Page 31

Q uin and I leave early the next morning.

He swings himself into the saddle smoothly and adjusts the straps holding his cane across his back.

He’s dressed simply, so as not to attract attention from the regent’s men.

Princessa Liana catches us before we leave, speaking gravely.

“Be careful. If this warding takes root, it threatens everything he’s built.

He’ll strike back, hard, where it most hurts. ”

“He has power yet cannot wield it for the people,” I mutter. “It must be taken from him.”

“Yes,” she agrees, and meets Quin’s sober gaze. “But you cannot go up against him alone. Father still has more power and people behind him. When this plague is under control, your men will reunite. Wait for us.”

“I’ve been the underdog too long. I know I can’t win alone.” Quin exhales slowly, jaw tense. “I will wait. For now.”

She watches us go, and we ride in silence, our path leading straight toward the black smoke curling thick over the capital.

My legs tense around the horse the closer we get.

The plague may no longer be a personal threat to me, since I’ve recovered from it—or to Quin, who is immune—but there is danger ahead.

Quin looks my way, something unreadable in his dark eyes. He exhales through his nose, shifts in his saddle. Then, his voice is quiet, certain. “I may have no army left. But I have you, Cael.”

I steer my horse closer to his, so close our knees nearly knock together. I murmur, the words quiet but resolute, “I won’t let you die.”

The smell of burning bodies chokes the air, thick and acrid, coating my throat until I heave up coughs.

The dead have been dragged from the streets, their pyres rising into charred spectres beyond the city walls.

The sound of tears is like a new birdcall—ever-present, ceaseless.

I hear it until I don’t. Until the wailing becomes just as constant as the tolling of luminist bells.

I halt my horse abruptly close to home, to the Amuletos manor. A long line of people snakes down the street, disappearing around a far corner, all quietly standing with covers over their mouth and nose—

And Akilah is here too, handing out cloth to those yet uncovered, urging them to use it while they wait. The sight has my stomach clenching hard. She’s here, home, helping.

I croak, “Take me to the roof over the courtyard.”

I barely finish speaking before winds coil around us.

Quin’s arm hooks around my waist, steady, unyielding.

In a breath, we’re soaring, the streets blurring beneath us until we land on the rooftop above the courtyard.

Below, Florentius is with my father, my mother and my brothers.

All pricking patients and smearing paste on their arms.

My father—the man who always warned me to obey the laws, to never risk the lives of our family—is standing beside my mother and brothers, pressing his hand against another patient’s arm, his touch steady. He’s defying the law. He’s defying the luminists.

I exhale sharply, the reality hitting me with a soft shiver. He read my letter. He listened.

Quin’s arm presses me in closer, quiet comfort, steadying my shaking limbs. He doesn’t have to hear me speak to understand. He knows my feelings better than I do myself. He always has.

With gentle winds, he drops us to the courtyard and draws out his cane to follow as I lurch towards my family.

Mother throws her arms around me, gripping tight, as if she never wants to let go.

Florentius and Father look over. They too seem unsurprised, as if this moment is inevitable.

Florentius points towards the table where bowls of my warding sit, and I gently steer my mother away with whispered promises to talk after.

I move to take a bowl and wave a patient forward.

I glance over at Florentius, holding an achy breath.

He has magic, yet he is using my alchemic method.

Beside me, Quin murmurs he’ll bring in the supplies and our horses, and once he has, he helps me administer treatment. We’re wordless until the sun is high in the sky and luminist bells get closer and closer. Father stiffens, but he doesn’t stop his work.

When the premade warding runs low, I make more away from the eyes of patients, in the vitaliary room where I once hid all Grandfather’s books.

Florentius finds me there, measuring and stirring. I glance up and speak. “You—who are so elegant, who hates mess, who is exceptionally skilled at spells—you could have transposed this warding into magic. Instead, you’re smearing it into cut flesh.”

“You know why.”

I think I do. I know I do. It takes too much energy. A vitalian could save forty people in a day with spells. But with fingers and paste? Each healer will save hundreds.

I exhale, long and deep, as if letting go of something I didn’t know I was holding. The work of my hands, the blood and paste beneath my nails—it isn’t lesser than magic. It’s more. It’s enough.

“Crude healing can save a kingdom.” The words feel heavier in my mouth than I expect. A truth I’ve known—but only now, only here, do I fully understand it.

“Yes,” Florentius agrees simply, without hesitation.

I look at him then—really look at him.

Florentius, who once turned up his nose at my healing.

Florentius, who could have chosen to keep his hands clean.

Florentius, who has suffered at my hands, and still forgave me.

Florentius, my fellow healer. My friend .

His voice is steady, his eyes unwavering. “And I will not be a man who builds my own mansion.”

A long silence passes between us.

And then, a small thing—our lips curl softly at the edges.

Without ceremony, Florentius picks up my freshly made batch and disappears into the courtyard, while I follow, feeling something settle inside me—a truth stronger than my meridians ever were.

The scent of blood and paste lingers under my nails. The work of my hands.

Once, I had thought it lesser. Now, I know.

This is what will save us.

After another hour of infecting the healthy, Father clears his throat. “Make sure you eat,” he says to me, and nods his head towards Quin beside me. “Tell your aklo to bring something from the kitchens.”

I nearly drop the paste. The true king of our people, casually ordered off to fetch food like an obedient aklo. I open my mouth—to correct, to protest—but Quin’s hand finds my arm, an unspoken plea for patience. “I’ll bring anything you need.”

Father nods. “I’m glad you’re at the service of my son.”

I try to interrupt again but this time Quin strokes my arm, placating me. He even bows his head towards my father! “I’ll always be at his service.”

My heart hitches and my throat tightens at the sudden warmth spilling through my body. I look up and his eyes soften on mine as he picks up his resting cane and snaps off towards the kitchens.

I get another five treated before the bell enters our household.

Father peels off from the patients and I follow, gesturing to my line that I’ll be right back.

The luminist strides grimly towards my father in his slightly glowing robes and rings his bell in his face, as if that’s meant to make him obey.

“Cease your unlawful practices immediately. The entire Amuletos household will face trial for this.”

My father speaks with calm confidence. “We are not using linea spells. We are simply helping the people.”

“You’re infecting the healthy!” the luminist shrills. “Such practices are against our laws.”

“This infection is weak; it helps them—”

“You sound just like your father when he stood trial for the same crime!”

I stiffen in the shadows, and my father’s shoulders tense too.

The luminist presses on. “He was lucky it was only his head. This time, your entire household will pay the price.”

“Plague is ripping through our kingdom,” my father says quietly. “Have you nothing better to do?”

“I’m stopping you from harming the people!”

“You are harming them by stopping me!”

The luminist stubbornly rings his bell, denouncing our family to an audience of only me.

My father grabs the bell to stop its tolling.

The same man who once obeyed every luminist preaching over the health of his own family now looks sternly into the luminist’s eyes.

“The law does not outweigh the lives of the people.”

I swallow hard, my knees buckling. My father—the man who punished me for simply reading books on forbidden spells, who wanted to marry me off for fear I’d cause trouble—

“Father,” I breathe, raw and hoarse. “You—”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t have to.

Father glances in my direction. Not directly at me—as if he knows I’m here, as if he understands.

The luminist’s eyes widen and his hands shift, preparing a spell. “You’ll come to the courts with me this instant!”

The spell surges toward Father and my voice cracks as I call out desperately, “No!”

I lurch forward, reaching for him—

Too slow.

A gust of wind erupts before me.

The force of it slams into the luminist like an unseen fist, hurling him backward. His spell misses by a breath, shattering the gate instead.

Before the luminist can rise, Quin lands between them in a rush of wind. His cane strikes the earth with a sharp, deliberate crack, and the air itself seems to recoil. A pulse rolls outward—an invisible pressure, an unspoken warning.

It has my breath catching.

Quin doesn’t speak.

The luminist rings his bell again and his cloak glows brighter. “I’ve seen you before. With that man’s troublesome son! I don’t care you are linea. I will have you on trial for impeding justice!”

Quin leans forward with a wolfish snarl and brandishes his badge in the luminist’s face.

The luminist pales, his robes dulling until the only one shining is Quin. He takes an unsteady step back, his bell hand twitching. His mouth opens as if to argue—but no words come.

He knows.

He knows exactly who stands before him.