Chapter 13
Quin is calling my name, shaking my leg. “Cael.”
The taste of pecan and regret fades. Grey light funnels into our underwater bubble, and I blink in an approaching shadow above. Someone’s come to rescue us. “Your men really are loyal.”
“A little less surprise,” he rasps.
I sit up. A cloak, blanketed over me, rumples to my waist.
Quin is staring up at the underside of a boat.
I gather the cloak up and hand it back to him. He takes it with cold, trembling hands—his aura is fluctuating. The bubble around us is . . . thin.
And thinning.
I grab his wrist—his pulse is sluggish. This bubble—
He hisses with pain. “Get to the surface.”
“Can you—”
“Go,” Quin rasps, voice a weak shadow of its usual authority.
I hesitate, glancing at him as the bubble flickers. His knuckles are white against the ground, his breathing ragged.
His head lifts slightly, eyes struggling to sharpen. “I’ll drag you down. Get help, then get me.”
The dome trembles violently, and he cries out in pain and clutches his bad leg. His face is pallid—eyes drooping closed. He’s—
I grab hold of him around the waist. “When you’re collapsing,” I snap. “I’m the one who gets to be in charge.”
The bubble bursts. Water crashes into us, wrenching and twisting. I hold him tighter, lungs burning, as the current tries to tear him from me.
My foot strikes something solid. I push upward, muscles screaming, toward the light cutting through the deep water. Quin’s braid loosens, tangling with mine, the strands fluttering before my eyes. I kick harder and drive us on until the boat’s shadow sharpens.
Almost there.
Almost there—
We burst out of the water, and I suck in a deep, gasping breath.
“There!”
Hands reach towards us and haul us out of the water. Faces are a blur, but Akilah’s voice is a warm fire in my chest. I scramble over Quin, laid in the bottom of the boat, and punch his stomach—magic could’ve dealt with the water in his lungs, but I have none left.
He coughs, twisting.
I collapse onto my haunches, water spilling out of my boots, and take in our saviours.
Akilah, crouched beside me, throwing a dry blanket around my shivering back. Two familiar faces: Coralus and Azula. I can’t speak my relief, my gratitude. I expected Quin’s aklos, not . . .
“Akilah was beside herself when you weren’t on the last boat.”
Coralus adds gently, “This is the least we could do.”
“You should be resting,” I say.
“Plenty of time for that once you’re safe.”
Quin props himself into a sitting position and takes us all in through the curtain of his dripping hair. He gives an exhausted grunt and quickly reties his braids, glancing at me.
I curl my fingers under his chin, cheekily patronising. “If you’d like lessons on how to maintain loyalty . . .”
He bares his teeth and nips at my fingers, teeth grazing my skin. I jerk them away with a startled laugh.
Azula points across the lake. “That boat has been searching too.”
Quin pushes himself onto a seat and huffs as if this was expected. “My men.”
Assured of our safety, he stills in meditation, drawing energy from the early morning air.
When he reopens his eyes, I ask, “Are you returning to Frederica’s?”
“I’ll be heading back to the capital.”
This is where we’ll part, then. “See a vitalian as soon as you can.”
He hesitates. “Thank you.”
“Th-thank you, too.”
“Was that very hard to say?”
“Yes.”
We look at one another, the long day and longer night replaying between us. He raises a hand, acknowledging the scarred aklo at the helm of the approaching boat.
“Goodbye,” Quin says to me.
“Until next time, you mean.”
He raises a brow.
“I’ve surrendered to it.” I shuffle back to give him more space. “Something about us is fated.”
“You must’ve done something exceptionally good in your previous life.”
“Or exceptionally bad.”
Quin laughs, a rare, booming sound that lingers in the air. With a final, assessing look, he kicks off, his figure cutting through the dawn light as he soars into the sky.
The pier is teeming as we approach Frederica’s estate. Akilah and I say a harried goodbye to Azula and Coralus and scramble up the steep incline, using roots for leverage. On deflating breaths, we wend through throngs of dazed and bloodied people toward the house.
Akilah drags me inside. “You can’t help anyone more unless you rest first. Also . . . there’s a luminist here—headed that way.”
Someone who might expose me to my father, Akilah doesn’t say.
Too tired to think, I change into dry clothes and collapse onto the bed. I wake soon after to Akilah’s urgent cries. “You’re needed. Now.”
I stumble downstairs, my herbal bag slung over my shoulder. I find the courtyard abuzz with panic. A man cradles a bloodied child.
Two vitalians are racing in from the field tents—one familiar, a little rough around the edges given the circumstances but still elegantly dressed. Florentius Chiron. He summons a sparkling spell to his fingertips, but the father shields his girl. “She’s allergic,” he yells.
The vitalians rock on their heels. The older man next to Florentius grimaces. “Without magic, her chances aren’t good.”
I stare at those small limbs. The same size as my littlest niece. Magic is better—faster, more likely to succeed. Clean, accurate, instant.
But if it can’t be used?
Like with Akilah in the cells . . .
I pull to the front of the gathering crowd and kneel beside the father and his child. “Let me see.”
An outraged roar comes from the crowd and out steps my local luminist, ringing his stupid bell. “You’ll kill her.”
I clench my jaw and reach out to take the poor girl’s pulse. The father flinches.
“Please,” I murmur. “I only want to help her.”
“You’re par-linea!” the luminist cries.
The older man and Florentius turn. “Is that true?”
I wish to deny it.
Despite the drooping flutters in my chest, I raise my chin.
Their lips press together in wary apprehension.
Frederica raises her voice, parting the crowd with her presence. “If he can heal, he’s qualified.”
The older vitalian bows to her. “The poor girl is disadvantaged enough. No need to worsen her chances.”
The girl’s arm flops free from her father’s hold, stained with blood.
The older vitalian bends and the father lets him take her pulse. I observe her pallor, the shaking of her fingers, the seeping blood.
“Barbed pherlies,” I murmur.
Florentius recoils, lip curling in disdain. “Such primitive methods? Barbaric.”
I meet his gaze and look away again. Primitive, yes. And yet . . . “It’s better than death.”
A tense silence hangs between us before the older vitalian slowly exhales and gives a reluctant nod of acknowledgement.
I scramble to my feet and rush towards the forest at the edge of Frederica’s estate.
Roots snag at my boots, twigs pelt my face, and howling wolves have me shivering.
The cave is dark. Sharp rocks bite into my hands, leaving streaks of blood on the walls, as I dig into compressed earth for the pherlies.
A little life depends on me.
I can’t lose another one.
I run back through the estate, past River’s epitaph, to the courtyard. I’m mud-caked, and breathless.
Florentius wrinkles his nose.
The older vitalian sends an akla to crush the pherlies, and I wash my hands.
He leads me to the tent where they’ve moved the sick girl, carrying more herbs and clean bandages.
The little girl’s father is anxiously clutching his daughter’s small hand.
I kneel beside them. “Can I help your daughter live?”
He swallows hard, but finally nods.
I scrape mashed pherlies onto my fingers and force myself to focus on applying the paste to the deep wound on her chest.
Florentius steps forward as if to take over and halts, his mouth a grim line.
I continue smearing the root paste. But there’s a loud voice in my head. This feels clumsy. Crude.
The sound of Quin’s voice in my mind cuts through the thoughts, sharp and goading. Trembling already?
I tighten my jaw at the imagined challenge and pour myself into rising to it. This girl will live.
And soon she stirs with a weak cry for her father. Almost a success—her breaths, although growing stronger, are mixed with whines of pain.
Her father gasps, gripping her hand, and my chest seizes. It’s working.
But she suffers.
Such unsophisticated methods really are a last resort.
I hand the father a bowl of the pherlies paste, instructing him to administer it daily for a week. “She’ll wake properly soon.”
The murmurs among the gathered crowd are unmistakable—a par-linea, using rudimentary remedies. That girl might be lucky I’m here, but no other patient will have me.
I force a smile and ignore the whispers. In the next tent, Akilah is working hard; she hands me a cup of bitter tea and points to a chest of herbs. “I’ve made all your usuals. If you need anything more specific, it’s in there.”
Movement catches my eye, and I glance over to a nearby tree. Nicostratus is lounging against it, his lips curling into a faint, approving smile. My stomach hops—when did he arrive? Why? What is that look in his eye?
Questions for later. His eyes follow my movement, as though he’s used to it after watching me for a while. I shake off the little shivers and force my focus back to the task at hand.
After twenty minutes of crafting pain-relief spells, I have a basket full of neatly encapsulated remedies.
I carry it to the next tent and address the older vitalian. “The queue is long. These can offer temporary relief.”
He examines the capsules with a flicker of surprise but quickly masks it. Florentius, ever pristine, scrutinises the basket with a scowl.
Akilah bristles beside me, but I hold her back. “May I distribute these?”
The older vitalian grunts, granting me permission.
I walk the line of patients, met with suspicion and avoidance. When I reach a middle-aged woman wracked with pain, I offer a dark blue capsule. She shakes her head, her husband’s shoulders sagging in despair.
“These were inspected. They’re safe,” I insist, but they still refuse, until—