Chapter 15 #2
Relief surged through Viri, and she hastily shared what she knew, from her memories of the dagger’s appearance to the symptoms Reeve had shown before passing out.
When she was done, Wynter gave a solemn nod, pushed the sleeves of her cobalt sweater up to her elbows, and strode off toward where Reeve lay.
“You, purple-haired angry girl,” Wynter said, snapping her fingers. “Roll him over so I can see the damage.”
“That’s Sage,” Viri quickly introduced. “And Jonas is behind the couch.”
Hearing his name, the blond boy came out of hiding and gave a little wave.
Wynter blinked. “Is that a bunny in your pocket?”
“His name is Walnut,” Jonas said, petting the rabbit on his head. “He gets separation anxiety if I leave him alone for too long.” He paused. “And he’s technically a lop-eared dwarf rabbit—they’re much smaller than the standard size. Like baby bunnies, but for life.”
Wynter blinked again. “That’s…oddly precious,” she muttered, before returning her attention to Reeve, now resting on his good side with his wound facing upward.
Seeing the extent of it, Wynter made a gagging sound. “Ugh, blood. Disgusting.”
Sage’s eyes speared to Viri. “I thought you said she had medical knowledge?”
“She’s training to be a physician,” Viri replied. Quieter, she admitted, “She’s just not very good at it.”
“Excuse you.” Wynter frowned. “I’m very good at it. Or I would be, if they’d let me heal people the way I want.”
“By that, she means she’d prefer to use magic to treat her patients,” Viri clarified to Sage and Jonas. “Which, in the case of alchemy-created cures, is forbidden.”
“It’s a stupid law,” Jonas said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “The ancient mages used magic for everything, especially healing.”
“They also knew what they were doing,” Sage pointed out. “They had years of training and generations of knowledge at their disposal.” She looked at Wynter, who was prodding Reeve’s wound while visibly trying not to heave, and flatly added, “Something tells me that’s not the case here.”
“Unfortunately for you, I’m all you’ve got,” Wynter said, stepping away from Reeve and heading to the nearest bookcase.
Scanning the spines, she pulled out two thick, leather-bound tomes, then carried them to her workbench and dropped them on it with a heavy thud.
“Bunny boy, get over here. You look like you know your way around a book.”
Jonas practically ran to her side. “What do you need?”
She held up one of the tomes, the cover embossed with golden symbols. “Can you read runes?”
He shook his head. “Basic letters only.”
Wynter reached for the second book—this one with the words Potente Toxicum written across the front—and shoved it toward him.
“Then you take this one. Look for anything that mentions green flesh and sluggish coagulation. If you can’t find those, then search for any of the other symptoms your friend experienced. ”
Jonas got straight to work, as did Wynter with the runic book—a language she’d taught herself in the years since she’d first discovered the secret laboratory and its ancient literary collection.
“What can we do?” Viri asked, indicating herself and Sage.
“Here.” Wynter tossed her a vial of shimmery orange liquid. “Get that into him.”
Viri hesitated at the familiar elixir in her hands. “Um, this is your zingzest.”
“Don’t worry, I modified it since you tested it,” Wynter said distractedly, skimming the page before her. “All the adrenaline, none of the withdrawal.”
Viri wasn’t worried about the withdrawal—she was worried about the fact that it was an energy booster, and Reeve was out cold. Elders knew what effect it might have on him.
Seeing her uncertainty, Wynter used a finger to mark her place and took the time to explain, “Magical ailments are complicated, V. His best chance at surviving this is if he’s conscious enough to fight it.
” With gravity, she added, “His pulse is already too slow—he doesn’t have much time left.
It’s a risk, but it’s a calculated one, and I wouldn’t suggest it if I thought it would cause more harm than good.
He saved your life, so we save his, right? ”
Viri’s throat clogged with gratitude for her friend, and she gave a quick nod before unstoppering the vial and pressing it to Reeve’s lips, gently tipping his head back.
His midnight hair was like silk against her fingers as she coaxed the citrusy elixir down his throat with one hand and supported his neck with the other, all while Sage watched protectively from a few feet away.
Just as it had for Viri, the zingzest worked almost instantly, prompting Reeve to sit up with a gasp and launch into a coughing fit.
Being closest to him, Viri lowered herself onto the couch and patted his back. “Deep breaths, Reeve.”
“Hurts,” he gritted out.
Viri felt the pain of that one word piercing her chest. “I know,” she murmured. “Just breathe through it. It’ll ease in a second.”
It wouldn’t, though. Not while the grimblade poison flooded his veins.
But at least he was awake again, and the zingzest had brought color back to his cheeks.
His eyes, too, were more alert as he finally stopped coughing long enough to look around, his body tensing as he took in their unfamiliar surroundings and only relaxing again when he caught sight of Sage and Jonas.
“Where are we?”
“Wynter’s lab,” Viri answered, then gestured to her friend. “Wyn, meet Reeve Ashton. Reeve, Wynter Starling.”
“The pleasure is all yours,” Wynter muttered.
“The Magistratus’s daughter has been keeping a naughty little secret,” Sage told Reeve in a drawl. “She’s been practicing alchemy under her darling mommy’s nose for years.”
Wynter didn’t look up from her reading as she drawled back, “She also knows enough of that alchemy to cover you in boils and give you an embarrassing rash.” Her tone lowered in warning. “Don’t mess with me, reaper. You won’t like the results.”
Reeve was staring at Wynter, his face a mask of shock and something else, something unreadable—wariness, perhaps—but then his features turned pained again as another coughing fit struck, ending only when he leaned forward and spewed up more of the unnatural black bile.
Wynter immediately dry retched. “Ugh, people are so gross,” she moaned, then threw a vial of white powder to Sage. “Pour that on it. The whole vial.”
Sage did as ordered, and the vomit evaporated as soon as the dust hit it.
“Impressive,” Sage murmured, inspecting the empty vial in the light of the nearest everbeacon.
“Scrubbydust,” Wynter said. “Instantly cleans liquid spills of all kinds. One of my first experiments.”
“Successful,” Viri corrected, thinking of all the failed alchemical attempts before it. “One of her first successful experiments.”
“Semantics.” Wynter waved a hand, but paused mid-motion to lean closer to the page she was reading. “Wait—I have something.” She turned to Jonas. “Is there an entry in there on Wraith Tears?”
“I’m only up to the Ns,” he said. “Hang on, I’ll skip ahead.
” Pages rustled, then slowed. “There’s nothing that translates to that exact name, but there’s a mention of Weepus Wraithos—Weeping Wraith—and the etymology is nearly identical.
” He squinted as he read the entry aloud: “ ‘Weeping Wraith is a poison derived using a combination of wraith blood and dragon tears. Its liquid form is sufficient to bring a swift death, but greater suffering can be achieved by imbuing it into objects, particularly weapons, as the effects become longer-lasting and more torturous. Symptoms include green flesh around the wound, black bile, fever, chills…’ ” He rattled off the list, with Reeve nodding weakly to each mention.
“That’s it,” Sage said, sounding surprised. “Does it say how to cure it?”
Jonas shook his head and tapped his book. “Not here.” He looked at Wynter. “You?”
Wynter was already lost in her runic tome again, mumbling under her breath and scrawling on a piece of parchment.
There was a furrow in her brow as she concentrated, but it cleared when she looked up.
“I think I’ve got it.” She reread her handwriting, the furrow returning.
“It’s actually a simple antidote, though I suppose it does need rare magical ingredients and someone who can read runes, so ‘simple’ might not be the right—”
“Not to rush you,” Reeve rasped, one hand holding his stomach and the other pressed to his wound, “but unless you have a whole barrel of that cleaning powder, you’re going to want to hurry up with the cure.”
The threat of him vomiting again had Wynter leaping into action, pulling colorful ingredients from the shelves and hastening over to her terrarium to pluck an assortment of plants, including two angelrose petals that continued glowing even after they left the vine.
A strong floral aroma flooded the room, sending Jonas into a sneezing fit, but watery eyes or not, he watched on with visible awe as Wynter got to work.
It wasn’t true alchemy she was doing, since that involved the magical transfiguration of matter and would require her to tap into the small amount of ellixen she’d retained after her Impartation—something that was not only incredibly dangerous but also beyond illegal.
But regardless, potion making was still a perilous art, particularly when it used unstable magical ingredients.
Wynter had taught herself everything she knew, and while she claimed to be a novice, Viri couldn’t imagine trusting anyone else with her life—or in this case, Reeve’s.
“Done,” Wynter declared, stoppering a glass vial and giving it a shake. The liquid within was pink and glowed slightly from the angelrose petals. “Which of you two has known Ashton the longest?”
She looked between Sage and Jonas, oblivious to Viri turning solid on the couch.
“Why?” Sage asked cagily.
“Wraith blood is nasty stuff,” Wynter said.
“It goes beyond the physical—much like how wraiths themselves attack not just the body, but also the mind and spirit. According to legend, at least.” She shrugged.
“Point is, to keep the wraith blood from lingering in Ashton’s psyche even after the poison is purged from his body, the cure needs to be administered by someone with a strong emotional connection to him, forged over as many years as possible.
The longer you’ve known each other, the deeper the connection, which will ensure the potion is powerful enough to expel all traces of the wraith blood from his system. ”
There was a beat of silence, before Sage said, “That makes no sense whatsoever.”
Wynter shrugged again. “Magic rarely makes sense. That’s why it’s so interesting.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Jonas said, bouncing excitedly at her side.
“So, who is it?” Wynter pressed, holding the pink vial out toward the reapers.
Neither of them moved, their eyes flicking instead to Viri, whose heart had begun to pound in her ears.
Reeve cleared his throat beside her, and the slightest turn of her head caused their eyes to lock. As unwell as he looked, he was still impossibly handsome, but there was something in his gaze now, a challenge and a question, as he waited to see what she would do.
She, however, had limited options. She’d already started down this path—it was too late to turn back now.
“It’s me,” Viri admitted, standing shakily and walking toward her friend. “I’ve known Reeve the longest.”
Wynter’s dark eyebrows shot upward. “What are you talking about? You only met him after he was arrested last week.”
Viri shook her head. “I’ve known him since I was four.”
A sharp breath from Wynter. “You what?”
“Thirteen years,” Viri confirmed, feeling an odd sense of relief at having the truth finally out there. Or one truth. The other was coming—she could feel it.
Wynter leaned forward and hissed, “How is that possible? He’s the Reaper Priest’s most loyal follower!”
Viri winced. “I know.”
“The Reaper Priest who murdered your parents!”
Viri winced again. “Yes.”
“The Reaper Priest who you’ve sworn to hunt down and make pay for everything he’s done!”
This time, Viri just nodded, though from the corner of her eye she saw Sage take an angry step forward, halted only by Reeve’s restraining arm. Even Jonas had his hands clenched by his sides, as if upset to hear anything against their monstrous leader.
Wynter’s face suddenly turned white as she stared at Viri in dawning horror, her quick brain putting the pieces together. Slowly, as if afraid to give voice to what she’d just realized, she said, “If you’ve known Ashton that long, then you must know how and when he became the Priest’s right hand.”
A reluctant nod from Viri.
“That means…” Wynter said. “That means…” Her throat bobbed, but she forced herself to ask the question Viri had been dreading for seven years—her greatest secret, her most devastating truth. “You know who the Reaper Priest is, don’t you?”
Viri couldn’t resist looking back at Reeve, finding his silver gaze unexpectedly soft, full of compassion. She closed her eyes, unable to bear the sight of him looking at her like that as she answered her best friend, her voice little more than a breath.
“His name is Braedan Solace.” A tremulous pause. “He’s my brother.”