13Dufort started towards the station thinking he would have a word with Maron, but then changed his mind. Sweat was making the back of his shirt damp and he wiped his brow with the back of his hand, though walking a few blocks was hardly any exertion for a man as fit as he was. He cut down a narrow side street and walked away from the center of the village, heading to the herbalist’s.
He stopped when her strange little shop came into view. He didn’t want to have to go inside. He recoiled at the thought of having to carry around the blue glass vials again, being dependent on the tinctures after being free for so many months.
But it wasn’t the treatment that was the real problem. What he didn’t want—passionately didn’t want—was the tingling up and down his spine starting up again, along wi
