Chapter 58 #2
His words drop through me, quick and sharp, and I’m left trembling in their wake. I lurch off the chair, move to his bed, and fight shaky hands as I peel open the blankets.
Nicostratus glares into the middle distance. “He makes me feel lots of things too.”
“Let’s talk when you’re not drunk.”
“I’d rather”—he stands and sways, and I lunge to catch him around the waist and steady him—“be drunk for this conversation.” He drops his head against mine. “Will you ever come back for me?”
His breathing shifts. I stir him and his head rolls forward. “Nicostratus? Nicostratus?”
He snores lightly. I steer him to the bed and buckle as I bend him into it. His shoes, I remove, but the rest . . . It’s too much. Too intimate.
I pull the covers to his chin and his arm dangles out the side. I take it and set it on the mattress. My fingers linger over his knuckles and I stare down at his beautiful face. My whisper comes out choked. “I’m sorry.”
I’m turning to leave when his fingers hook around one of mine. I stare across the room.
“Please don’t . . .”
I won’t go. I’ll stay and make sure he’s alright. Remind him, when he wakes, how he can help . . .
He lets go of my finger. “Please don’t come between me and my brother.”
I slump onto the armchair and watch him sleep. He was drunk; maybe most of this conversation will be forgotten when he wakes. I drop my head back and stare at the flickering candlelight against the ceiling.
I’m asleep when the candles burn out, and when I stir, it’s to a blueish dawn stretching through gridded windows. I rub my eyes, and the night before rushes back to me. I lurch to my feet. Nicostratus is sitting on the edge of his bed, hands clasped between his knees.
He looks over at me, and I look back.
“Nicostratus—”
“I remember everything,” he murmurs. “I meant everything.”
Please don’t come between me and my brother.
“I can’t go yet. There are so many poisoned, I—”
“I’ll help tomorrow at the drakopagon. I beg you, say your goodbyes. Go.”
His expression is heartbroken, pleading.
“This . . . envy. It’ll be the ruin of us. Please. I’ll take care of him. I’ll see he finds happiness.” His throat juts on a swallow. “It doesn’t have to be you.”
My stomach sinks, and my eyes sting. It takes all my effort to hold my head up. “Will you also find happiness?”
“If I promise to, will you go?”
I briefly shut my eyes. “I have to help the refugees.”
“It’s not as if you have magic anymore—”
I cry out, “I can help!”
He moves forward, reaching out a consoling hand, and drops it again. “When the poisoned are healthy, then . . .”
My throat is swollen. It hurts.
I take the golden feather from my belt and place it on the table beside us. Nicostratus stares at it, and I startle him by wrapping my arms around his waist and pressing my forehead against his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Nicostratus.”
He stiffens.
I sigh into his garments. “Let me take away our good memories?”
A watery drop lands on the top of my head. When I step back, he hurriedly turns his face to the wall.
I make my way to the door slowly, wishing he’d stop me, tell me with time, it’ll all be alright.
He says nothing.
I traipse back through the city, hood shadowing my face, stomach roiling. Procrastinating, I take a detour through narrow, near-empty lanes, only to bang into Petros tucking a package of herbs under his arm.
He acknowledges me politely.
“Hangover remedy?” I murmur.
He shifts the package higher up and nods. “Better hurry back.”
He and his long legs stride off to help the prince, and I stare glumly after him.
I’m so busy staring after him, I almost don’t see her. Only a false step over cobblestone has me jerkily looking up in the other direction.
Eparchess Juliana and her mysterious silver mask glide across a dingy alley into one of the smaller apothecaries. I’d been there before, in my search for a cure. It doesn’t sell the usual herbs but rarer ones, ones that have traversed borders.
I follow and feign interest in some siren’s tear while the eparchess picks up a small box of seeds and takes it to the counter.
The vitalian recognises her at once and strikes up friendly conversation. “Here again so soon. You’re quickly becoming my favourite customer.”
Eparchess Juliana laughs, but the grind of her foot suggests she’s in a hurry.
The vitalian pours something into a pocket-sized pouch, and I try to get a better look. Difficult from this position . . .
“I heard you’ll be playing against the redcloaks tomorrow. I’ll put my money on you, of course.”
Eparchess Juliana takes the pouch with a polite, “See you there,” and strides out.
I drop the very pricey roots I’ve been ‘inspecting’, and start to follow—
“Anything I can help you with, there?” His smile is kind. I lift one of the roots and take it to the counter, bypassing the emptied box on my way . . . “What kinds of rare items do you stock?”
“Oh, some beauties.” The vitalian points to a dozen boxes, running off their impressive names and uses.
“The woman before me. She took a whole box of something. Was it particularly rare? Have I missed out?”
He laughs. “Semi-precious. Echowisp.”
My stomach twists.
Echowisp.
I hurriedly pay an outrageous sum for a root I don’t need and race out of the store, hopeful I might catch her to follow.
Nowhere in sight.
I sigh and slouch my way back to Vitalian Dimos and—I swallow—Quin. Each step has me feeling queasy and queasier, and I have to jostle myself on the stairs outside. Keep it together. Focus on the antidote.
Don’t let Quin know what his brother has asked.
I practice smiling a few times while bouncing on the balls of my feet, and when I think my act will pass, let myself inside.
I find them conversing over simmering potions. Dimos has consumed some of the elixir and is stacking a spell in his palm, a bright, swirling, misty magic. My heart aches to feel it.
“At first the victims will experience tummy aches,” Vitalian Dimos says.
“That resolves itself after a day, leaving most to assume they’ve eaten bad food.
But the poison is still there. It’s just biding its time until the gelidroot bubble thins.
That’s when the poison leaks out, surges through the blood, and kills. ”
“Caelus calculated four days for the soldiers.”
“Correct. How long it takes to work depends on the dosage of gelidroot in the poison.”
“Are you suggesting—” Quin begins.
I clear my throat, coming into the room. “The victims’ deaths can be timed.”
“Why give the redcloaks four days?”
“Presumably the killer needed them to finish a task first? Or have them die at a time that gives an airtight alibi?”
Or have them die after Prince Nicostratus arrived in town.
Quin’s lips are set in a grim line. “How long do the refugees have?”
I’m not sure what the reason is for timing the refugee’s poison, but I have a bad feeling about it. “The nannan should have started showing green veins. Get the coroner to investigate, announce the poison officially, then take all combined knowledge on it and the antidote to Thinking Hall.”
“Thinking Hall?” Vitalian Dimos muses.
“We’ve a ticking clock. We need all minds collaborating on this.” I gesture to the spell in his hands. “You’ve stacked most of the spell, but there’s still a key layer missing.”
“I have some theories . . .”
“Discuss it with others. Decide on the best choice. Do it now.”
“I can’t enter the hall. I’m wanted.”
So am I. But that seems unimportant in the scheme of things. Even if I get locked away, I have a moral responsibility to help the poisoned. In whatever way I can. Collective knowledge will be the fastest way.
I glance at Quin, unable to stop my lips from twitching.
His brow arches.
“Masks.” I tap his chest, right above where his heart should be. “Yours is practically welded on.”
His gaze locks onto mine in a way that has me shivering. “And what about yours?”
His words linger, cutting deeper than I want to admit. But there’s no time to dwell on that, not with lives on the line.
“Then let’s see how well we wear them,” I choke out, forcing my focus back to the task at hand. “We need to move.”