Noctisardor Bypass ich muss dir sagen

Wylla didn't catch Mahler's meaning, and didn't care to. She couldn't think of much else but the way his face dropped and saltwater etched his greying fur. It dug painfully into her heart, more painfully than anything he had done or said that got her back up or made her feel abandoned or misled. She didn't realize tears were coursing down her own cheeks until she shook her head, fiercely, and felt them fly from her eyelids.

No. She grated it between gritted teeth, feeling her hackles lifting on the back of her neck. Phaedra would want to be here. We're not going anywhere. Except her, of course. Wylla could not wait idly by and watch Mahler waste away without exhausting every resource to try to save him. He had saved her life on more than one occasion, even when all she wanted was to die. In return, she sowed resentment and mistrust.

Suddenly, Sequoia and her pettiness seemed the smallest concern in the world.

I will find someone, she reiterated between breaths that grew more rapid and uncontrolled with each ticking second. I will. I'll ... I'll find Caiaphas if I must. You have saved my life, I will not stand by and watch you lose yours and I will not walk away like some ... some coward! She had something the seawitch wanted — namely, her life — and Wylla suspected Caiaphas would do what she wished in exchange for it. She had made up the witch's curse when she told Heda about it, but Wylla had no doubt that Caiaphas possessed some otherworldly ability to stave off death. There was no way she could have survived so long if she did not.

A healer with knowledge of a wasting cough would be better, but if Wylla had to barter her life for his, she would do it. No one would miss her half as much as they would miss Mahler, Phaedra included. That was what she felt anyway. Maybe there truly was no cure, but even prolonging his life would be something. For Wylla, who did not believe in an afterlife, death was a slamming door, and she was not ready.

Are you afraid of anything, Aunt Willam? Abruptly, Wylla came face-to-face with what frightened her most.