"She's breathing!" someone shouted.
Lila sat up so fast she coughed dirt and spit. Sun in her eyes. Straw tangled in her hair. Voices rushed at her like a crowd at a market stall.
"Karin, what did you do?" a woman demanded.
"Don't you dare touch her!" Karin Perez screamed. She shoved at the healer, her fingers white and nail-scraped. "You said she was gone. You said she was done."
"A child can't just—" the healer began.
"She can," said Lila. Her voice was dry and clear. "I'm awake."
Silence snapped. People stared as if the courtyard had sprung a trick. Men dropped their bundles. The village head's hat tilted forward like a judge considering a mark.
"She speaks," someone whispered.
"She speaks proper words!" a merchant said, sounding both offended and delighted.
Karin's face went even harder. "Speak then. Tell them how you died, you liar."
Lila pushed herself up onto her elbows. Pain in her ribs. She tasted iron and cooling tea. She saw the healer's hands—callused, stained—and a smear of something dark on his sleeve. She cataloged names like she had cataloged books: Karin, Dax, Grover, the apothecary in town, the newcomer Lin household. Each name had weight. Each weight had price.
"I'm not a liar," Lila said. "Who paid Doctor Cross last harvest? How much for the last bundle of feverwort from Hudson's shop?"
Murmurs. The healer's face went slack. People looked at
