Chapter 27 #3
“It’s a stop on my way.” He steps into a small boat and reaches out to haul me in with him. Blocked. I reach through the shield and grab hold of him. He smiles and helps me aboard.
I sit with a relieved sigh and roll my shoulders.
At Nicostratus’s questioning look, I smile. “Tired. I performed a dozen medius spells on the queen’s aklas today and was up most of last night practicing transplantation on my toenails.”
Nicostratus looks curiously towards my booted feet.
“They’ll grow back.”
He smirks and takes up the oars; we lurch forward with his powerful stroke. “I have a question for you, Amuletos.”
“Go on.”
“All that tea you drink every day . . .”
I smirk. “You want to know how often I have to pee?”
His eyes dance, and I can’t help but laugh.
“The same as a typical person. Vitalian spells often need substantial amounts of water, and what’s not absorbed through the spell comes off in the exertion of delivery.” I raise my brows. “Any other questions?”
“Yes, one more. May I kiss you again?”
My stomach lurches giddily; I hold my breath, then let it out unevenly. He leans forward, but the shield expands to stop him. I’d have to go to him.
My stomach bubbles. I can’t move.
Our boat bumps into the bank at the scholarly precinct, and it breaks us further apart. Nicostratus smiles. “Next time.”
I watch him go, then head to the apothecary library.
An hour later, the glow fades from my skin and I laugh at a stray thought. Quin said the shield would help me keep my distance. I’d thought that meant from him, but . . .
“What are you thinking?” Mikros sinks into the space just beyond the book I’m gazing past.
I jolt, and . . . rivet my eyes on the pages before me. “This. It’s interesting.”
“Study away, study away,” Mikros says, and perches himself on my desk. “But it’d help to do this.” He flips my book right way up.
I blink and focus on his amused expression. My cheeks flush and I hurriedly flip through some pages. “My . . . first transplantation spell didn’t work out.”
Mikros leans casually against the desk with a teasing grin. “You’d be a genius if it did!”
From behind a bookshelf, Makarios’s head appears, his scowl playful. “It took him a hundred days. Me, much longer.”
Mikros smirks. “To your everlasting chagrin. Florentius might only need a couple of months, though.” He pauses, letting that fact sink in. “His father is the great Chiron, after all.”
Makarios mutters grumpily before vanishing behind the shelves with a sigh.
“Even Chiron,” Mikros says, grinning after his friend, “needed four weeks of daily practice before he could perform a transplant.”
I nod and vaguely hear myself hum an answer. “I’ll keep practicing.”
“Grey spotted frogs,” Mikros says. “They carry a lot of disease, so you can practice transplantations and cleanse them of transmittable pathogens at the same time.”
Makarios lumbers towards us with a stack of books up to his chin. “We can give you a pass for collecting some.”
Mikros nods. “There’re loads up the canal, around— Ah . . . around the other island.”
I lurch to my feet. “What?”
“We can get you a pass.”
“If you’re quick,” Mikros adds, “you can catch up to Florentius.”
I eye them, pulse racing.
Makarios drops his books onto my desk and draws a wooden pass from his belt. “He requested one too.”
“When?”
“Maybe fifteen minutes ago?”
I grab the pass and race through the gardens to the canal. Florentius is already making his way there . . . What if he’s caught sneaking onto the island? What if he’s unable to get there, distraught, bobbing in a rowboat alone?
I’ll catch up, follow quietly. Be there if he needs support.
See why Quin fears us going near the island.
With a lantern pilfered from the apothecary, I take a wobbly step into a damp boat.
Redcloaks stop me at a lit checkpoint below the grand duke’s palace and cold eyes look me up and down, inspecting not only the narrow wooden pass but my boat, person, and belongings.
Finally, the pass is handed back with a sharp nod and I row through the dark depths beneath the palace, out into the mist shrouding the north side of the royal city.
Moist air clings to my face and seeps quickly through the layers of my clothes. I retie my cloak, closer around me, and lift the lantern. I see only the dark, still water and moonlit mist a few feet in front of me.
Florentius, where are you?
A soft splash. An oar breaking the surface of the water? Is he close? Ahead? Dark, imposing stone walls and a crumbling cliff face rise from the mist as I head in the direction of the sound.
The other island. The one no one speaks of. Or leaves.
It looks like it might be as big as King’s Island, but it’s colder here. Wind whistles through broken windows. It’s dark, but for the hazy glow of light in one of the towers.
Another splash.
I lift the lantern to the water ahead, straining my eyes for a glimpse of the boat. “Florentius?” I call out softly.
A shadow shifts in the mist.
“Florentius?”
Low murmurs drift, barely louder than the soft lap of water against the boat. I freeze, lantern swinging in my grip as I search for the source, straining to catch the words. The voices are muffled, harsh—a conversation through clenched teeth. One not meant for others.
“But they’re allies. Why?”
“He’s no longer useful. The dead don’t talk.”
“Will we become loose ends too?”
“Shut your mouth and do your job.”
They draw closer; I can see their hulking forms through the gloom. My gut tightens. Quietly, I dip my oars into the canal and move towards the thicker mist. Better not be seen; better they not know they’ve been heard. My boat glides silently through the water, closer to the bank, and—
Bumps into another boat.
I let out a startled cry and wind gushes around me. In a blur of movement, a figure drops onto the seat beside me and crushes my back to their chest, an urgent palm pressed over my mouth.