William woke thrashing again.

His forehead was soaked with sweat. He'd had such a pleasant dream. Elizabeth's body against his. She had been cold in the dream, and his temperature had left him. He had become healthy through her presence.

Mrs. Gardiner sat next to the bed with a needle and thread, her fingers efficiently embroidering a flower into a silken handkerchief. Elizabeth was not there.

He felt an odd combination of ravenous hunger and nausea. His throat burned with a need for water. He croaked, getting Mrs. Gardiner's attention, and he gestured at his throat.

She lifted the water, and poured it into his throat, though she was not nearly as gentle or concerned as Elizabeth.

"Elizabeth? Where is she?"

She raised her eyebrows. "I thought you would know."

"Me? Why would I know? I was asleep."

"Your connection does not tell you?"

Despite the skepticism in her voice, William took Mrs. Gardiner's implied advice. He closed his eyes and felt the thread of the connection. She had been so close when he fell to sleep. But not close enough.

She walked towards them, and not from a great distance. Perhaps two hundred yards. In just a minute or two she would be back with him.

William let out a deep breath and slumped sickly into the bed, happy to know she would return soon. "She is coming back. And she is pleased about something."

Mrs. Gardiner tilted her head and frowned.

"That direction." William lifted his arm — a task already far easier than two days before — and gestured weakly.

"I hope she hasn't done anything else foolish that will get us all killed, and my children as well. I never expected Lizzy to be so much trouble. To be so irresponsible. I liked her."

"She does what she needs to."

"Your danger should be your own, not brought upon us."

The door to the suite of rooms opened, and Elizabeth smilingly bounded into the bedroom. She carried a large thick book with a buzz of potentia about it.

She grinned and put it down on the bed next to his knees. "Perhaps this will tell me how to treat you!"

The thick dark leather-bound book had the title embossed in gold on its side: Salutem Patricium.

"You read Latin?" William knew his voice was surprised. Women simply were not taught the language. He smiled as she blushed, imagining some odd girlish fancy that led her to drill until she could speak the language.

"Only a little — I tried to learn. I thought it would help me. Papa refused to teach me anything, so I stole his old grammars and dictionaries. I didn't learn much, and I did not find it very useful."

He smiled at her. "Why did you purchase that book, if you cannot read it?"

"I had a good feeling about it!"

The reply was growled out, as if she expected to be challenged over this. William smiled at her. "The best of reasons. I trust your good feelings. May I see the tome?"

Elizabeth carefully laid the book in his lap. William frowned at the large tome. It was a thick book, with fine thin paper that had been enhanced with potentia to prevent tears. There were more than a thousand pages, with two columns of print on each.

His eyes wavered from his illness, and his head ached. William did not think that he could even hold the book open to flip through it, let alone to read it.

But Elizabeth was here to help him. He was glad she was. William smiled at her. "Might you help me?"

She put her hands under the book so he just had to cautiously flip through the book. William first went to the table of contents. The portion of the book dealing with disorders of the fluvia was near the middle.

As William read, the itch in his muscles turned to an unending pain. He wanted to vomit again, and was glad that despite his hunger he had not called for more food when he had awoken.

His hands shook and shivered. He ached and craved for Elizabeth to touch him. Like in his dream of this morning, when she had slept in the bed next to him. He would be well if she did that.

William flipped through the pages. Each time he changed a page, something seemed to leave his arm making it harder to lift and flip one more page. This was ridiculous. He was an adult man; he ought to be able to read a book. Even very small children could read books.

To disguise his weakness, William said to Elizabeth, "You are quite as capable in principle of using Latin as any gentleman. The first part of your complaint has more merit than the second."

"You think gentlemen should cease writing books in that absurd language?"

"The head of a family will find use in it, as much of the old wardings are inscribed in Latin. Translation misses the delicacies and intricacies — that is what eludes your uncle about Homer — however constructing new incantations in the old language is a matter of fashion not function. I rather think writing new workings in English or French would be preferred, as less educated gentlemen cannot use Latin, and the expense of providing such education to retainers can be great. Though Latin is quite beautiful. La bella lingua latina."

"I had not thought of that — I hardly understood what was the point — just any gentleman worth the name is taught Latin. Papa always said."

William spasmed and acid rose, burning up his throat and up to his mouth. He swallowed it back down. He said nothing about the nausea. Lizzy was too worried. And Mrs. Gardiner was there. If only Lizzy would touch him again. Her hands were a few inches above him, tantalizingly.

The line of potentia connecting them. It was almost visible. He just needed her to touch him.

He wanted Mrs. Gardiner to leave.

William pretended to read the section on fluvia. Elizabeth peered at the book with him hovering next to the bed. Her hand sometimes brushed against his hand. Each time he felt better.

She took his hand and squeezed and held it openly.

"Lizzy!" Mrs. Gardiner started from her seat.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, but she did not let go of his hand. The two women glared at each other. Elizabeth said softly, "I think our bond needs touch to function best."

The woman sneered. "You think? Holding the hand of a gentleman to whom you have no recognizable connection is the behavior of…of…of an irredeemable lightskirt. Lizzy, you behave as quite a different sort of girl than one I wish to be connected to."

She angrily left the room.

Elizabeth stroked William's hand, and she ran her injured hand up and down his shoulder and around his neck. The pain lessened everywhere she touched.

He found the section on bleeding, since he suspected that was the treatment he needed. William flipped from page to page. There was a discussion of the cases where bleeding the excess potentia was the best treatment, written in a defensive tone.

There were many tales of physicians using bled potentia to feed demons, or for other infernal purposes. This created a distaste of the practice among gentlemen, despite its medical significance.

"Lizzy," she looked up from her attempt to read the book with him, "It must have terrified you — when your father had you bled in that way."

"Oh! That is what the chapter is talking about. Sanguius. I recognized the word. It is horrible to say after everything but…is it possible, do you think…?"

"That I may need to be bled? Yes. Most likely that would relieve my symptoms."

"How can you speak so calmly of it, after what was done to you?"

"My experience is so fantastical and strange and beyond the ordinary that it has no bearing on the medical use of bleeding. That a man used excessive bleeding of potentia to attack me gives me no distaste for using a proper extent to heal."

"Ah." Elizabeth frowned. "It seems wrong to suggest it."

William sympathetically touched her hand. It was hard to read. Little spots swam in front of his eyes.

"I do not wish to talk about how I was bled again and again — do you think you should be bled? I can try, but what if I make a mistake — we would remove only a little magic."

William barely heard her. His stomach felt wrong. He tried to swallow the rising gorge back.

Elizabeth said something further, which he could not hear.

Why did he hurt so much? Pain was everywhere, except in his hands, because Elizabeth had been holding them, and on his forehead, because she touched him there to check his temperature.

She took his cheeks. "You are burning up. Worse than ever."

What little liquid was in his stomach was vomited over her dress.

He was helpless and disgusting. Rather than recoiling she held his head against her chest. "William. Can I now call a physician? I thought we would learn something from this book."

Elizabeth continued to embrace him. Being held against her in this way allowed his head to clear, the trapped reservoirs of potentia bubbling away into her healthy body. Perhaps all he really needed was to be held by her.

"Just press yourself against me. Perhaps press your potentia into me. It is obvious. We cannot be physically separate."

Elizabeth wetly smiled. She climbed onto the mattress beside him and pressed her body against his. He felt a deep relief, as the pain in his back eased away, leaving aches deeper inside, but lessening still.

She pressed her hand on his stomach, and she pulled her potentia into her hands. She did what he had suggested, and projected her potentia into his stomach. This was less invasive than a bleeding, rather like pushing a finger deep in his belly, but softly enough to not bruise the delicate organs. Her touch was so delicate.

The potentia around her hands operated like a lodestone to iron, breaking up the pools in his intestines and drawing them into her hands and then her healthy fluvia.

"Does that…" There was a blush in Elizabeth's voice. William heard it as his eyes were closed in relief. "Does that help you? Do you feel better when I do that?"

"Divine."

"Elizabeth, enough." Mrs. Gardiner reentered the room with Mr. Gardiner. "You will not fondle that gentleman. I will not be pushed so far."

However, Elizabeth only spoke to William. "This morning. When I rested next to you, you slept much easier."

"I had thought that was a dream."

"Elizabeth Bennet. It is clear I cannot trust you." Mrs. Gardiner grabbed Elizabeth's arm to jerk her from the bed.

Angrily Elizabeth pulled her arm back. She spoke in a furious tone, "Away!"

The working immediately caught, and Mrs. Gardiner was pressed back against the wall by a concentrated wind.

William felt sick in his stomach to see this. He did not wish to damage Elizabeth's ties to her family. But he wanted her near more than anything.

"You use magic against me now?" Mrs. Gardiner ground her jaw.

"I will not move."

"You are a gentlewoman of good family, and my relation. Get off of that bed, and… heavens, if Mr. William is in so desperate need for a physician, we can just cart him, sick as he is, to a safe city in a matter of ten hours."

"Well Lizzy, I too expect to hear you explain yourselves." Mr. Gardiner tilted his head with an even expression.

William said, "My potentia has not drained well, due to the damage. Her potentia is similar so that it attracts mine — that must be part of why we possess this connection. When she touches me the potentia can flow through my skin into her healthy circulation. And when she presses her potentia into me, deeper reservoirs can be released, like miners cutting into an aquifer which then drains out. I can explain the theory at greater length now that I have been reminded of it." He tapped the book Elizabeth had purchased.

"And my niece must sit on your bed and touch you everywhere for this procedure." Mr. Gardiner grinned, amused rather than angry. "When I was your age, I should have come up with such an illness."

"She attacked me." Mrs. Gardiner glared at Elizabeth.

Mr. Gardiner sighed. "Lizzy, that was not done well… You should have made your point differently."

"I'm not going to let you take me away from him! Not like Papa! Not again! I need to be here. If I don't stay near him, he'll get sicker and sicker."

Mr. Gardiner rubbed his hand over his jaw. "Yes. This is a matter like you and Bennet. He did not allow you to help Mr. William, and you had the right of the matter then. I shall not repeat Bennet's mistake. I shall trust you, Lizzy — but in return swear to yourself to not linger about Mr. William in an indecent matter unless you are confident there is medical necessity."

"It is necessary, at present it is."

"You are content with this?" Mrs. Gardiner glared at her husband. "We now act as the proprietors of a house of poor repute — you worried about what Bennet would think, and now you let her so intimately—"

With an ironical smile, Mr. Gardiner interrupted, "Dearest, it seems she won't move." Mr. Gardiner kissed his wife on the hair. "Bennet will think that he deserved such for having disbelieved Lizzy five years ago. I know him that well."

Mrs. Gardiner deflated. "I am done with you both. Done. I am going off on a walk. I hope we are not all dead when I return."

Mr. Gardiner nodded. He studied his wife. "Do have a pleasant time. And then we will ignore them together when you have calmed and returned."

Elizabeth systematically pressed her hands and potentia into William. First all around his chest and stomach, though most of his organs yet functioned cleanly, and then up and down both of his legs.

After Mrs. Gardiner stomped out of the room and began to put on her things for walking in the other room, Mr. Gardiner sat in the armchair Elizabeth had vacated when she climbed into the bed next to William. He rubbed his hand through his hair. "You could have managed that better. She will be in a right state with us both for some weeks — you deserve it."

"I know." Elizabeth spoke quietly.

"My health does require this." William wanted to take any guilt upon him, and reassure Mr. Bennet. "I am not attempting to take advantage—"

"Then don't."

William was not accustomed to being interrupted by a tradesman. But there was something about Mr. Gardiner that made it palatable. Almost pleasant, in a strange way.

Mrs. Gardiner finished dressing; she opened the door to the inn's hallway and closed it without giving them a final farewell.

"I will not," William replied, making the oath to himself as well as Mr. Gardiner.

"I'm more worried about Lizzy taking advantage of you." Mr. Gardiner laughed.