Her face is stern, her hair pulled back in plaits so tight you could probably climb them, her body solid and big and not at all someone who you'd mess around with. "I'm sorry," she says, almost tenderly. Almost. "I don't know anything about a boy." She frowns. "I'm afraid I don't know anything about anything except that you were brought to this house of healing yesterday morning so close to death I wasn't at all sure we would be able to bring you back. Except that we were informed in no uncertain terms that our survival rather depended upon yours." She waits to see how I take this. I have no idea how I take this. Where is he? What have they done with him? I turn away from her to try and think but I'm wrapped so tight in bandages around my middle I can't properly sit up. Mistress Coyle runs a couple of fingers across her brow. "And now that you're back," she says, "I'm not at all sure you're going to thank us for the world to which we've returned you." She tells me of Mayor Prentiss arriving in Haven in front of the rumor of an army, a big one, big enough to crush the town without effort, big enough to set the whole world ablaze.
