Page 17

Like my family.

Like Akilah, who’s practically my sister, who’s stuck by me through more than anyone else.

Like Veronica, my stubborn, sharp friend who taught me how to wield a drakopala stick.

And even like the prince I once slept beside in the hollow of a violet oak, the one who made my heart stutter for the first time in my life.

Thoseare people worth remembering.

Not some too-handsome, magic-masked, cryptic-lipped, just-par-linea-declaringdrakopagon-playing—

I bite the puff too hard. Cream oozes down my chin.

I wipe it off with the back of my sleeve, scowling at the ceiling, nodding in fierce self-agreement.

“No more thoughts.”

I finish the last puff with a growl and fall back into my pillows.

It all happens in a furious blur.

I’m just leaving the side gate, a woven basket over my shoulder, when I’m snagged off the path and dropped onto the saddle in front of Calix. He says nothing, just flicks his reins and bolts forward.

“Maskios! This is a crime.”

He mutters drily, “I’m a criminal, after all.”

I protest, but notthathard; I sling my leg over the horse to straddle it more comfortably. Calix spurs the horse on, his front shifting tight against my back. Tight, and silent. He doesn’t speak until we arrive at the cliffs, where he steers the horse towards the treacherous path. “White chryslaced fungi,” he says. “Help me find it.”

“White chryslaced—who’s been poisoned?”

Calix’s jaw flexes.

“Tell me,” I say sharply. “What did they consume? What are their symptoms?” Who are they?

Calix grits out basic answers.

I wince and my head bows forward. “It’s the wrong time of year.”

The horse halts abruptly and he hisses into my hair. “What?”

“You won’t find chryslaced fungi here.”

“Imust.”

“You won’t.”

“Don’t tell me I won’t!” he roars. “I must and I will. My brother is everything to me.Everything.”

Brother? But of course, why wouldn’t Calix have a family? He has a whole life he keeps hidden along with his criminal face.

“Everything?” I murmur.

Calix bristles like I’m challenging him. “I’d jump off a cliff for him; I’d give him my heart. I’d doanything. We will hunt every crevice of these mountains until we find our miracle!”

“We will find your miracle,” I murmur. “But it won’t be chryslaced fungi.” I take the reins from Calix and steer the horse back down the path, ignoring his furious demands to give them back.

I take his angered words against the back of my head and ride swiftly from the mountains and into the swamplands. Calix is furious. But he’s also not putting up a fight.