Chapter 57
With Quin’s power and royal blood, the wards of the graveyard pose no issue. Neither does gaining access to an apothecary: it belongs to a supporter of his, who happens to be leaving today with a redcloak unit. We can use whatever we need, and there’s even a sleeping nook in the back room.
With a few candles flickering around stone walls, I meticulously sort through the vials and pots, and start a fire in the stove. I burn myself on the metal plate and wish I’d been wearing my gloves . . . My scalded fingers flutter to the knot at my cloak and I shake my head sharply. Focus.
Across the room, not helping, Quin paces. “You must be exhausted. You should have slept before coming here.”
I wave him out of my line of sight. “The poison is unique. I have a fair idea of its makeup now, but designing an effective antidote . . . it’ll take time. Time we don’t have.”
“I’ll get people onto it first thing,” he says behind me.
I startle and shoo him to a corner chair. “We’ll need all the help we can get. If I can design the base, it’ll make the remaining trial-and-erroring easier.”
I use the largest pots to make enough, and carefully measure all the necessary ingredients.
I pour a crimson liquid from one vial into the pot and mix it with clearwater, stormward, sunburst—dew and herbs that counter the earthbloom, thundergrass, silverbell known in the poison.
Though I know bush-snake venom is included, its counter venom might affect the properties of the other unknown herbs, so for the base, I exclude it.
“What is this for?” Quin asks, caning towards the glass vial at the far end of the table.
“Don’t touch that. It’s the poison I pulled from my handkerchief.” I walk him back to his seat and point a finger at him warningly. He swats it away, but remains in the chair.
I stare at the various stages of concoction and glance wistfully at my hands. This would have been easier with magic. I’d have internalised all the different elements that I could call to my palms; could play around with variations without worrying about spillage, and liquids coagulating.
I squeeze my hands. The refugees don’t have time for my inner crisis.
Quin shifts in my peripheral vision.
Crises.
I haul in a steadying breath, and without looking at him, jerk my finger toward the back nook. “Take the bed.”
“Let me know if you need anything.”
Tension falls off me the moment he leaves. I take a minute to palm the table and rest my weight against it as a shiver races down my middle.
I divvy up a portion of the base liquid into various vials, and spend the next hours sweating and yawning as I mix and remix possible additions that might act as the last missing element.
The room swells with the bitter scents of herbs and fungi, and every book in the apothecary has come out of its shelf.
Damn venom. I slump onto my stool and glare at the vials.
Other vitalians may have ideas.
Two candles burn out, leaving only one flickering near the window.
I contemplate finding more, but the sky outside has a blueish tinge.
Dawn is approaching. I spend a few more hours tinkering, and then another grinding herbs and soaking potential fungi, and packing them in boxes for Quin to deliver along with the base. Save as much time as possible.
I find paper and ink and scrawl out some hypotheses and other notes for the vitalians. I yawn again and the words before me blur.
Just for a minute, I’ll rest my head. I curl an arm on the table in a wedge of free space and lay my head down. Quin has people who can help. It’ll all be alright . . .
I wake, bolting upright . . . in a bed. My boots have been removed and on a small table beside me is a fresh, folded change of clothes, and glittering in . . . evening light? my silver clasp sits atop the pearlweed gloves.
I stare at them for a long while, then with a sharp rise and fall in my chest, I swivel out of the bed and dress. I clasp my cloak and pull the soft gloves over my scalded hands. “My soldad would’ve been handy.”
I check the apothecary, but the shop is shut for business and—to my relief—Quin is not inside. On the table is a message—he’s delivered my notes and the base antidote to the vitalians he trusts most in Hinsard; I should rest and recover; he’ll see me later and we can ‘talk then’.
With a nauseous twist in my stomach, I head out for food—
And duck right back around a building, groaning as I strip a poster with my face on it off a wall.
Only once the dead nannan’s green veins appear will the magistrate’s office take the poison seriously, and with the grass evidence from the first murders holding traces of that poison, they can make the connection.
When that happens, Nicostratus, who wasn’t in the city when the poison was ingested, will be proven innocent.
And it will become clear I couldn’t have been his accomplice.
My whereabouts during the days since doling out porridge will have to be explained, but no matter—by then the focus will be finding the true culprit and saving the refugees.
Until then . . . I raise my hood and grab a bun from a vendor packing away for the day, tossing payment as I pass. I bite into the tough dough and, at a stray thought, chew quickly.
Grandfather had notes on snakes and their medicinal properties, and many books remain in his Hinsard cabin, left unscathed by my father.
It couldn’t hurt to venture out and grab them.
Most likely the libraries and vitalians here will manage without, but just in case .
. . And, bonus, the woods make it easy to avoid seeing people . . . er, being seen.
I hurry, head bowed, through a web of city streets to the wooded outskirts. As I cross the tree line, the last stretches of sunlight surrender to a blueish night alive with the shiver of breezes. The glow of the full moon keeps my path along the river lit.
Each step churns up dirt and the fallen reds and golds of autumn, and the damp, earthy scent carries memories with it.
Veronica’s manor. The royal woods. Running from redcloaks.
Nicostratus.
Each step is a thunk of my heart and a twist of guilt in my chest.
The swing bridge has been repaired since then and I pause in the middle of it, watch the rush of water beneath. We’d ridden the wind to the tops of the trees, and I’d fallen, stopping and starting with interrupted gusts pillowing me.
I close my eyes and recall the fear, the fall, the flashes of rainbow. Prince Nicostratus had been fighting for control over a wyvern, barely trained himself and trying to keep the boy who’d latched onto his side alive.
Nicostratus. How many times I told Akilah our story. How many times I’ve whispered his name.
“Nicostratus.” It tastes different now.
I bow my head and, at a snapping of twigs in the near distance, snap it up again. I search for signs of movement amongst the trees, but all is quiet.
I shake my head and cross the bridge into thicker woods. I keep to the river, where the moon paves my way, and at a fork, I pause. If I cross the weaker stream and continue down the broader arm, I’ll pass blue-snake nests and arrive at the violet oak.
Next full moon. The tree from when we were boys. The moon is full now.
I sigh.
But I’d known, shortly after I’d called that to him as Quin stole me away, that he wouldn’t be able to come here. He’d lost all his memories of the tree. Forgotten the moment we leaned on one another. Would never recall the first moment I looked at him and liked.
I can hear what Quin would say. How straightforwardly he’d say it. That might be the first moment; doesn’t mean it’ll be your last.
I shake off the ghost of his voice, and the sudden tickle at my ear where he’d last nipped it. With a tight swallow, I drag myself away from the past, and towards my grandfather’s cabin.
The stream narrows and takes the moon’s illumination with it.
What’s left of the light casts eerie shadows into a web before me; stepping into it sends a crisp chill over my skin.
My breath becomes foggy wisps, and branches take on strange shapes in my imagination: all the sick I couldn’t help, clawing angrily towards me.
Their skeletal figures multiply and the fear of the dark I had as a child creeps back to me.
A sudden urge to turn back has me halting, but then I see the faces of refugees in the trees, an ominous foretelling of what might come if I don’t push on. I curl my damp palms and try not to worry at the sudden ceasing of the wind.
Each step is a crunch through silence; I hold my breath, shiver, and wish for someone to hide behind . . .
From a slit between craggy trees, I spy Grandfather’s cabin. I jog over uneven ground towards it, and halt abruptly before stepping onto the veranda. Was that a faint creaking? Footsteps? Why did it—I breathe in and my stomach turns—smell putrid?
A shadow passes the window, a flicker of light.
I grip the rail and haul all my courage. Something sticky meets my palm and I lift it up to the silvery light.
Blood.
My pulse hammers. There’s the instinct to run. This might mean danger.
There’s a stronger instinct.
Someone is hurt. Someone needs aid.
Heart pounding in my throat, I climb the steps and fumble for the cabin door.
Rusty hinges squeal as I push it open.
A gust of wind howls through the cracks in the walls, lifting the smell of rot and damp earth into the room. The wooden floor groans under my steps, and—movement.
I shoot my head up.
A single candle flickers in the corner of the room, casting shadows over a hunched figure . . . and a dead body.
I scream.
My scream is short and sharp, and then I’m storming across the room brandishing the only weapon I could find: an ostrich duster. It might be a shock of feathers at one end, but I wield it adamantly.