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“Why? Are you interested in receiving it?” Quin asks, his voice dropping just enough to send heat surging to my cheeks.

I choke on my wine, coughing violently.

He pours me a cup of water, and I think I’d rather choke. But Akilah’s head hits the cushion of her curled arm. I glance sideways. Her eyes flutter shut. The pulse in her throat beats strong, but her breaths are deepening. She’s out cold. I snap up the opportunity along with the cup.

I drink heartily and rise dizzily to my feet, gesturing towards my friend. “I should—”

“Sober yourself first.”

I feel the impulse to be stubborn, but in fact, the room is swaying a little too much.

I resettle reluctantly and pour another cup of water.

Quin runs a fingertip around the rim of his cup, his eyes never leaving me. “You’re here for the examinations. What draws you to vitalian magics?”

Muddle-headed, I give him my own answers, not whatever Calix Solin might say. “Great-grandfather... a royal vitalian. Worked in the palace for many years, before setting up his own practice.”

“You want to follow in his footsteps?”

I rub my temple. “He wrote many books and passed them to my grandfather. He said anyone who can help others has the responsibility to do so.”

“A man of principle.”

A fog of memories drags me into its murky depths, until—sharp, crystal clarity. “He was a good person. But it’s my grandfather who...” I look over at Akilah and instinctively reach out, checking her pulse again. Steady, strong.

I sag and stare into the flashing images flooding my mind. Grandfather’s gently stooped form in the woods, eyes as blue as the sky above, smiling at me.

“What is it?”

I hear him, but I’m still lost, wine buzzing alongside my memories.

“He took me into the woods. I was six or seven and I grumbled the whole way, but he told me we needed herbs to help people. I didn’t care and secretly threw half of the herbs out of his basket. When it got dark, we started walking back and heard a cry. Grandfather immediately followed the sound to a little girl, huddled in river reeds. She was wet and cold, dying from poison her family had put in her food to get rid of her.

“Grandfather searched his basket for the herbs I’d thrown away. He kept saying she would have a chance if he could find those.” I shut my eyes, throat swelling. “She didn’t make it. The weight of my mistake... hanging between us... I couldn’t bring myself to confess, but he knew. He never blamed me. Simply reminded me of our responsibility to help.

“I found... Ilios a year later. Again, by the river, malnourished and abandoned. I remembered the herbs and found them. It was the first time I ever tried healing. Later, Grandfather taught me better herbs, better ways...”

I refocus on Quin, stilled, hand frozen around his cup. “Do you think I atoned?” I laugh, shake my head. “I’m afraid I haven’t. Afraid every time I heal I’m only doing it forthat. Isn’t that the most selfish thing you’ve heard? Healing, just to heal oneself.” I laugh again and my eyes sting.

I abandon my water for the jug of wine and tip it down my throat.

Quin pulls it away from me and wine spills over my shirt in a dark stain. I lurch forward to snatch it back, but his hand clamps over mine, steadying me with surprising strength. “You’ve had enough,” he says, sounding strangely quiet.

He shifts, too softly, and I glance up to find him watching me carefully. He’s calm but there’s some kind of concern there too. I shake my head. It must be the wine making me see that.

“Careful,” Quin murmurs, his hand combing off mine. And then there’s a flash of gold and the scent of pine forest in a summer rain. The air thickens around me, and a sharpknickhits my chest—

The surroundings swirl with colour, Quin’s figure multiplying before my eyes. His voice echoes faintly, as if from a great distance. “Get them to my rooms...”

Abeam of unforgiving light hits my eyes, pulling me from the haze of sleep. My head pounds as I roll away from it into the shade—

I lurch into a sitting position. The market! Silvius!

I blink in my confusing surroundings. The light is coming from a tall window of pieced glass, the shutters having been thrown back to let in the morning. My patch of shade is cast by long lengths of rich velvet hung around the bed—a very soft and comfortable bed, but simply dressed with pale linens. It’s all very clean and very fine, and the outfit I had thought so distinguished the night before now seems gaudy. I slump and take a deep breath, scents of lavender and sandalwood and...teafilling my nose.

I spot the tea and sip it.

“Your moustache is coming off.”