Page 7

W ith Quin’s power and royal blood, the wards of the graveyard pose no issue. Neither does gaining access to an apothecary: it belongs to a supporter of his, who happens to be leaving today with a redcloak unit. We can use whatever we need, and there’s even a sleeping nook in the back room.

With a few candles flickering around stone walls, I meticulously sort through the vials and pots, and start a fire in the stove. I burn myself on the metal plate and wish I’d been wearing my gloves... My scalded fingers flutter to the knot at my cloak and I shake my head sharply. Focus.

Across the room, not helping, Quin paces. “You must be exhausted. You should have slept before coming here.”

I wave him out of my line of sight. “The poison is unique. I have a fair idea of its makeup now, but designing an effective antidote... it’ll take time. Time we don’t have.”

“I’ll get people onto it first thing,” he says behind me.

I startle and shoo him to a corner chair. “We’ll need all the help we can get. If I can design the base, it’ll make the remaining trial-and-erroring easier.”

I use the largest pots to make enough, and carefully measure all the necessary ingredients. I pour a crimson liquid from one vial into the pot and mix it with clearwater, stormward, sunburst—dew and herbs that counter the earthbloom, thundergrass, silverbell known in the poison. Though I know bush-snake venom is included, its counter venom might affect the properties of the other unknown herbs, so for the base, I exclude it.

“What is this for?” Quin asks, caning towards the glass vial at the far end of the table.

“Don’t touch that. It’s the poison I pulled from my handkerchief.” I walk him back to his seat and point a finger at him warningly. He swats it away, but remains in the chair.

I stare at the various stages of concoction and glance wistfully at my hands. This would have been easier with magic. I’d have internalised all the different elements that I could call to my palms; could play around with variations without worrying about spillage, and liquids coagulating.

I squeeze my hands. The refugees don’t have time for my inner crisis.

Quin shifts in my peripheral vision.

Crises.

I haul in a steadying breath, and without looking at him, jerk my finger toward the back nook. “Take the bed.”

“Let me know if you need anything.”

Tension falls off me the moment he leaves. I take a minute to palm the table and rest my weight against it as a shiver races down my middle.

I divvy up a portion of the base liquid into various vials, and spend the next hours sweating and yawning as I mix and remix possible additions that might act as the last missing element. The room swells with the bitter scents of herbs and fungi, and every book in the apothecary has come out of its shelf. Damn venom. I slump onto my stool and glare at the vials.

Other vitalians may have ideas.

Two candles burn out, leaving only one flickering near the window. I contemplate finding more, but the sky outside has a blueish tinge. Dawn is approaching. I spend a few more hours tinkering, and then another grinding herbs and soaking potential fungi, and packing them in boxes for Quin to deliver along with the base. Save as much time as possible.

I find paper and ink and scrawl out some hypotheses and other notes for the vitalians. I yawn again and the words before me blur.

Just for a minute, I’ll rest my head. I curl an arm on the table in a wedge of free space and lay my head down. Quin has people who can help. It’ll all be alright...

I wake, bolting upright... in a bed. My boots have been removed and on a small table beside me is a fresh, folded change of clothes, and glittering in... evening light? my silver clasp sits atop the pearlweed gloves.

I stare at them for a long while, then with a sharp rise and fall in my chest, I swivel out of the bed and dress. I clasp my cloak and pull the soft gloves over my scalded hands. “My soldad would’ve been handy.”

I check the apothecary, but the shop is shut for business and—to my relief—Quin is not inside. On the table is a message—he’s delivered my notes and the base antidote to the vitalians he trusts most in Hinsard; I should rest and recover; he’ll see me later and we can ‘talk then’.

With a nauseous twist in my stomach, I head out for food—

And duck right back around a building, groaning as I strip a poster with my face on it off a wall.

Only once the dead nannan’s green veins appear will the magistrate’s office take the poison seriously, and with the grass evidence from the first murders holding traces of that poison, they can make the connection. When that happens, Nicostratus, who wasn’t in the city when the poison was ingested, will be proven innocent. And it will become clear I couldn’t have been his accomplice. My whereabouts during the days since doling out porridge will have to be explained, but no matter—by then the focus will be finding the true culprit and saving the refugees.

Until then... I raise my hood and grab a bun from a vendor packing away for the day, tossing payment as I pass. I bite into the tough dough and, at a stray thought, chew quickly.

Grandfather had notes on snakes and their medicinal properties, and many books remain in his Hinsard cabin, left unscathed by my father. It couldn’t hurt to venture out and grab them. Most likely the libraries and vitalians here will manage without, but just in case... And, bonus, the woods make it easy to avoid seeing people... er, being seen.

I hurry, head bowed, through a web of city streets to the wooded outskirts. As I cross the tree line, the last stretches of sunlight surrender to a blueish night alive with the shiver of breezes. The glow of the full moon keeps my path along the river lit.

Each step churns up dirt and the fallen reds and golds of autumn, and the damp, earthy scent carries memories with it.

Veronica’s manor. The royal woods. Running from redcloaks.

Nicostratus .

Each step is a thunk of my heart and a twist of guilt in my chest.

The swing bridge has been repaired since then and I pause in the middle of it, watch the rush of water beneath. We’d ridden the wind to the tops of the trees, and I’d fallen, stopping and starting with interrupted gusts pillowing me.

I close my eyes and recall the fear, the fall, the flashes of rainbow. Prince Nicostratus had been fighting for control over a wyvern, barely trained himself and trying to keep the boy who’d latched onto his side alive.

Nicostratus. How many times I told Akilah our story. How many times I’ve whispered his name.

“Nicostratus.” It tastes different now.

I bow my head and, at a snapping of twigs in the near distance, snap it up again. I search for signs of movement amongst the trees, but all is quiet.

I shake my head and cross the bridge into thicker woods. I keep to the river, where the moon paves my way, and at a fork, I pause. If I cross the weaker stream and continue down the broader arm, I’ll pass blue-snake nests and arrive at the violet oak.

Next full moon. The tree from when we were boys . The moon is full now.

I sigh.

But I’d known, shortly after I’d called that to him as Quin stole me away, that he wouldn’t be able to come here. He’d lost all his memories of the tree. Forgotten the moment we leaned on one another. Would never recall the first moment I looked at him and liked .

I can hear what Quin would say. How straightforwardly he’d say it. That might be the first moment; doesn’t mean it’ll be your last.

I shake off the ghost of his voice, and the sudden tickle at my ear where he’d last nipped it. With a tight swallow, I drag myself away from the past, and towards my grandfather’s cabin.

The stream narrows and takes the moon’s illumination with it. What’s left of the light casts eerie shadows into a web before me; stepping into it sends a crisp chill over my skin. My breath becomes foggy wisps, and branches take on strange shapes in my imagination: all the sick I couldn’t help, clawing angrily towards me. Their skeletal figures multiply and the fear of the dark I had as a child creeps back to me.

A sudden urge to turn back has me halting, but then I see the faces of refugees in the trees, an ominous foretelling of what might come if I don’t push on. I curl my damp palms and try not to worry at the sudden ceasing of the wind.

Each step is a crunch through silence; I hold my breath, shiver, and wish for someone to hide behind...

From a slit between craggy trees, I spy Grandfather’s cabin. I jog over uneven ground towards it, and halt abruptly before stepping onto the veranda. Was that a faint creaking? Footsteps? Why did it—I breathe in and my stomach turns—smell putrid?

A shadow passes the window, a flicker of light.

I grip the rail and haul all my courage. Something sticky meets my palm and I lift it up to the silvery light.

Blood.

My pulse hammers. There’s the instinct to run. This might mean danger.

There’s a stronger instinct.

Someone is hurt. Someone needs aid.

Heart pounding in my throat, I climb the steps and fumble for the cabin door.

Rusty hinges squeal as I push it open.

A gust of wind howls through the cracks in the walls, lifting the smell of rot and damp earth into the room. The wooden floor groans under my steps, and—movement.

I shoot my head up.

A single candle flickers in the corner of the room, casting shadows over a hunched figure... and a dead body.

I scream.

My scream is short and sharp, and then I’m storming across the room brandishing the only weapon I could find: an ostrich duster. It might be a shock of feathers at one end, but I wield it adamantly.

At my ruckus, the hunched male figure tenses, but does not turn until I’m a feather’s width away. When he does, when he unravels himself with the help of a cane, I’m the one who freezes, arm extended, weapon pointed at his face.

“ Quin? ”

Quin prods a finger into my feather duster and steers it down. “Arcane Sovereign. You’re a lost cause. Next time, run.”

My gaze drops and zips along his limbs. “There was blood . I had to come in.”

“Ah, like any sensible person.”

I lift the duster and give him a good... dusting. He shakes his head in dismay.

“Why are you here?” I ask.

He grinds his cane against the floorboards. “Why are you?”

“I’m not hiding. I mean, I am hiding. I don’t want my face seen. And... Grandfather had a lot of books on snake venoms.” I gesticulate wildly to the cabin and everything in it, halting at the dead body behind Quin. “All this belonged to him.”

I frown as something about the body prickles my senses. I put down my duster, pick up the candle, and kneel at the side of the decaying redcloak. I look up at Quin, expectantly.

“There’s another behind that shelf.”

I startle.

“Don’t worry. That one’s alive, though slightly damaged.”

The blood . . .

I rise and round the shelf to another prone body and an unconscious but familiar face. “Vitalian Dimos.”

“Quite the day for the lost being found,” Quin murmurs, gaze straying from my hands to the clasp on my cloak.

I swallow. “Get me some cloth.”

I tie up the deep cut on Dimos’s arm and eye Quin, who is leaning nonchalantly on the wall beside us. “Why didn’t you heal him?” This much Quin could do alone.

“At this point, he’s lucky to have his head.”

I give him a chastising headshake.

“He was dragging a dead redcloak through the woods.”

“You followed him?”

“In case he led me to more bodies.”

“Just the one, then?”

“Mm.”

“What has he told you?”

“He threw a spell, I shielded, he got knocked off his feet and landed on something that did that to his arm. He tried another spell and I knocked him out.”

“In other words, you haven’t asked.”

“Shall we now?” He thrusts his hand outward and hits our suspect’s acupoints.

The vitalian groans as he sits against the bookshelves. “Who are you? What do you want?” He squints at us and lingers on me. “You. You’re the par-linea with ruined meridians.”

I wince. He’d been very rude the first time I’d talked to him, but that didn’t necessarily make him a bloodthirsty killer. Although finding him with a dead body in a decrepit cabin in the woods...

Quin grabs hold of the man’s shirt and hauls him forward. “The soldiers. What did you do to them?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Here’s a reminder.” Quin drags the vitalian to the dead body and drops him beside it.

I tug Quin’s sleeve and pull him quietly aside while the vitalian gulps and stares at the body.

“Certain you can get a confession out of him this way?” I ask.

“I’m the—” he stops and clears his throat. “I’m a constable. Do I not exude a general feeling of authority?” He whips his cloak dramatically as he takes a confident step forward with a snap of his cane. I bite back a smirk, which he catches.

“Cael...” His eyes flash with warning as he leans closer to me.

I swallow, and a sharp shiver dashes through my middle.

His lips curl and an eyebrow arches. As our suspect tries to sneak past and make a run for it, he grabs the back of his cloak, his eyes never leaving mine.

“As you were,” I say.

Quin drags the vitalian back and once again sits him with the body. He barks for an explanation, but our middle-aged suspect looks like he’s about to soil himself.

I crouch between them. “The dead redcloaks, they tried to kill the prince the night before they died. They were not a good bunch. I know that. Were they the ones who got your soldad confiscated?”

Quin, crouched very close behind me, whispers at the back of my ear, “Being nice won’t—”

“How’d you know?” Dimos blubbers. “They claimed I gave them bad spells. I didn’t. I really didn’t.”

“Is that why you killed them?” Quin growls.

I glance to my hands. “You must have felt empty and hurt, losing everything you’ve worked your whole life for.”

Quin shifts; Vitalian Dimos shuts his eyes briefly and shudders on an exhale. “I wanted them to feel my pain.”

I should never have saved you. “I understand.” I feel Quin stir beside me, and suddenly he’s closer. His hand brushes mine as he grabs hold of the man’s shirt and hauls him forward.

“What did you do to them?” Quin growls, his focus never wavering.

“I didn’t kill them, I wouldn’t. Ever.”

The quiver in his voice sounds genuine, but I can’t ignore the bloody trail that led us here.

Quin grunts, letting him go. “If you didn’t poison them and try to frame Prince Nicostratus, why were you at the outpost?”

“I put some harmless activator in the well water.”

“Activator?” At Quin’s suspicion-filled tone, I quickly clarify in hushed tones.

“He wanted the redcloaks to lose their shit. Literally.”

“That was the only reason I was there. It was supposed to vent my anger. I never thought I’d trip over their bodies.”

“You knew they were dead, then. Why did you run away?”

“It didn’t look good for me, did it? I’d been stripped of my soldad. I was angry and people knew it. I didn’t like my chances.”

“Trust the truth will speak for itself,” Quin says.

Dimos laughs. “Since when is the justice system known for relying on truth?”

I nod sympathetically. “Someone really should do something about it.”

“If I ever see the day.”

We both sigh, and Quin flicks the back of my head.

I rub the spot and clear my throat. “I believe you didn’t kill the redcloaks, but... why exhume the bodies?”

“The poison.”

“You know about the poison?” I shift closer to him, with an eagerness that has Vitalian Dimos rearing back.

“I noticed something was off,” he says. “One of the four held a handkerchief to his mouth and the healer in me grabbed it as I passed them.”

I halt, and Quin and I exclaim simultaneously: “ Four ?”

Dimos looks between us, frowning. “The same four who came to me a few days earlier. Two of them had been stung by bees; I gave them a spell to help with the swelling. I didn’t expect it to worsen their symptoms—it shouldn’t have, it was a spell I’ve done a hundred times before without fail.”

My mind races as I analyse the properties of the spell, and how it might have—“It clashed with the earthbloom in the poison.”

Vitalian Dimos looks at me with newfound respect. “You’ve studied this.”

Quin frowns. “Where’s the fourth body? Our absent-without-leave soldier?”

A fourth body and a cover-up by the commander...

“Why would someone take his body and not the others?”

“Maybe the same reason I took one?” Dimos says. “To prove something? In my case, my innocence.”

“Innocence...” I murmur with a pointed look. “How did you escape the memorial grounds?”

He flushes.

“How?”

“Took all my magic to break out through a dog hole in the wall. From back when it was part of a manor, before it got made into a memorial. I lay low with the body until I’d restored my supplies, then waited for dark and dragged him here. As you can see”—he glares in Quin’s direction, and then shrinks back when he receives an intense look—“I didn’t get away with it. He flies in from nowhere and the next thing I know I’m being interrogated by you.”

“What do you know about the refugees?” I ask.

Vitalian Dimos frowns. “The ones coming in from the border? They’ve been coming in waves for months.”

He doesn’t know.

“Have they finally brought the plague with them?”

“What are you talking about?”

He rubs his brow. “There’s been whispers of plague in border towns in the southern kingdom. I’ve been trying to warn the higher-ups that we need to be prepared, but... out of sight, out of mind.”

A plague would sow chaos and fear, masking any foul play in its wake. If the poison was part of a larger plan, then whoever orchestrated it has calculated everything—even the panic that would follow.

I turn to Quin and he reads my worried expression.

“I’ll have people look into it,” he says.

I nod, and meet Vitalian Dimos’s furrowed gaze. “What is it?”

“I can’t be sure, but the morning I stumbled over those bodies... I think I saw...”

“What?”

“White lace.”