes just under where he had put the last amissio. Brother Enoch picked up the tweezers and said, Ready?
Jem nodded again. “I’m ready.”
Brother Enoch reached down and grabbed one of the pieces of metal in the tweezers, then swiftly pulled it out. Jem had been expecting either no reaction from Will or just a small flinch and was very unprepared when his eyes snapped open and he immediately tried to roll onto his side away from Brother Enoch. Jem had to move fast to keep him down before he did even more damage.
You will have to calm him down before we continue, Brother Enoch said. He had already dropped the shard into the bowl and was ready to take out the next one as soon as Jem had gotten Will to calm down.
Jem knelt down next to the bed and gently pulled Will’s hand away from where it was clenched in the sheet under him. “It’s alright,” he whispered. “We’re just taking the metal out. We can’t use an iratze until it’s all gone. Do you understand that?”
Will looked panicked and in pain, but he nodded anyway. Jem smiled and said, “Good. Do you want another painkilling rune?” Will nodded again and Jem stood up and drew another painkilling rune near the first one. It wouldn’t do much more to help, but it would make it slightly more bearable. “He’s ready,” he said to Brother Enoch.
The Silent Brother raised his tweezers to take out the next shard. Jem gently squeezed Will’s hand, knowing that he would regret holding it in a few seconds. Brother Enoch pulled out the second shard and Will’s hand immediately tightened on Jem’s. He could tell just from looking that every one of Will’s muscles was tensed and he was taking the deepest breaths that he possibly could. Jem felt horrible that his parabatai was in so much pain, but he was also extremely relieved that he was awake after being unconscious for so long.
Jem turned around to check on Tessa and saw Charlotte looking at him and Will with concern while Brother Micah was bandaging Tessa’s head. He didn’t doubt that she had seen Will’s reaction to the first shard coming out and he knew that she was going to be fussing over him for a few days even after he was healed.
The removal of the next few shards went very similarly. Jem was tasked with cleaning every wound as soon as the metal was out so they didn’t have to waste time cleaning them all when all of the metal was removed. He had already been sent once to empty the bowl of the shards and it was already almost full again. It seemed like they were almost halfway done, which he was very happy to see. His hand was starting to get very sore.
Brother Micah had finished with Tessa a while ago and he and Charlotte had left the infirmary. Before she left, Charlotte had put her hand on Jem’s shoulder and told him that she would be just outside if he needed her. He had been about to answer her when Brother Enoch pulled another shard out and his focus went right back to Will.
Brother Enoch was getting ready to pull yet another shard out when Jem realized how much more pronounced the rattling noise had become and stopped him. He was pretty sure that Will was going to start coughing very soon and the position he was currently in was not going to be any help.
“He’s going to need to cough soon,” Jem explained to the Silent Brother. “He should be sitting up. Can he do that or is it too dangerous?”
Brother Enoch immediately put down his tweezers. We will sit him up, then.
The two of them very carefully helped Will get his legs over the side of the bed and sit up. They had to stop for a few seconds whenever the pain got too bad to continue, but eventually he was sitting up with one hand fisted in the sheets and the other holding Jem’s arm above his elbow. Jem could see that he was breathing very shallowly in an attempt to not cough, but he wasn’t actually coughing yet.
He needs to cough, Brother Enoch said. He was standing on the other side of the bed behind Will and wiping up the blood that was dripping onto the sheets. It will help clear his airway and tell us if he has blood in his lungs or not.
“Did you hear that?” Jem said, crouching down in front of Will. “I know it hurts, but you need to cough. The sooner you do that, the sooner the rest of the metal can come out and we can use an iratze.”
Apparently that had convinced Will because he immediately started coughing when Jem finished speaking. Jem grabbed the bowl he had brought over just for that purpose and waited. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the infirmary door open and Charlotte step inside. She must have heard the coughing from outside and wanted to make sure Will was alright. He could understand why, since it sounded a lot worse than usual.
A few minutes after Will started coughing, Jem heard the telltale change in how the coughs sounded and got the bowl into position. After a few seconds, Will was spitting the mucus he had just coughed up into the bowl and Jem’s heart instantly sped up thinking of what he might see when he looked. He hoped with everything he had that it was just mucus, but he knew that there was a possibility that there would be blood too.
Jem waited until all the mucus was out to look. By the time that happened, Will was gritting his teeth in pain and there was more blood running out of the wounds than there had been before he had started cough. Jem pulled the bowl away and reluctantly looked inside to see mucus and only mucus. He silently thanked Raziel for that and then turned to Brother Enoch and said, “There’s no blood.”
Then his lungs are undamaged, Brother Enoch said. If he is finished coughing, then we should continue.
Jem looked down and was about to ask Will if he was done coughing when his eyes closed and he went limp. Jem grabbed him before he could fall backward and make his injuries worse and grabbed Will’s wrist to find his pulse. When he did, it was weak and fast, which told him that Will had lost a lot of blood even with three amissios. He looked up at Brother Enoch in panic, hoping that the Silent Brother would know what to do.
He has lost a large amount of blood, Brother Enoch said as Charlotte came rushing over. We need to continue so that an iratze can be used. If he loses much more blood it will be at a dangerous level.
Jem and Brother Enoch carefully got Will laying down again and got ready to continue removing the metal. It went a lot faster than it had when they were sitting him up because they didn’t have to stop every few seconds because of the pain. Brother Enoch prepared his tweezers and Jem got the cloth and disinfectant ready. He was expecting a reaction similar to the one when the first piece of metal had been pulled out, but as Brother Enoch pulled yet another shard free, Will didn’t so much as twitch. Jem tried to be glad that Will wasn’t feeling the pain, but it was overpowered by the worry he felt that something so painful did nothing to wake Will up.
It took longer than Jem would have liked, but about twenty minutes later, all of the metal had been removed. Jem quickly cleaned off the last wound, then moved away as Brother Enoch stepped forward with a stele. He watched as the Silent Brother drew a few iratzes on Will’s back and added another amissio. Usually just one or two iratzes would suffice, but they seemed to work slower and were less effective than usual on Will. The Silent Brothers had never been able to explain why, but they assumed that it had something to do with his illness.
As soon as the runes were drawn, Jem stepped forward again and started cleaning the blood off of Will’s back. The bleeding still wasn’t entirely stopped, but he didn’t worry about it because Brother Enoch was standing ready with bandages. When he was done cleaning off the blood, Jem gently rolled Will into his side and pulled him up slightly so Brother Enoch could easily get the bandages on.
A minute later, Brother Enoch straightened up from where he had been crouched over Will and said, The bandages are secure. You can lay him back down.
Jem did what Brother Enoch said, but he didn’t roll Will back onto his stomach. “Can he stay on his side?” he asked. “I’m worried he won’t get enough air if he stays face down.”
As long as he stays relatively still, it should be alright. If he does wake up, try to keep him from moving too much, Brother Enoch said.
Jem nodded and watched as the Silent Brother walked away to clean the tools they had used. He couldn’t help but think about Brother Enoch had said “If he wakes up” instead of “When he wakes up.” He may have just meant Will waking up before he was fully healed, but Jem could only see it to mean “If he doesn’t die.” He was trying to be hopeful, but he knew it was not looking good at all. Will had lost even more blood after passing out from blood loss, and his breathing was very shallow with a slight rattling sound. He was going to have to prepare himself for the worst.
Jem jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around to see Charlotte standing behind him. He had forgotten that she was there in all the panic after Will passed out.
“How is he?” she asked gently.
“He’s… not doing well,” Jem said. He reached up to rub his tired eyes and wasn’t surprised to find his cheeks wet from tears.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Just…” Jem turned to look at Tessa, then turned back to Charlotte. “Take care of her. I can’t leave him, and if something happens with her…”
“Don’t worry, Charlotte said. “I’ll watch over her. You can focus on him.”
“Thank you,” Jem said.
Charlotte smiled at him. “You should rest. At least sit down,” she added when Jem opened his mouth to protest. “I’ll go tell Bridget to have some broth ready for when they wake up.” She took her hand off of his shoulder and left the infirmary, but not before looking pointedly at the chair next to Will’s bed as she went out the door.
Charlotte had only been gone for a few minutes when Brother Enoch came back from cleaning the tools. Jem had to pull his eyes away from Will to look up at him and immediately wanted to look back down at Will again.
“Will he be alright?” he asked.
We will see, Brother Enoch answered. He has lost a lot of blood and I imagine that the dust from the explosion has not been beneficial. He will most likely survive, but because of his injuries and his illness, he could deteriorate very quickly.
“And if he does? Will you be able to get here in time to help him?”
I will be staying in the Institute until his condition improves. If anything happens, I will be nearby.
Jem nodded in understanding, but what Brother Enoch had said did nothing to quell his worry. If anything, he was now even more worried. If Brother Enoch felt the need to stay at the Institute in case Will got worse, then that meant it was bad.
Jem waited until Brother Enoch had left the infirmary to sit down in the chair Charlotte had told him to sit in. He was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to just go to bed and sleep for days, but he couldn’t leave Will. Especially not now. Instead, he pulled his stele out and drew an energy rune on his arm, then leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees.
“You have to hold on, Will,” he whispered. “You can’t let some measly pieces of metal take you out. Imagine what Gabriel will say. We’ll never hear the end of it.”
It took Jem a second to realize that he was doing exactly what Will would do in this situation: use humor to cover up pain or worry. He couldn’t remember a single time that he had ever done that before coming to London, so it was fairly obvious that it had come from Will. Will apparently just had that effect on him, because there were other things that had changed about him since meeting Will. For example, not all of the slices of chocolate cake that mysteriously disappeared from the kitchen were taken by Will.
There was a knock on the door and Jem looked up in time to see Sophie walking in with a bowl and a cloth. “Charlotte thought you might need these,” she said as she put them down on the bedside table, then pulled a thermometer out of the pocket of her apron. “And this too, just in case.”
“Thank you,” Jem said. The bowl she had put down was full of water and he could see some chunks of ice floating on the surface.
“You’re welcome,” she said with a small curtsy. “She also wanted me to tell you that she’ll be in with dinner for you soon.” She looked down at Will and frowned. “Will he be alright?”
Jem nodded. “Of course. He always is, isn’t he?”
“That he is,” she agreed. “Charlotte told me what he did. It was very brave.”
“Very brave but also very dangerous, as you can clearly see.” Jem looked back down at Will. He was glad that Tessa wasn’t too badly hurt, but he wasn’t glad that Will had ended up so badly injured.
“He’ll be fine, you’ll see,” Sophie said after a minute. “By this time tomorrow he’ll be up and running around annoying everyone as usual.”
Jem smiled, but it wasn’t really a true smile. He wanted to believe her, but it was hard when he could see the blood-spotted bandages on Will’s back and hear the rattling in his breath. “I hope to God you’re right,” he whispered.
Jem barely noticed when Sophie left, but he did notice when he reached out to take Will’s hand and was immediately met with hot skin. He picked up the thermometer that Sophie had left and took Will’s temperature as gently and in the least invasive way he could. It said his temperature was 39°, which wasn’t as high as it had been other times, but was still a fever. Jem put the thermometer down and replaced it with the cloth, which he put in the bowl of water to get it wet and then, after wringing it out, put it on Will’s forehead. He hoped that the fever was caused by Will’s illness and not by an infection from the metal, because he didn’t think Will would make it through the night if it was the latter.
Jem didn’t hear the door open and didn’t notice Charlotte was there until she stopped right next to him. He looked up at her and saw that she was carrying a tray with a plate, a glass of water, and a very familiar silver box on it. She placed the tray down and asked, “Does he have a fever?”
“It’s only 38°, but I don’t want it to get any higher,” Jem said. “Especially if it’s because of an infection from the metal.”
Charlotte nodded and gently squeezed his shoulder. “If it is an infection, Brother Enoch is right outside.” She moved behind him to where she had set the tray down and a few seconds later he heard the sound of her stirring the yin fen into the glass of water. “Now, you need to take this and eat your food,” she said as she handed him the glass and put the tray in his lap.
“I can’t,” Jem told her. “I have to take care of him.”
Charlotte gently pulled his hand off of the cloth he had been holding on Will’s forehead and put her hand there instead. “I’ll do that. You eat.”
Jem sat back in his chair and watched as Charlotte sat on the side of the bed and started fussing over Will. He made sure to drink all of the yin fen and water mixture before starting on the food. As he ate, he watched Charlotte dip the cloth back in the water and push Will’s wet hair out of his eyes before putting it back. The action seemed like something a mother would do and he knew that if she and Henry ever had a child, she would be the perfect mother. She had had a lot of practice over the years.
Jem tried eating as fast as he possibly could, but after seeing the look Charlotte gave him when she noticed, he slowed down. He wanted to get back to Will as soon as possible, but he didn’t want Charlotte to keep him from his parabatai any longer because he ate too fast for her liking.
When he finally finished eating, Jem put the tray on the bedside table and said, “Done.” Charlotte looked up at him and nodded, then leaned down over Will and whispered something in his ear. Jem was too focused on Will to wonder what she had said, but he later learned that it was “You have to hold on for Jem.”
Charlotte stood up from her seat on the side of the bed and handed Jem the cloth. “He’s all yours,” she said. She went over to the door, then said, “Remember, Brother Enoch is right outside, so let him know if you or Will need anything.” Once Jem nodded to show that he understood, she opened the door and left.
Jem put the cloth back in the water and then put it on Will’s forehead again. It didn’t seem like his fever had gone down at all, but it had only been about half an hour since Jem had first checked. Unless he could tell that it was worse, he would wait another half hour before he checked again. There was no need to worry over something that probably hadn’t changed at all.
“I need you to survive this, Will,” Jem said. “I can’t lose you now.”