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Mer smiled back at the sweet healer. They needed more Avalon’s in the world.

Slapping a hand against the table, Mer resumed her pacing, determined as ever to get to the bottom of their conundrum. She wasn’t a healer but she was very good at figuring out problems. Mer laced her fingers behind her back. What were they missing?

“The village is dwindling day by day,” Joiakim said. “We must find a cure now or we will all die… just like Pearl.”

Avalon sucked in a sharp breath and Reef wrapped an arm around his sister’s slim shoulders.

Alanis teetered her head back and forth. “Have any of you noticed how the disease transmutes?”

Mer paused her pacing and focused on the oldest healer. “What do you mean? It’s spread through the air, right?”

“Perhaps, but I know for a fact that a young girl coughed right into Reef’s face three days ago. There was blood and mucus. It got into his mouth too because he was not wearing a face covering.” She squinted at the male.

Reef winced. “A mistake I will not be making again.”

“But that’s my point,” Alanis said. “That was over three days ago and yet you are still showing no symptoms.”

“I assumed it was because my immune system is better than others.”

Alanis walked to the table, messing with a corner of one of the books, brows furrowed in deep thought. “Right. We’ve been operating under that assumption, but what if it was something different?”

Joiakim arched a brow and yanked out a chair. “Like what?” he asked tiredly, sitting down.

“Like the fact it’s not passed through the air or through blood and mucus.” Joiakim scoffed at Alanis, but she continued, undeterred. “Most diseases are, but what if it’s not a disease.”

Mer blinked slowly, trying to follow the conversation. “What do you mean it’s not a disease? We’re watching people get sick and die daily.”

Alanis nodded, her gaze sharp. “True, it’s spreading, but not how it should if itwasa disease.”

Reef bounced from foot to foot, rubbing his chin. “So you’re proposing the Mirror Plague isn’t a disease and this isn’t a new strain? That seems hard to believe since it’s been plaguing their kingdom for over thirty years!”

“Exactly,” Alana said. “Thirtyyears. That is a long time for an illness to stay trapped in Methi. Sickness has a way of spreadingno matter how careful a person is. But consider this, Methi has managed it for three decades. Merchants have had to come in and out and yet most have not contracted the plague nor spread it to the other five kingdoms. Something isn’t adding up.”

“So, what are you saying?” Joiakim asked, glancing out the open door toward the pyres.

“That something else is going on.”

Mer studied the older healer, running her mind over what Alanis had said. The impossibility of keeping the disease contained. How the disease spread from person to person. The fact that none of their herbs were helping whatsoever. If it wasn’t a disease, what was the culprit?

Avalon gasped, her eyes growing wide. Her attention snapped to Alanis. “Surely you don’t mean…” she trailed off.

The older healer nodded her head once. “It fits the symptoms.”

“Please share with the rest of us,” Joiakim grouched. “We must get back to caring for the people.”

“Poison,” Avalon whispered.

Poison.

It was a far-fetched idea.

“Do you even hear yourself?” Joiakim snapped.

Mer leaned heavily against the bookcase behind her and stared at the four Sirenidae as they all turned over Alanis’s idea.

“Poisoning a whole kingdom?” Mer shook her head. “How would that even work? A shared water source?”

Reef shook his head no. “We’ve tested the water sources all around the village. There’s nothing in them.”