Spice Cure woke on the third floor with a linen blanket pulled up to her chest. For a moment she lay still, blinking at the ceiling.
Master Radeon saw everything.
She clutched the blanket higher, cheeks burning, then forced herself to breathe.
This was medical. She told herself that twice.
She told herself it again when she swung her legs over the bed and the air kissed bare skin.
She found a mirror. Her red hair was still there. She leaned in and sniffed a strand, half expecting some sharp medicine smell, some hint of blood or smoke.
Instead she smelled clean. Almost sweet.
She stared longer.
Her skin was smooth. Too smooth. The hands that had been scarred by thorns and digging roots looked dainty now, the kind of hands nobles kept to prove they had never worked.
She flexed her fingers slowly, testing sensation, then let herself admire the change until the admiration turned into a shaky laugh she swallowed before it escaped.
