Page 6

Q uin grinds the end of his cane into the floor; my soldad, tied to his belt, swings like a ticking clock.

It spurs me into harried speech. “They didn’t get lucky. The poison is releasing slowly. They’ll all die.”

“Is there a way to prove this?”

“Gelidroot feeds off a dead body. After four days, the veins in a body become visible. If the person has consumed any, the veins will be green.”

“The grandmother is still in the constabulary.”

I shake my head. “We don’t have time to wait until she gets to the right stage of putrefaction. We must find out how long the refugees have, and start working on the antidote.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m convinced these cases are connected. The redcloaks sweated the same poison onto the grass. So...”

Quin stares at me with a grim set to his mouth. “Without more evidence behind your suspicions, you’ll never get authority from the head constable.”

“What is the law in the face of life and death?” I say, grabbing a dark cloak.

A bark of laughter. “Do you remember everything?”

I dig around the table for useful cutlery, making a good ruckus of it. When my cheeks cool, I turn to him observing me and fast decide an extra fork might be useful. “You don’t have to come with me—”

A chastising whack meets the back of my head, and Quin passes me for the door. “I know where to go.”

The redcloak memorial ground.

Rows of trees overhanging rows of epitaphs. There are sentries walking the enclosing walls, making sure no one disturbs the dead soldiers’ peace. And from the shadows of tall pines, where I hover with Quin, I feel the mystic energy that comes from protective wards.

“Why so many measures? A single mourning ribbon has folk shaking in their boots.”

“Our people might have massive respect for the dead, but our enemies do not.” Quin grimaces. “Soldiers from the southern kingdom slipped in as merchants, gathered in Hinsard, and quietly raided the memorial grounds for redcloak uniforms. They killed many of our men unawares with their disguise. After that these wards were placed along with sentries to keep watch.”

“I suppose that means sneaking in is a wee bit dangerous.”

“A wee bit.”

Putting aside ‘kill on sight’, even if the sentries only captured us, we’d be in trouble. Quin would surely lose his position as a constable and be thrown in prison, and I’d end up with him after harsh interrogation about poisoning the refugees—possibly as Nicostratus’s accomplice, which would throw him into the cells as well. It won’t matter how much I deny it, they’d have caught me exhuming bodies. That’s enough. It would close this headache of a case.

My stomach tightens and Quin eyes me questioningly. I let go of his sleeve that I unconsciously gripped and whisper, “Lives are at stake.”

He nods and shifts his robe, pulling the fabric higher up the side of his throat. Was that a flash of bruised skin?

I stare at the concealing fabric, urging it to move, but before it can, the two on-duty guards disappear around a wall and Quin hauls me with him over dew-kissed grass, to wrought iron gates adorned with circling wyverns that shimmer in the silvery moonlight. I tell myself to focus on them, not Quin’s neck—

He pushes his cane into my grip, and a soft glowing ball of magic steers my attention down his throat to his hands. He quietly curls his fingers around iron bars, and the mystic ward shivers. A wave of light briefly shines over us, illuminating his determined face—and the edge of the mark on his neck—and the ward peels open.

I startle at the squealing of hinges.

“Hurry,” Quin says.

I edge through the narrow gap, and he hobbles in silently after me, the gates closing with a muted clink . Before us is a sea of moon-speckled epitaphs, sitting under breeze-ruffled oaks. We slink through their shadows deep into the grounds. Quin leads the way, pausing occasionally behind trees, one hand gripping my arm as if readying himself to fly off with me at any moment. Though I imagine the rest of the wards would not make the escape go unnoticed...

We sneak around a small crypt, and the air suddenly stills in a way that has me shivering. Quin looks over to ask if I’m alright, and before I can nod stiffly, voices shatter the silence. “Must’ve misheard. Or it was a rat.”

Quin instinctively pulls me back behind the trunk of a large oak, hand balling with magic. My heart pounds in time with the thump of nearby footsteps.

“If that rat shows ‘imself, I’ll stab it right through the heart.”

“If I don’t get there first.” They laugh, and clomp past us. “Let’s head back to the others.”

I hold my breath until Quin nods us forward. I follow on with an erratic pulse to an exposed area of stone epitaphs that eventually turn into wooden ones. There are no trees to hide behind back here, and that knowledge weakens my knees. “I’m hiding behind you if they come back,” I say.

Quin smiles in the dark, and I suddenly lose all sense of gravity.

I bite down on a sharp cry as Quin catches me with gusts, stopping me from stepping straight into a gaping hole in the earth. He sets me beside the dug-up loam and snaps his cane quizzically around the pit. I shiver as I peer over the edge. It’s a cold, rectangular void that not even the almost-full moon dares to reach into.

“Ah ha,” Quin says.

I wait for more, but he only gives it to me after a beseeching lift of my eyebrow. He gestures to the wooden epitaph that lies upturned in the grass. “This grave belongs to one of our murdered redcloaks.”

I look from the epitaph to the pit to Quin.

Gusts lift and drop Quin carefully into the pit and he pushes the coffin lid aside with his cane.

I peer down to where he casts light for me to see.

The coffin is empty.

I slither into the pit beside him and check again, as if this time, a body will miraculously appear. “Someone beat us to it?”

Quin feels the upturned soil in his hand. “Recently.” He magics us out of the pit and one glance around me reveals there are other disturbed graves. My prickling senses tell me who those must belong to.

Quin observes the area with a tightened jaw and a glimmer of caution in his eye.

“Do you think that whoever did it is close?” I ask.

“Possibly.”

“How do they expect to escape, trundling bodies through the wards?”

A grimace. “Let’s check the other coffins.”

It’s only a few steps to the next yawning pit of earth and Quin swiftly settles us into it. The space is narrow for two; moist soil clings to our clothes as we position ourselves and push off the lid. It rumbles, and reveals a body dressed neatly in uniform. The clothes are bright and clean against the pallid skin of his hands and face. “They didn’t take all the bodies?”

Quin funnels fresh air into the pit to blow away the stench of decay. “The guards from before might have hurried them off before they could finish the job.”

“To our luck. Could you produce more light? Hold it above his chest.”

Quin does as instructed, and I fold up the redcloak’s sleeve to inspect the veins at his wrist. I grab Quin’s hand and steer the light closer. “As I thought,” I say grimly. “Green.”

I swing off my knapsack, peel open the fabric and pull out a knife and a fork. I clutch them in either hand, eying one and then the other.

“Did I not feed you enough today?”

I jerk my head up to Quin’s horrified-yet-bemused expression. “I don’t have magic anymore, remember?”

His gaze drops to the utensils. “What exactly is the fork”—I stab the soldier’s wrist, puncturing the vein; Quin finishes thinly, “Never mind.”

I lift the fork and use the knife to smear the thickened blood over all the sides. I start counting the seconds. It takes four minutes before I see the result I’m after.

Quin watches patiently, curiously, and I lift the fork for him to see clearly. “The metal had corroded, that’s why I brought the fork. The properties of gelidroot in blood change after death, and—well, look. The coagulated blood turned the brown corrosion green.”

“What were you counting?”

“How long it took to change colour. It helps me calculate when the root was ingested.”

“Which was when?”

“The soldiers have been dead for four days, but the poison was in their blood for at least four days before that. The refugees ate the porridge two days ago, which means they’ll start to die in another two days—if we don’t find a cure.” I snap my head up. “We should—”

Brilliant light flashes overhead. We look up and the wards around the memorial grounds flash again, temporarily revealing their dome shape. The sound of distant shouts has us stiffening. “Someone’s tried to cross the wards. They used the wrong spell.”

Quin grabs hold of me and in seconds we’re gusted onto the grass above, where he pulls me into a crouch behind an epitaph. “Can’t ride the wind—too exposed.”

We can’t run for the same reason. “The guards won’t miss these exhumed graves a second time.” There’ll be no hiding in the shadows of their pits.

“Looks like I’ll have to expose my identity,” Quin says gruffly.

I chuckle and slap a hand over my mouth. Quin stares at me like I’ve gone mad. “I was afraid of getting caught,” I say. “I imagined us both imprisoned, set for the gallows at dawn. Sort of forgot you’re actually important.”

Quin stares at me, shaking his head, and flicks my temple.

I grab his sleeve at a sudden, sickening thought. “What if they’re your uncle’s men? What if there are too many?”

He pins me with a raised brow. “Hide behind me.”

From the shadows of the large oaks comes the cracking of twigs underfoot, coming fast. My gaze sweeps urgently back to Quin, and snaps to the darkened pit. The one with the empty coffin... I grimace, toss Quin’s cane into the pit, and tug at him. “Forgive me, your majesty.”

We roll into the pit, Quin’s quick thinking cushioning our fall. The gust protecting us dissipates and I scramble off him to push open the lid. “Get in.”

He sighs, and rushes rose-scented air through the coffin. Then he whips off his cloak and lines the box. “After you.”

I don’t need telling twice. I cram myself to one side; Quin slides in, half on top of me, and pulls the lid over us. “They may check inside,” he warns.

“Act dead.”

He shifts and we’re barely a puff of air from being plastered together from legs to heavily breathing chests. Already our noses graze. I press against his with a whispered growl. “That’s not acting dead.”

I tense at the muffled sounds overhead, and Quin bumps the back of his knuckles against mine. We’ll be fine.

A barked “Check the coffin.”

I hold my breath and sink the back of my fingers between Quin’s, desperate for continued reassurance. He squeezes.

I wait for the inevitable sounds of feet landing in the pit beside us, the sudden movement of the coffin lid...

“Uniform’s still there, sir.”

I release my breath in a whoosh before capturing it again. They’ve checked the neighbouring coffin first.

“Good, good. These damn graverobbers are the bane of my existence but they would’ve left emptyhanded this time. I recall this lot getting buried. Not a precious thing went with them.”

“Are we sure they’re robbers? Why these graves?”

“Of course it’s robbers. These graves are the freshest, much easier to dig up recently turned earth.” There’s a pause, and then, “Cover them up. Let’s help track the bastards down.”

“How did they get in?”

“New ward spells. My idea—easy to get in, hard to get out.”

I expel my breath again, and whisper, “Graverobbers?” I thought people were too concerned about stirring up spirits. But I suppose there are always exceptions. Or they do it anyway, out of necessity.

“More likely from the north,” Quin says. “They don’t have the same fear.”

Rose lingers in the wood around us, and I’m glad for it—it takes me a few deeper inhales to normalise my breathing. “How’d you scent the air?”

“Thank all those petal-filled baths I have.”

“Best use of roses ever.”

“Never to be repeated.”

We’re quiet again. It was dark before, but as more soil surrounds us, the darkness seems to deepen. Quin’s slight shifts sound louder and my skin prickles. The ticklish point where our noses tap seems to radiate across my cheeks, my brow, my lips.

Quin’s breath curls over my jaw, too softly. I tense in the darkness. The thickening air makes it almost impossible to breathe. It’s the coffin making my chest tight.

When I no longer hear the sounds of dirt raining over us, I whisper, “How long do we wait?”

“They won’t give up looking for a while. An hour. Two.”

“In here? Like this?”

He speaks softly against my lips, “Does this closeness bother you?”

A long shiver runs down my middle. I clench my stomach and untangle my fingers from his. “No.”

“Your heart is racing.”

“You . . . hear that?”

“Feel it.”

I can too. It’s pounding against my ribs, and when I concentrate on my chest, I feel another rhythmic thumping close to it. Not my own. My whisper cracks, “Are you bothered by it?”

“No.” His ‘no’ is said simply and feels vastly different from my own.

My heart betrays me by racing more. “It’s nothing to do with how close we are. I’m... panicking. This is not the first time I’ve been trapped in a coffin. It’s... bringing that back.”

Quin is quiet for a long beat. “Cael...”

His voice is too soft; unbearable.

I clear my throat. “To reinvent myself through crude healing, I’ll need better tools. A set of acupuncture needles, stitching needles, small sharp knives, portable brewing pots.”

It’s a lifetime before he responds, but he does, and relief sweeps through me. “Anything you need.”

His leg jerks, bumping mine, and he hisses. I can’t feel auras of pain the way I used to through magic, but I know it’s there. He shifts and so do I. On instinct, our hands briefly meet against his cramping thigh and I hesitate a moment before massaging his muscle alongside him. It takes a few minutes and some tightly-gritted grunts, but the worst of the pain subsides.

“I was too rough rolling you in here,” I say.

“You’re fine. It’s been doing this at random and inopportune times since the beginning.”

The beginning. “When was that? What was it like? How did you cope?”

A teasing lilt warms his voice and thickens the air around us. “Want the intimate details of my childhood, Cael?”

“P-purely from a healing perspective.”

“I used to love exploring. Nicostratus and I were masters of sneaking out, and we’d walk and run everywhere. Our guards had a hard time catching us, and we were often punished, but to be free... it was always worth it.”

There’s a wistful quality to his memory that has my stomach tensing at what’s to come.

“As we got older, ten or eleven, we began to understand more of the complexities of the royal city. My father and mother had been shielding me from many dangers I was unaware of.”

“There were people who wanted you dead.”

“Mm. I started to see those around me in different lights; I became more wary. When I went outside the boundaries, I pretended I was someone else. Sometimes I’d wear my aklo’s clothes, or pretend I was a nobleman’s son, or a merchant’s. A performer.”

“Was it always the high duke after you?”

“He was there, starting his quiet schemes, but back then, it was my father’s second wife that posed the greatest danger.”

“Nicostratus’s mother?”

“A heartbreaking realisation.”

“What did you do?”

“Refused to let anyone tear me and my brother apart.”

“She poisoned you right after you saved him from drowning.”

“He’s told you.”

“It pains him, how much his mother hurt you.”

Wood creaks softly under our weight, and the darkness amplifies his uneasy exhale. “It’s never easy to be torn between two people you love.”

I stir, and my knuckles bump against his. My voice roughens. “You went from gallivanting in disguise at ease to...”

“To lying in bed for months as vitalian after vitalian worked to rid me of poison. There was some success. I could have died. Apex-vitalian Chiron saved me, but my leg...”

“I had immortal bone. I could have—”

“It went where it needed to.”

“Why aren’t you frustrated? Angry? When I lost my magic...”

My stomach churns.

Quin’s sigh curls over my jaw. “Seeing you struggle... was like seeing myself, back then. I didn’t want to believe it. I cried and pleaded. I bargained nightly with the heavens that if I fully recovered, I’d become the most benevolent crown prince there ever was. And when I didn’t recover, I withdrew. I didn’t go out of my room, didn’t let anyone see me. Nicostratus spent days outside my door pleading to come in, but during that time...”

“You couldn’t. It hurt too much. You wanted to give up.”

“I couldn’t bear seeing you go through that.”

“That’s why—”

“I was so insistent. Yes.”

My throat aches; swallowing has my nose briefly tapping against Quin’s. It’s too dark to see him, for him to see me, and yet I have the strong urge to close my eyes. Some kind of veil, to stop the rawness I feel inside leaking out completely. “Somehow, losing my magic hurt more when I looked at you.”

“Why?” the question is soft, too knowing.

I open my eyes and laugh hollowly.

His slow, whispered “Cael” sends a bolt of panic through me and I push my back harder against the side of the coffin.

“You don’t need me anymore.”

Silence.

I hear the words again, in my head. You don’t need me. It echoes painfully and I want to take them back. But they’re hanging there between us.

His breath hitches.

The darkness is too much, the confined space far too intimate.

“Cast some light,” I gasp, clawing for air.

He coaxes soft magic to his hands, and at once I wish it gone again. He looks at me carefully, gaze too serious. The coffin seems to shrink around us. He feels larger, warmer, closer. It’s overwhelming.

“Finding an antidote,” I say, squeezing my fist. “It’ll be a tough task. We’ll need all the help we can get. My grandfather wrote a lot about the dangers of amorous fungi. To think it’s used as perfume and incense! No wonder you paled when I gave you some.”

A brief flash of amusement quirks his cheek and he rearranges himself, shifting his glowing hands between our chests. The change in light draws my eye to the edge of the bruise at this throat, and an image of Sparkles perched atop him, like I had been, fills my mind. Had she kissed her way down his throat, or had he steered her there in the throes of the moment... Had he truly been drawn to her, or had she worn amorous perfume?

“What are you thinking?”

I jerk my gaze to his. “I’m glad you banned it from your dance house.”

“Did so immediately after it was used against me.”

I stare at him and swallow. I’m curious, but I don’t want to ask.

He answers anyway. “It was used to make me impregnate my wife.”

Veronica. Their son.

“I loathed being forced to marry, and I was stubborn enough to insist I’d never lie with her. We were locked into a room with those spores. Far more than a dance house might use. So much, in fact, we both began seeing things. Things we desired. It was like living a fantasy. He was beautiful and I craved him, and he craved me.”

“Veronica.”

“When the spores wore off, when we realised what had happened... We despised what had been done to us. The shared anger brought us closer. We talked more, opened up about our needs, confessed to wanting, one day, to find our true loves. Discussed how we might make that work. And by the time Veronica discovered she was with child, we’d become more than two people who respected one another. We’d become friends. We were happy that we understood one another and that we could be a special kind of family. With love for one another, just not... that kind of love.”

“She told me. When I was upset at you flirting with that aklo.” My brow pinches, and my gaze trails back to the darker spot at his throat.

Just how much of Quin’s skin had Sparkles ravished?

Quin shifts, nose sliding over mine. “Would you like to see?”

I snap my eyes to his flashing ones.

“You keep staring at it,” he says.

I huff a laugh and grit my teeth.

“I didn’t trust her,” he whispers against my jaw. “I didn’t like the way she looked at you.”

“You didn’t like her and you let her—” I poke in the direction of his throat, and he captures my finger in the glow of his. “At least get a vitalian to heal it!”

“I don’t want to.”

I try to pull free but he doubles his grip and pulls my hand to his throat, hooks the fabric and pulls it down, and I see the mark in its entirety. The bruising mark from lips and suction... and the twin puncture wounds at the centre.

I stare at the wound, my mind catching up with my body’s realisation. My lips. My suction. My mark.

The world tilts, and a strangled sound escapes my lips.

Quin watches me with calm calculation that feels... too intense.

I duck my flushing face and bang my forehead against his chin. He lets go and curls his arm around my back. His breath sifts silkily through my hair.

I groan. “Please. Get us out of here.”

He summons his magic and hauls me tight around the waist. Before he forces our way out of the grave, he nips my ear. “We’re not close to finished.”