Chapter 8
Asoft knock draws me down from cliffs and cloud. I unclench my hand from my sleeve and open the door.
River—once a starveling vespertine—is now healthy and fit, a trusted messenger between Silvius and me. But today, his usual enthusiasm is muted by quiet sorrow. “What’s wrong?”
He holds out a sealed letter. I break the seal 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 chambers 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—”