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“Eventually one of your guards will contract it. He’ll spread it to his family, and that family around town and before you know it, it’s the start of the next plague.”

“Plague?” A flash of terror shines in his eyes. He’s old enough to remember the devastation left by plague two decades earlier. I’ve only read about it: mountains of bodies on street corners, two years of terror, barely enough magic to treat the nobility. A third of the population dead.

I press my advantage and keep my voice cool and commanding, taking a cue from Quin. “The royal city will hear of it. If you don’t succumb to the disease, you’ll be held accountable.”

The redcloak barks an order.

I instruct everyone to cover their noses, and they do so quickly, quietly. “If you let me in I can see if anything can be done.” They exchange wary glances, but eventually the cell door creaks open. As they lock it behind us and scurry to the far end of the corridor, a nape-prickling silence falls.

“What are you doing?” Akilah hisses.

“Shush. You’re wounded.” I take Akilah’s wrist and read her pulse. It stutters. Her blood moves sluggishly. I curse silently. Whatever hit her face has left her with a nasty infection, worse than I thought. It’s poisoning her veins.

I try to call my magic but cry out as sharp pain slices through me. The seal. I can’t help that way, not until the caster, or someone willing to sacrifice a lot of magic, removes it.

We were only supposed to drop off food and leave.

“Is she really infectious?” River whispers, and I shake my head.

“He. Ilios,” I remind him with a glance past the bars. The guards sent us to the furthest empty cell, but that doesn’t mean they won’t patrol. Or that the woman in the cell next to ours can’t overhear. “He needs vitalian magic.”

With this level of infection, Akilah won’t make it to an execution. I take her pulse again, wishing I’d read it incorrectly.

My fingers dig into her wrist. The same. The infection is spreading quickly. I have to find a way; give Silvius the time to pull his strings.

The slight weight of the soldad shifts over my thigh. Silvius will pull through. He will.Please.

Akilah groans and drops onto the hay lining the floor. I check her pulse again, carefully stroke back a loose lock of her hair. “Hold on, hold on,” I tell her.

“What can we do?” River asks.

“If I can find something to keep her calm...” I say nervously as I sift through possible ways forward in my mind.

River holds up the cakes he’d saved. I shake my head, then grab hold of River with a flash of inspiration—“Songs. Do you know any?”

River casts me a wobbly smile. “Silvius taught me some to help me sleep.”

“Sing for her?”

River uses his lap as a cushion for Akilah’s head and softly hums the gentlest melody. I take out my dagger, thankful the guards didn’t think a crude weapon worth confiscating. They could easily defend against it with magic, and prisoners... well, one less was one less to take care of.

Many of the alternatives to vitalian magic my grandfather passed on are vague in my memory—I was a child when he died, and what I have retained I’ve never actually practised. There’s nothing of use in here anyway, but eliminating the source of the problem is the key regardless of the method used. “I need to cut out the worst of the infection.” I hold the blade to the candle at the end of the cell. Flame licks the tip and blackens it slowly. I gulp, heart hammering, and kneel before Akilah. The knife trembles in my hand, and I’m reminded of when Akilah and I first met River—each of us holding a knife in a way we never had before, afraid to hurt anyone.

I close my eyes, taking a long, shaky breath. My mind races, battling against panic. I have to remove the infection, but without magic the risk of doing more harm gnaws at me. My hand trembles as I lower the knife to Akilah’s swollen cheek—

No.

Think first. There must be something I can do, something that doesn’t mean risking more harm.

I squeeze my eyes shut and pull up old memories. One afternoon in the woods, outside an old cabin in Hinsard, grandfather is holding up a bushel of collected herbs to the sunlight.

“Plants are life. These green things, these roots, those rocks, that clump of soil, this fungi are lifesavers. Things we step on without a second thought have protected kings and revived queens. Have won wars.”

“Father says the lifesavers are the vitalians who pull magic from them. He says people from all kingdoms come here paying huge amounts for spells.”

“Spells are shiny things. They’re seen as godly, and therefore superior. People come from afar for the hope their ailment will be fully and quickly cured. Few people can turn away from spells if they are within their means.”

“What if they don’t have the means?”