Page 5

O nce I’ve made my escape from the constabulary, I head to the nearest apothecary and ask if they can identify the scent. Magic slips over the oil, unrecognised.

“Resistant to spells,” I murmur. Could it be purposefully crafted this way?

The vitalian, a wizened older man with a curved nose, lifts the handkerchief and inhales. “Very faint. Tricky. Tree oil? Mushroom?” He hands it back to me. “You want someone specialised in poisons and antidotes.”

“You believe it’s a poison, too?”

“Isn’t that why you’re so worried?”

I nod. It’s not the first time I’ve scented this. This same scent had seeped into the grass where the redcloak bodies were discovered. Also... I recall the snake that bit Quin in the abandoned apothecary, the bitter taste of it on my tongue. I sniff again, concentrating on the bitterness. I recognise it. There must be traces of snake venom in this concoction.

Could it be Vitalian Dimos made the poison himself? But what would his motivation be for poisoning refugees? Unless he has history we are unaware of yet, or his concoction got into the wrong hands.

My frown deepens. “Do you know any vitalians who might identify all elements of this poison?”

“Dimos, of course.”

I visit all the vitalians in the city, carrying the handkerchief alongside mounting frustration. None can firmly identify the scent. Swiftleaf, earthbloom, thundergrass—these are all familiar, but the other components elude them all. By nightfall, my search ends on a final shrug and closed door.

I meander as I think through an encyclopaedia of possible herbs and their possible combinations with the known elements... I’ll look through my books—

“Oof. Sorry.” I lift my head to the man I’ve ploughed into. “Eparch Valerius!”

The eparch straightens himself and takes me in. He’s not wearing his uniform; his fine but dark attire had made him difficult to see.

“Ah, Prince Nicostratus’s friend. No harm, no harm.”

Behind him, a few dozen yards away, is a spectacularly decorated house brimming with laughter. Men in various states of drunkenness mill outside, ornately dressed ladies fawning over them and encouraging them in. Hinsard’s infamous dance house.

Eparch Valerius notices my glance, lifts a pouch from his waist, and laughs. “They’re more generous when they’re drunk. Anything for donations.” He laughs and clamps a hand on my shoulder. “Have you received your invitation to the drakopagon match? Soldiers against the nobles. I’ve shamelessly asked Prince Nicostratus to play alongside me.”

“You’re playing yourself? Against soldiers? Would that be much of a game to watch?”

He smiles. “Don’t underestimate us on a pitch. We’re born playing the sport.”

Fair. The nobles I saw play in the royal city had been rather ruthless... “When is it?”

“Two days, midday, in the outpost training fields.” He starts to move on and only then my brain catches up with me.

“Just a moment.”

He turns with a pleasant smile and an expectant expression.

“Thinking Hall has a library, may I have permission to visit it?”

“Your soldad will give you access to any library.”

My soldad. Currently in Quin’s hands—swinging from his belt as if to taunt me. I grimace and thank him. He turns away, throwing over his shoulder a reminder that I can use my soldad to join the Medicus Contest if I find a team to join.

While contemplating how best to ask Quin for the soldad back, I catch sight of a white lace robe. My senses prickle, and I pivot towards the lights and heavily perfumed women. Is it her white robe that I always see? If so, why was she at the outpost? Why again was she at the sanctuary?

A silk scarf flutters around my neck and I’m swept deep into the house on a wave of perfume and giggles. It’s a fight to scan the rooms as I pass. No white.

I’m led into a curtained nook and steered to a table. A jar of wine lands in front of me, and whispers fill my ears. Haven’t met such beauty in years. Your bright blue eyes! That blonde hair! Flawless skin, so soft!

I resist a pair of lips heading towards my cheek and gently push the dancer back, tucking a coin into her hand, and then the others’. “I’m not here for company.”

Three women giggle behind fans, and one of them calls for ‘Sparkles’.

“Sparkles?” I ask.

“Ariadne Aureliana. You’ll understand when you see—there she is.”

An elegant woman in a sparkling dress and sparkling earrings and a sparkling headpiece sweeps into our nook and takes me in with a sparkly smile. “Another one after information? What do you want to know?”

I shake my head. “I—” The curtain stirs and I glimpse two figures walking past the nook. Commander Thalassios, and the other— my figure in white lace. Her face turns in my direction; half is covered by a delicate mask. My figure in white lace is the mysterious Eparchess Juliana.

“You’re curious about something,” Sparkles says.

I down three shots of startlingly strong wine. Should I follow further? Or find Quin and share my suspicions?

I slide past Sparkles and the others and down the hall; it takes only a few moments before I spy the commander and Juliana entering a room upstairs. Finding Quin will take too much time. They might’ve left by then.

My hoard of dolled-up entertainers tug my sleeves, halting me at the bottom of the stairs. “Only important guests and performers can enter that room.”

“Is there any other way in?”

“Pay an exorbitant fee to the lady of the house. Or...”

I eye the dazzling group, and Sparkles the leader. “Or?”

Sparkles gestures to the women. They laugh and pull me into their dressing room where I’m stuffed into skirts, my hair pinned up with sparkling ornaments, my skin powdered and perfumed. Delicate silk cloth veils my face from the nose down. “Adds an air of mystique.”

Also veils the less feminine angles of my jaw.

The women sigh and gush, and shake their heads. “Unfair. That he’s a man. ”

I give Sparkles the rest of my money. “That’s all I have. Don’t know how else to repay you.”

Sparkles smiles and lends me a performer’s token.

“Oh, don’t worry about that ,” another says. “Sparkles is more about giving back than she is taking. Why else do you help the eparch with all his donations?”

Sparkles flushes and there’s a special sparkle in her eye. The sparkle of someone infatuated. “You’re paying me in entertainment,” she says. “I don’t often get to play dress-up with men. Let’s get you a prop.”

My prop is a tray of wine. Balancing it, I quietly sneak upstairs. Hushed tones drift from an adjacent room. I set the wine on the table, and their words fall heavily on my ears.

“. . . send him south to the others soon,” the commander says.

Their conversation unfolds, revealing the precarious state at two of the kingdom’s borders, west and south. West is stable for now, but perhaps the greater threat, while the south has been thrown into disarray since the regent withdrew troops. “Territories are vulnerable to our foes. My additional ten thousand have helped keep up the appearance of strength, but it’s a facade. Lives hang in the balance.”

“How long can the units hold out?” Eparchess Juliana asks, her concern palpable.

The door snips behind me as the woman, Sparkles, enters the room carrying food. She passes me with a glint in her eye.

“Who’s there?” the commander demands, entering the main room with Eparchess Juliana on his heels.

I straighten the wine and set down the cups, and Sparkles announces their food. “Leave it and go,” the commander says.

“Should we not perform for you?” Sparkles asks with a lift of her eyebrow my way.

Is this her way of exacting payment? To witness me making a fool of myself? Or...

Thalassios looks like he’s about to bark for us to leave again, but a redcloak enters with a message for his commander. “Sir, there’s someone downstairs wishing to speak to you.” He steps up and speaks quietly at his ear.

The commander grimaces, and glances at Eparchess Juliana. She nods. “I’ll leave you to him.”

When I try to follow after her, he tells me to stay. One of us is to play the harp, the other to dance. “Make sure he’s entertained. Fully entertained.”

I stifle a frustrated sigh when the door shuts behind Juliana. I’ve discovered little about her, have no clue why she keeps showing up.

Sparkles quickly jumps behind the harp, leaving me to dance. I swallow tightly. At least I’m not behind the instrument. I eye the lazily watching commander. Perhaps I’ll learn something useful yet.

Music tinkers around the room, and I thank Akilah for her insistence on making me learn traditional dances. She, of course, got me to do it for laughs—but those laughs are saving me.

I’m mid-spin when ‘Constable Soterios’ enters. I hurriedly regain my footing and fling my arms elegantly in time to the music, battling a galloping heart. He’s here? Now ?

The commander urges Quin to sit, take some wine, and it’s during their first toast that Quin scans the room. His eyes flow over me and snap back. His hand jerks, spilling wine across his knuckles. For a heartbeat, his gaze locks on mine, unreadable. Then he rips his eyes away, masking his thoughts with a laugh. “Excuse my clumsiness,” he says, lifting his glass. “I wasn’t expecting such... unique performers tonight.”

Outwardly, I’m a series of delicate steps to quickening music, hips sashaying, hands twirling in the air. Inwardly, I’m groaning at Quin’s untimely appearance.

“What brings you here?” the commander asks.

“I understand you donated oats to the incoming refugees yesterday.”

“You’re here about the food poisoning.”

“Someone died.”

“You suspect foul play.”

“We must rule out all the possibilities.”

“The oats I delivered were purchased from a grocer in town. The seal was intact when I delivered them.”

“You delivered them personally.”

“I should think that makes it less likely I’d tamper with them.”

Quin eyes him. Waits.

“Ah, you’re after my motivation for donating. I wanted to help. I plan to help more.”

“You’re from the border.”

A slow, acknowledging smile. “How do you know?”

“You drag your vowels slightly. I made a guess.”

“The accent leaks through from time to time. You’re right. I grew up in Lyrica.”

“Are your family amongst those—”

“I’m the only one left in my family. The townspeople took care of me growing up; it’s only right I repay them.”

Quin hums and, while I dance, continues conversing. His mouth addresses the commander, but his eyes are solidly on my performance. Something which the commander notices. He toasts Quin again, and orders another dance. “You, come closer. Let my guest admire you fully.”

I wince behind my silk scarf and flutter towards Quin, whose lips twitch knowingly. I dance again, this time close enough that I touch his chest—with warning force—and knock his constable hat over his grinning face.

Quin neither budges nor flinches. Instead, his smile widens, he straightens his hat, and after another twirl, he yanks me into his lap with firm steering hands, eliciting a laugh from the commander. “Excellent, excellent. Pretty eyes, that one.”

“Full of hidden talents,” Quin agrees.

I purse my lips.

The commander rises. “Excuse me one moment, I’ll be right back. Keep playing,” he orders the harpist.

Quin’s hands tighten on me, stopping me from pulling away. His breath combs my ear. “Laugh,” he says. “There are eyes in the room.”

I feign a giggle, though my chest lurches with... frustration. Quin’s grip softens, but his fingers linger around my hips. I pinch the sensitive area of his chest as hard as I can, and he jerks slightly under me—but that only results in him laughing and drawing me in tighter. He whispers, “Being interested in the entertainment keeps the commander at ease.”

Makes him no threat. Maybe opens the commander up. Quin’s after this chance to understand him ...

“Hmm?” Quin says, nuzzling into my neck.

I tip his chin back and stare hard into his eyes, then lower my face slowly to his. The silk scarf shifts between our lips. “Understood.”

His fingers flex; I pull back with another giggle, pluck a grape off a plate and feed it to him, sliding my thumb into his mouth. His teeth graze my skin. At the sound of footsteps returning, Quin grabs another grape and ducks his face under the curtain of my silk scarf to feed it to me from his lips. Our mouths don’t touch, but I can still feel it, like a shiver. I almost drop the grape, trembling. His splayed hands brace me.

“The harpist is watching a bit too closely,” he whispers.

I swallow. Nod. This is to further the act. To convince all eyes that he’s a lady’s man.

I’m swallowing the heartbeat in my throat when the commander returns with more dancers and more wine. On his way to his seat, he gives Quin a jolly slap on the back that jostles me further up his lap.

Wine is poured, drunk deeply, and getting the chance, I secretly knock some back too. Quin turns from the commander to an empty cup, and pauses. He gives me a small rub to my back, and tips more wine into the cup.

“Take your pick,” the commander says. “Any woman you like. On me.”

Quin laughs. “This one here’s tired. Let’s dismiss her. I like the harpist.”

He ushers me off his lap and my stomach gives a strange, uncomfortable lurch as Sparkles rises from her perch and sashays towards him.

“Go on, off you go,” he says when I don’t move.

I stop my staring, hurriedly curtesy, and escape. The doors shut behind me with a resounding click. I sag against the wall. Muffled giggles vibrate at my back, and I flee downstairs.

I make a feeble attempt to keep my mind on track and search for Eparchess Juliana, but my gaze keeps travelling back towards the staircase...

My women helpers from earlier find me in a flurry of skirts and once more I’m led into the changing room. They pluck me free of skirts and wipe off my makeup, and soon I’m staring at a more recognisable reflection of myself. Albeit one with an unfamiliar set to the mouth.

“What’s the matter, deary? You look disheartened.”

I bolt to my feet, then before a row of widened eyes, ease back into my seat with a tinny laugh. “Disheartened. Ha. Where’s my cloak?”

A woman at the neighbouring seat puffs a spray of perfume and my senses sharpen. I waft the air towards my nose, breathing in. “Amorous spores?”

Painted lips curl brightly and she nods. “Just a hint.”

I leap off the chair and peck her cheek to the delight of all in the room. “Brilliant.” Someone tosses my cloak over my back on my way out.

When I’m striding along the main square, I take out the handkerchief and check. Amorous spores. Definitely an ingredient.

I stall at the sight of freshly glued posters in the town square—one has a drawing of my face. Wanted for questioning. Inform the constabulary. I lower my hood over my eyes and hurry to the inn.

Sequestered in Quin’s room, I take out my grandfather’s books—which Quin insisted were brought here—and leaf through them for the page on amorous spores...

Should not be combined with nebularia, aquamantis, thundergrass, verdantia, or lunabloom. The result will be toxic.

I frown. Thundergrass is an element of the poison. But if it’s so toxic, why did only the redcloaks and the nannan die, while the rest of the refugees were only sick? Could the dosages have been different? Nannan was already frail, her liver was weak. Perhaps she wasn’t able to filter even a small amount, and that’s why it killed her?

I read over all the known ingredients of the poison and take notes. The interactions of the various plants change their properties dramatically. Lethally. According to my notes, even the smallest amount should be enough to down a horse.

I shiver. Could it be that amorous spores and venom have been combined with a type of bramble or root? Something that would act like a bubble around the poison, making it seep out slowly. But if that’s the case...

The chamber’s door creaks open and Quin steps inside with the snick of his cane. He stops halfway across the room, his eyes having already read me. “What is it?”

I rise from my books, trembling.