Excerpt from The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Hush," said Laura. "It'll only hurt for a moment, and if you're crying how can I tell you about the purple horse?"

The little boy scowled at her through his tears. "Horses aren't purple."

"There was one." Laura snipped away stained gauze. "I saw it with my own eyes. In France. Naturally, the horse didn't start out purple. It was white. A beautiful white horse that belonged to a doctor. But the doctor was afraid that someone would see his white horse on a dark night and shoot him. Turn that way. He wanted a horse that would be hard to see at night. So he went to a witch—"

A lurch. "There aren't witches in France!"

"Of course there are. Be still. Don't you remember your fairy tales?" Freddie loved them.

"Well, the witches haven't stayed in France," the child informed her, in a voice that quivered. "With a war on."

"Maybe witches like the war. They can do what they like with everyone busy fighting. Now, do you want to hear about the purple horse or not? Turn back."

"Yes," said the little boy. He was looking up at her now, wide-eyed.

"All right. Well, the witch gave the doctor a magic spell to make the horse dark. But when the doctor tried it—poof! Purple as a hyacinth."

The child was finally distracted. "Was it a magic horse?" he demanded. "After it turned purple?"

Laura was tying off the bandages. The child's tears had dried. "Yes, of course. It could gallop from Paris to Peking in an hour. The doctor went straight to Berlin and pulled the kaiser's nose."

The child smiled at last. "I'd like a magic horse. I'd gallop away and find Elsie."

Elsie was his sister. They'd been walking to school together when the ship blew up. Laura didn't reply, but smoothed the matted, tow-colored hair and got up. Her brother's real name was Wilfred, but hardly anyone remembered. He'd been Freddie from infancy. He was serving overseas.

He still hadn't written back.

"Purple horse?" inquired the doctor-in-charge, passing. Unlike his civilian colleagues, he'd been behind the lines of the Somme in '16. He and Laura understood each other. They walked off together down the aisle between beds.

"Yes," said Laura, smiling. "It was early days. Some fool with the RAMC, straight from England. He was assigned the horse, white as you please, got windup about snipers. Tried aniline dye, the poor beast wound up violet."

The doctor laughed. Laura shook her head and consulted her endless mental checklist. But before she could set off, the three-month-old gash in her leg betrayed her. A cramp buckled her knee, and the doctor caught her by the elbow. Her leg was the reason she was in Halifax, discharged from the medical corps. A bit of shell casing, deep in the muscle. They'd got it out, but almost taken the limb with it. She'd been evacuated on a hospital train.

"Damn," she said.

"All right, Iven?" said the doctor.

"Just a cramp," said Laura, trying to shake it loose.

The doctor eyed her. "Iven, you're a wretched color. When did you come on shift?"

"Flattery, Doctor?" she said. "I'm cultivating a modish pallor." She didn't quite remember.

He looked her over, shook his head. "Go home. Or you'll be in bed with pneumonia. We can manage for twelve hours. Unless you want to go sprawling while holding syringes?"

"I haven't gone sprawling yet," she said. "And I still have dressings to—"

She could browbeat most of the staff, but not this one. "I'll do it. You are not the only person in Halifax who can dress burns, Sister."

She met his adamant eye, then gave in, threw him a mock salute, and went to take off her apron.

"And eat something!" the doctor called to her retreating back.

The wind struck her in the teeth when she went outside, dried her chapped lips. She pulled her cap closer round her ears. Clouds massed, lividly purple, over the water. She longed to go straight home and drink something hot. But she'd got off early. There was time to go to Veith Street. She hadn't been there since the explosion.

Excerpted from The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden. Copyright © 2024 by Katherine Arden. Excerpted by permission of Del Rey. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.