By the eleventh day he could not stand without holding something.
By the thirteenth the healer had run out of the words he was willing to say in front of the alpha, and said them outside instead, and a scullion heard him and told the kitchens, and by nightfall the whole of Blackthorn knew: a rejection that doesn't take burns the one who spoke it, and it burns until it's finished, and there are two ways it finishes.