Chapter 15
R iver—once a starveling vespertine—is now healthy and fit, a trusted messenger between Silvius and me. But today, his usual enthusiasm is supplanted by quiet sorrow.
“What’s wrong?”
He passes me a sealed letter. As I rip it open and read, a heavy weight settles in my chest. Akilah leans in, her chin resting on my shoulder as she peers at the paper.
“His mother has passed away,” I murmur. “He has buried her in her hometown.”
The weeping ink and these hectic lines... one could never prepare for the final goodbye. I look at River, the bags under his eyes. It must have been a tough few days. “Wait while I respond.”
River hovers uncertainly in the doorway of my workroom while I write my condolences. “I’m to remain in the capital after delivering his letter. He’s expecting to arrive soon; he hopes you’ll meet him at the morning market the day after tomorrow.”
After so long. “I’ll be there.” Nervously, I open the box holding the dried iqi husk Silvius gifted me and tuck the letter alongside the dozen others he’s sent over the months.
Akilah arrives with a steaming bowl of soup before I even have a chance to ask her to get some. I usher the exhausted boy into a chair; he takes the time to savour the soup and I check him over surreptitiously. He seems to have grown, in body and demeanour—Silvius takes good care of him.
I make sure he has enough energy for the journey to his ever-changing lodgings, spell him a little extra to speed him on his way, and promise to visit tomorrow.
“So,” Akilah murmurs over the rim of her teacup. “Silvius is coming back.”
It doesn’t feel right that my stomach hops, but it does. Wildly. The market, the day after tomorrow. I dart my gaze out to the neat rows of herbs in the vitaliary courtyard. Stop being so happy. He’ll be grieving. “Let’s think about something else.”
She checks no one else is in earshot and pulls a folded notice, ripped from the market noticeboard, from her pocket. “The examination begins soon. First, a test of theoretical complex magic, then presentation of an innovative spell, and on the last day, the locked-room mystery patient.” She bites her lip. “How’s the innovative one going?”
I duck inside and come back with a small box. I open it towards her. Inside sit two glittering blue balls on a bed of wadded cloth.
She clasps it, drawing it to her nose. “This is what you’ve been secretly working on for months?”
“Figuring out how to capsulise it was”—I recall the Mistress-Dog-Quin incident—“troublesome.”
She sets the box on the table, the sparkle blinding in the sun.
“I call it ‘Poison Halting Miracle’. It should stop even the fiercest poison in its tracks, and clashes with very few other treatments.”
“Is one of these for...”
I nod.
“Why make it portable?” she asks.
“Megaera’s going through her own grief. She’s angry.”
“Maybe she’d forgive you if you treated her father in person?”
“Maybe she wouldn’t allow it at all.”
Akilah looks unconvinced, but I haven’t told her about the times Megaera has passed me in the streets. How she walked away without acknowledging me, eyes dead cold. I’m just another person who has abandoned her. “I’ll get someone to deliver it to the manor.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Better not send someone from the Amuletos household. She may not accept it.”
“So... we hire someone?”
I shake my head. “It’s too valuable.” I shut the box and inspiration hits with its snap. “River. I can trust him with it.”
Akilah hums and takes another look at the glittering balls. “Do they have to be round?”
“Easier to swallow.”
She shuffles closer to me on the bench. “What about our bigger problem? How will you enter the examination without being recognised? Your daily disguises are fine for walking through town, but interacting, talking, looking eye-to-eye...”
We need something more substantial. It’s a problem that’s been on my mind for a while. “How about we take a page out of Maskios’s handbook?”
“Hide our faces?”
“With magic masks that we also won’t let anyone take off. We’ll be just as composed,” I say sourly, and then quickly smile. “But let’s not infuriate anyone.”
She sighs, shaking her head with a soft groaning laugh. “I really think you need to reflect on who infuriated whom. Anyway,” she hurries on, “I thought the ingredients were too expensive?”
“For putting it on and off every day. But as long as I maintain it for the duration of the exams...”
“No one will recognise us,” she says, laughing.
“Us?”
“Pretty, pretty please? Me too?”
I count my money.
* * *
The lie is simple: a six-week pilgrimage to pay homage to the violet oaks. Father allows it, what with the Amuletos house being unusually quiet this warm autumn—few patients, few duties, mostly idle days. A perfect opportunity.
He’s sceptical, but I’ve honed my excuses well. With the silver I’ve scrimped over the year, Akilah and I claim a cramped room near the Pavilion Library, just steps from the examination grounds. For two weeks, it will serve as our base.
Now, the moonlight spills over the pavilion rooftops as Akilah and I sit by the window in my favourite nook. She sorts through piles of books, mumbling about what may appear in the examinations, while I skim a text.
She pauses mid-grumble, her fingers clamping on a stack of pages. Her voice turns sharp with worry. “Won’t your father figure it out when you return empty handed?”
I glance up from the page, a grin tugging at my lips. “No. Remember the violet oak branch I got when I saved Prince Nicostratus in the woods?”
“That was a decade ago.”
“A dry leaf is a dry leaf.”
“Cheeky.”
“You love me.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” she drawls with twitching lips.
“We’ll need a backstory.” I bow. “Maskios from Hinsard. If anyone gets curious, everything he told me about himself is embedded in my brain.”
“Ah. Unforgettable.”
“Precisely.”
“Maybe use his actual name? Who would call their precious child Maskios? You made it up to poke fun and it sounds like it.”
I give her a dry look. “We don’t know his actual name.” I incline my head again. “Fine. Scholar Calix Solin of Hinsard.”
She just shakes her head.
“As for you,” I say, “something similar to your own name so I don’t trip up. Ilios?”
She blinks drily. “Your mind truly works in mysterious ways.”
Taffy’s white fur brushes against my leg as she slinks by, her tail curling possessively around my ankle. I scan the shelves. “Skriniaris Evander?”
He rounds into sight, a small smile playing at his lips. “You’ll need appropriate attire. I can help with that.”
We follow him into his private rooms and redress into his spare robes. A full magic mask is complex-medius magic; Evander coaches me to focus the spell on deepening our voices and altering key points of our appearance. I’m able to change our eyes to dark brown and sharpen our noses, but I can only leech our hair of colour. “Every time. Hair spells are the bane of my existence!”
Evander chuckles. “Never mind.” He points to my soldad. “I’ve magicked your benefactor’s appearance many a time.” He sends a spell through us that darkens our hair and shifts our jawlines. “I’d give you a beard, but you’re part Skeldar, aren’t you? It won’t take.”
He magics some real stubble for lucky Akilah though, and leads me to a mirror and drawers in the corner of the room. “You never know when a magic-free solution might be required. Here we go.”
With Evander’s help, I glue on a moustache and twist Akilah’s hair into a fashionable masculine braid. Her new outfit seals the magical disguise perfectly—though her giggling might give us away.
“How long will we stay like this?” she asks.
“Until I spell you back. Or someone counters my work.”
“Excellent,” I say. “No need to worry then, we can move about town.”
Evander picks up his cat. “Not just can. Should,” he says. “Mingling with—or better, befriending—your peers will minimise suspicion.”
“Right. Befriending.”
Akilah flattens her palms over her leggings and tries out her deeper pitch. “If we go to the market, can we get some steel? I feel that’s all I’m missing as a man.”
“What kind of magic do we have if we need crude weaponry?”
Evander pulls two sheathed daggers from under his mantle. “Many linea carry in case of magical impairment. If someone confronts you, pretend you’re drunk and draw steel. Most are honourable enough to match steel for steel, and most are shockingly bad at it.”
Akilah takes her dagger with terrifying glee. I point my sheathed one at her. “No.”
She clasps the blade to her belt and strokes her new chin-beard. “Maybe it’s time for me to put you in danger!”
I laugh and attach my own dagger to my hip, then pause. It’s not just our persons I need to keep safe. I take out the last glittering capsule of Poison Halting Miracle, set on navy silk in a palm-sized box. The other, entrusted to River, should already be in Megaera’s hands. I pass the box over to Skriniaris Evander. “I only made two of these—one for the examination, and the other for... to help a friend. I don’t want to leave it in our rooms or risk losing it gallivanting around town. Will you safeguard it?”
Skriniaris Evander tucks the box into a deep cloak pocket and picks Taffy up, cradling her against his chest. “Try the dance academy near the luminarium, your soldad will allow entry. There’s bound to be exam candidates renting rooms there.”
* * *
Akilah’s eyes widen as the central courtyard opens before us, a sea of bright cloaks washing up to a stage alive with dancers who move about in billows of silk to the delicate sounds of harps.
We’re ushered to a side table that gives us a better view of the patrons than the stage—exactly what we want—
I gasp and hunch over hurriedly, an elbow on the table, hand shielding my face from view.
Akilah tears her attention from the dancers. “What—”
Her question is cut short by the arrival of a jug of wine, set on the table with a flourish and two cups.
I pour quickly, heart racing. Usually, I avoid alcohol. It suppresses my magic, makes it go wayward—something I learned the hard way .
I shake off a growing flush and welcome the burn.
“One level up, directly opposite us.”
Her eyes blink rapidly. It’s a moment before she laughs. “You know, if it weren’t for him being so hot and cold... He’s extremely beautiful. Just look at him. Skin like marble—”
“Aki— Ilios ...” I shake my head. “Swivel out of view.”
“We’re masked. Unrecognisable.” She strokes her beard again, posing with one hand on the hilt of her dagger. “Not sure I’ll want to go back to skirts after this.”
I grimace and peer again, cautiously, over the room. Behind the ornate balustrade of the gallery above, Quin is engaged in conversation with a scarred aklo; the stern set of his jaw suggests something isn’t going his way.
His head shifts and I swing mine to the sconces on the wall beside us, the dancing shadows they cast.
Akilah pours more wine. I snap my gaze to her laughing one and she lifts her cup. “Bottoms up.”
“Not so fast.”
“This might be the only time I partake in the delights of the academy. Let me indulge?”
“We’re here with a purpose, remember?”
“And wine is liquid courage. A few cups and we’ll be fast friends with these popinjays.” She gestures to a middle table, where the man I hoped to meet someday sits admiring the dancers. Chiron’s son, the smart and succinct scholar of Thinking Hall. He holds himself with poise and grace. Gloves cover his palms and rise up under gold silks.
I lift my cup, finish my wine, and rise. I’m not one step towards him when a shriek pierces the air. A dancer rushes out from behind the drapes of a semi-private booth at the back of the room. She jerks a shaky finger toward a man stumbling out behind her, red-faced, eyes bulging, hands clawing at his throat.
I call magic to my palm but it stutters and dissolves under the stream of alcohol in my veins. I try again, weaving hurriedly around frozen, gaping patrons. The man’s eyes are desperate and afraid. He clutches my arm, fingers digging hard into my muscle. My magic fizzles again, but I have to do something—
I grab the hilt of my dagger and, hugging him close, ram it into his stomach. It’s a crude manoeuvre, definitely not my first choice. But it works. There’s a hard oof of air and the sludgy cough of dislodged food.
A collection of shocked gasps follows as I release the older man. The dancers on stage have gone still; only the harp tinkers on. Patrons stare, but not at us. Their wide eyes are glued on the silk-clad scholar standing three feet from us, face pale as he shakes a neat ball of magic off his palm so he can wipe gunk from his cheek.
He eyes me tightly, and I grimace in sympathy. I think he’ll remember this face. Fast friends, however...
Akilah, bowling her way towards me, belches drunkenly into his face.
I slink backwards into the shadows as Akilah busts into a laugh, horrifying the scholar further. The man I saved stutters his apologies. And a hand locks around my shoulder—I whirl to a scarred face and barely have time to gulp before I’m pulled upstairs and deposited in a curtained, candlelit booth.
The view over the balcony to the stage and floor below is impressive, but it’s another view that holds me hostage.
Quin’s thoughtful expression, his hands drumming on the chair arms... I shut my eyes. What twisted fate is this?
He speaks, words thrumming through the three-foot gap between us. “Quite a scene. Very improper.”
I keep my eyes lowered. Nothing to do with respect; just the fear that he’ll recognise me despite the mask. “Living through crude tactics is still better than dying with dignity.”
Laughter has me jerking my gaze to his. “Indeed.” Quin leans to the table between us and pours wine into two cups. “You misunderstand. It’s improper you were not immediately thanked and rewarded for your quick action.” He passes me a cup. “Drink.”
I take the cup, frowning into the crimson liquid. Surely Quin would have said something if he suspected me?
But then, why bring me here?
“I brought you here so I could thank you.”
I eye him warily. “On his behalf?”
“On my own. This place belongs to me.” Quin swirls the wine in his cup with infuriating nonchalance. “Imagine the scandal if someone died here.”
“You... own this?” I ask, unable to hide my disbelief.
Quin’s smirk sharpens, gaze cutting right through me. “Among other things. Does that surprise you? Impress you?”
I frown into my cup, hyperaware of the opulence surrounding us. “I’m just a travelling scholar. Everything about the capital impresses me.”
Another laugh, softer. “A travelling scholar?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me your name. Where you’re from.” His voice is smooth, too smooth. It makes my pulse quicken.
“Calix Solin,” I reply, carefully. “From the southern provinces, near Hinsard.”
Quin leans back in his chair, the faintest smirk playing on his lips. “Interesting. Calix Solin.”
I stiffen. The close observation in his gaze has my stomach tightening. “What about it?”
His pause is deliberately long, as if he wants me stirring with unease. “The Solins have a long history. Such a good name. One I hope will not be forgotten anytime soon, do you agree?”
My fingers curl in my lap. “It’s just a name. Whether it will continue to be remembered depends on the people carrying it. The better the person, the better the chances.”
Quin’s gaze flickers with amusement and something else entirely—something full of suppressed energy, something that has my breath hitching. “And what kind of person is Calix Solin?”
My mind flashes to Maskios, the moment his arrow pierced my sleeve, and I stir sharply.
“Please excuse me. My friend seems to be engaged in some kind of commotion with that peacock. I should—”
Quin calls to the scarred aklo behind the curtain, and footsteps recede. “He’ll bring your friend to join us.”
No! I smile with as much politeness as I can muster. “I surely can’t impose on your—”
“You’re my guest of honour.”
I dart my eyes around for another excuse. Nothing to offend. I wouldn’t want him tossing me out and affecting the judgement of others. I need to get back to friendship forging.
I raise my fingers to my forehead and feign a wince when Quin looks over at me. “Warm,” I say croakily. “Might be coming down with fever.”
“Oh dear,” he says. “Let me guess, you want to magic it away yourself, but you’ve indulged in too much wine?”
I cough in surprise. Has he caught on, or is this true sympathy? I hope for the best and nod. “I should hate you to catch anything.”
“And I should hate you walking to your accommodations in this cold.” His smile gleams. “Stay here. I’ll have a vitalian tend—”
I hold up a hand, silently begging the heavens for him to stop. “False alarm. Must’ve been the excitement.”
Quin’s lips twist and he raises his glass. “In that case, here’s to an evening getting to know you, Calix Solin. ”
A slinky nervous shiver steals down my middle.
Akilah comes flying through the curtains, catching herself on the table. She quickly takes in her surroundings. “Calix,” she says a little woodenly. “There you are!” Her eyes swing between Quin and me, and she continues, “That popinjay told me I was highly improper for a gentleman. Gosh, what would he say if—”
I elbow her and she oofs. “Right. Yes. This aklo told me you were invited up here for drinks.” For the first time all evening, she’s wary as she eyes Quin.
He lounges in his chair, watching us, the rim of his cup delicately balanced between two fingers. His brow lifts, and I introduce ‘Ilios’, who he acknowledges barely, his gaze rooting on me.
Akilah sends a look my way and I shake my head minutely.
Quin eyes our silent exchange and then smiles at ‘Ilios’. “Another drink?”
Another and she’ll be done for. I have her wrist under the table; already her pulse is sluggish with drunken fatigue.
Akilah sees wine as a silver lining of this predicament and greedily accepts the cup. If she does pass out... maybe I should join her. That at least would be a way out of this.
I hold my cup out for a refill. Quin eyes it calculatingly and smiles as he pours. A meagre slosh only. I stare at the disappointing volume.
“Tell me more about where you come from, Calix.”
The closer I keep to truth, the better. Maskios and I didn’t talk much about his background, now that I think about it. I bring up every detail he ever gave me about Hinsard, but I’m just firing the same frustratingly short answers that he gave me when I asked.
“I’m also familiar with Hinsard,” Quin says, and my heartrate spikes. I squeeze my cup and remind myself it doesn’t all have to be lies. I visited Hinsard as a child; I can use my own memories.
“The rivers, the woods,” I murmur. “There’s even violet oak.”
Quin’s stare lingers, and he sinks back. “There’s a particular festival there. You must know it.”
I swallow.
Quin clicks his fingers searchingly—“What’s the name of it? Remind me?”
There’s a dark twinkle in his eye, and my heart rams in my chest. “Hinsard is a wonder of the kingdom,” I hedge. “Just about everything is famous. Like, the lovelight festival.” The entire kingdom celebrates that—it’s not the particular festival he’s fishing for, but as long as it moves the conversation on. “It’s second only to our capital. Have you given your lovelight?”
“Why? Are you interested in receiving it?” Quin asks, his voice dropping just enough to send heat surging to my cheeks.
I choke on my wine, coughing violently.
He pours me a cup of water, and I think I’d rather choke. But Akilah’s head hits the cushion of her curled arm. I glance sideways. Her eyes flutter shut. The pulse in her throat beats strong, but her breaths are deepening. She’s out cold. I snap up the opportunity along with the cup.
I drink heartily and rise dizzily to my feet, gesturing towards my friend. “I should—”
“Sober yourself first.”
I feel the impulse to be stubborn, but in fact, the room is swaying a little too much.
I resettle reluctantly and pour another cup of water.
Quin runs a fingertip around the rim of his cup, his eyes never leaving me. “You’re here for the examinations. What draws you to vitalian magics?”
Muddle-headed, I give him my own answers, not whatever Calix Solin might say. “Great-grandfather... a royal vitalian. Worked in the palace for many years, before setting up his own practice.”
“You want to follow in his footsteps?”
I rub my temple. “He wrote many books and passed them to my grandfather. He said anyone who can help others has the responsibility to do so.”
“A man of principle.”
A fog of memories drags me into its murky depths, until—sharp, crystal clarity. “He was a good person. But it’s my grandfather who...” I look over at Akilah and instinctively reach out, checking her pulse again. Steady, strong.
I sag and stare into the flashing images flooding my mind. Grandfather’s gently stooped form in the woods, eyes as blue as the sky above, smiling at me.
“What is it?”
I hear him, but I’m still lost, wine buzzing alongside my memories.
“He took me into the woods. I was six or seven and I grumbled the whole way, but he told me we needed herbs to help people. I didn’t care and secretly threw half of the herbs out of his basket. When it got dark, we started walking back and heard a cry. Grandfather immediately followed the sound to a little girl, huddled in river reeds. She was wet and cold, dying from poison her family had put in her food to get rid of her.
“Grandfather searched his basket for the herbs I’d thrown away. He kept saying she would have a chance if he could find those.” I shut my eyes, throat swelling. “She didn’t make it. The weight of my mistake... hanging between us... I couldn’t bring myself to confess, but he knew. He never blamed me. Simply reminded me of our responsibility to help.
“I found... Ilios a year later. Again, by the river, malnourished and abandoned. I remembered the herbs and found them. It was the first time I ever tried healing. Later, Grandfather taught me better herbs, better ways...”
I refocus on Quin, stilled, hand frozen around his cup. “Do you think I atoned?” I laugh, shake my head. “I’m afraid I haven’t. Afraid every time I heal I’m only doing it for that . Isn’t that the most selfish thing you’ve heard? Healing, just to heal oneself.” I laugh again and my eyes sting.
I abandon my water for the jug of wine and tip it down my throat.
Quin pulls it away from me and wine spills over my shirt in a dark stain. I lurch forward to snatch it back, but his hand clamps over mine, steadying me with surprising strength. “You’ve had enough,” he says, sounding strangely quiet.
He shifts, too softly, and I glance up to find him watching me carefully. He’s calm but there’s some kind of concern there too. I shake my head. It must be the wine making me see that.
“Careful,” Quin murmurs, his hand combing off mine. And then there’s a flash of gold and the scent of pine forest in a summer rain. The air thickens around me, and a sharp knick hits my chest—
The surroundings swirl with colour, Quin’s figure multiplying before my eyes. His voice echoes faintly, as if from a great distance. “Get them to my rooms...”