I could hear Thorne and Grimalkin talking together but their voices seemed faint and distant and I only heard one word which they repeated more than once …

Poison.

Although my wounds were numerous, they were relatively minor, but as I learned later the fangs and talons of the Fiend introduce a deadly poison into the blood of any creature that they wound.

It is a fatal poison.

I lay in a dark room of black stone, lit by a single small torch, where my needs were attended to. I sweated with fever and was mostly unconscious and unaware of those who ministered to me.

I owed my survival primarily to Thorne who became my nurse and rarely left my side. The Piper too played his part and it was his strong magic that sustained me while I hovered between life and death. Finally, he withdrew. Whether he had reached the limits of his power and gave up on me I do not know. But it did not matter because it was then that another intervened.

The Last Spook Chapter 30