Chapter Seventeen
“How d-d-did you go?”
Kiva and Naari had barely set foot inside the infirmary before Tipp was upon them, bouncing up and down as he waited for an answer.
“I should have enough to get started,” Kiva told him, patting her bag. “How did you go?”
“I g-got a few,” the young boy answered, gesturing to the floor near the workbench where he’d used a mashup of items to construct a small circular pen.
“How many is a few?” Kiva asked, following him over to it.
“Five,” Tipp said. “But Grendel t-told me that she’s seen a heap nesting near the crematorium, so I should be able to g-get as many as you need.”
Nodding with approval, Kiva looked down at the five rats running around the pen, deciding not to comment on the makeshift obstacles Tipp had fashioned from scraps for them to use as playthings.
Instead, she said, “Once I have samples from other places, we’ll need a way to separate them.
I can’t have quarry-tested rats mixing with farm-tested rats, or any of the others.
If they get sick, I have to know what the origin was. ”
“Already on it,” Tipp replied. “Mot’s c-coming by later to help me divide the p-pen into sections.”
Kiva placed her bag carefully on the workbench. “Actually, I could use Mot helping me.”
“Jaren can help you,” Naari told Tipp. “He’s good with his hands.”
Kiva’s brows shot upward.
Naari rolled her eyes. “I heard him telling some of the tunnelers that he helped his brother build a fort to play in. He’s good with his hands at building things .”
The stern way she looked at Kiva might as well have been a screaming reiteration of what she’d said the other night—that she only ever behaved professionally toward the prisoners, including? Jaren.
Coughing quietly, Kiva said, “Sounds like a plan.” She then arranged her quarry samples on the bench, deciding her next steps. As she did so, the amulet under her tunic shifted, causing a momentary flash of panic. The Trial by Fire was in two days. Two days . If her family didn’t come soon ...
Kiva shoved the thought from her mind. There was nothing she could do but hope that they would.
And if they didn’t, she had to have faith in the princess’s word, in her magic.
She had to have faith in a Vallentis—one of the last people Kiva would ever choose to trust, and yet perhaps her only option if she wanted to remain alive.
Gritting her teeth, Kiva sought distraction in her work. If she didn’t find a way to treat the stomach illness, there was a high possibility that she herself would get sick. If that happened ... well, at least she wouldn’t have to worry about the Trials anymore. Nor would she need a rescue.
With that grim thought, she pushed all her concerns aside and focused on her task.
Hours went by as she prepared for and began dosing the rats, mixing small amounts of what she’d collected into her own food rations and dropping the offerings into the pen.
While Kiva didn’t like testing live animals, she knew these rats were living on borrowed time.
If Boots didn’t catch and eat them, then starved prisoners would. Either way, their fate was sealed.
“What now?” Naari asked when Kiva had made sure all of the rats had eaten a traceable amount.
“Now we wait.”
The guard looked as if she wanted to ask more, but at that moment, Jaren walked into the infirmary, stealing their attention.
Doing a double-take, Kiva demanded, “What happened to you?”
Jaren raised his hand to his face, as if doing so would hide the impressive bruise darkening his eye. Or the graze on his forehead. Or his split lip.
“Nothing,” Jaren answered. “How’d you go today?”
Naari stepped closer and jabbed a finger toward Jaren’s wounds. “Your healer asked you a question.”
“And I said it’s nothing.” Jaren strode by Tipp, playfully messing up the young boy’s hair as he passed, and then stopped when he was before Kiva. He looked down at the rats briefly before asking, “No problems getting your quarry samples?”
Kiva studied his injuries, deciding that if he was capable of risking his life by brushing off the guard, he must not be too badly hurt. But given their environment, he would still need treating. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “You let me clean you up, and I’ll answer your questions.”
Jaren cocked his head to the side. “Any questions?”
“Just those two.”
His teeth flashed in a quick smile. “That’s hardly an incentive. I have lots of questions. And you’re rarely in an answering mood.”
“I’m not in an answering mood now.”
When Jaren just continued looking steadily at her, Kiva weighed up how hard it would be to wrestle him into submission, and finally said, “Fine. But only if I get to ask questions, too.”
His smile was wider this time. “I’ve never withheld answers from you before. You’re terrible at negotiating.”
In response, Kiva simply pointed to the nearest metal bench. “Sit.”
Jaren chuckled but did as ordered. Naari, however, looked about a second away from shaking an explanation out of him.
The dark look on her face ... Kiva couldn’t help wondering if maybe Naari did have feelings for Jaren, but her own code of ethics wouldn’t allow her to act on them.
Or perhaps that same code of ethics meant she was still new enough at Zalindov to struggle with the brutality heaped on the prisoners, and seeing the evidence on Jaren’s face was enough to distress her.
If so, she would need to grow a tougher skin, fast, or she wouldn’t survive much longer at the prison.
Whatever the reason, Kiva knew an intervention was needed, so she quickly asked Tipp, “Can you go and tell Mot we won’t need him tonight, but I could still use his help tomorrow?
” When the young boy nodded eagerly, Kiva turned to Naari and added, “Would you mind going with him? It’s getting late, and I don’t want him wandering on his own. ”
It was a poor excuse, as Tipp often walked around the prison alone, regardless of the hour.
But given the attitudes of the guards lately and the growing dissent among the inmates in the wake of Tilda’s arrival— especially the rebels, who already had Tipp in their scopes—what Kiva had said was true, and Naari of all people knew that.
The guard nodded her agreement, if stiffly.
But that was likely also because she caught Kiva’s subtle wink, a signal that she would try and get Jaren to talk.
Even so, Naari’s features remained tight as she left the infirmary with Tipp in tow.
“And here I was thinking you were avoiding me.”
Kiva turned to meet Jaren’s mirthful eyes. “Pardon?”
“You. Me,” he said, waving a hand between them, lest there be any confusion. “We’re rarely alone. I figured that was your doing.”
Inwardly kicking herself for sending away her two buffers, Kiva said, “We’re not alone now,” and looked to where Tilda slept on the far side of the room.
Jaren followed her gaze. “Any improvement with her?”
Kiva knew he wasn’t asking because he cared about Tilda.
He’d made his feelings toward the Rebel Queen and her cause abundantly clear.
But he did care about Kiva, and he knew that, for whatever illogical-to-him reason, she cared about Tilda.
That it even meant anything to him—that she even meant anything to him—had her fighting to ignore the warmth spreading throughout her veins.
“Is that your first question?” Kiva asked, knowing it wasn’t but also wanting to avoid admitting how concerned she was about Tilda’s lack of improvement. She’d hoped time would help, but the ill woman had been under Kiva’s care for three and a half weeks now, with little to show for it.
Jaren studied her for a long moment, seeing everything she wished he couldn’t. As if knowing exactly what she needed him to say, he sent her a grin and replied, “Only if that’s yours.”
Kiva turned away so that he wouldn’t see her lips curling up at the edges, and busied herself by collecting her medical supplies. When she returned to stand in front of where he sat perched on the bench, she reached for his chin and said, “Want to tell me how this happened?”
“Uh-uh-uh,” he tutted. “I get to start.”
“It’s usually ladies first,” Kiva said, turning his face to the side.
“I took you as more of a liberal woman, the kind who’d scoff if I went all gentlemanly on you.”
Kiva snorted. “Nice try.”
“And besides,” Jaren continued jovially, “I’ve already asked my first questions.”
Since Kiva had agreed to those, she dunked her cloth in salted water and said, “This’ll sting,” before pressing it to Jaren’s cut lip.
While he was wincing away the pain, she told him about her day at the quarry, and how she’d actually enjoyed being in Naari’s company.
He didn’t show any reaction to that—nothing to indicate his own feelings toward the guard—so Kiva went on to share how they’d come back and she’d begun testing Tipp’s rats.
“How long will it take before they start to show symptoms?” Jaren asked, looking at the makeshift pen.
“ If they do,” Kiva corrected, since there was no guarantee the sickness originated in the quarry. “I’m not sure, but I’m hoping Mot can help me speed up the process tomorrow. He knows a lot more than me when it comes to experimental testing.”
“Because he’s older?”
Kiva shook her head, dunking her cloth again.
“It’s always the case with apothecaries and healers.
Apothecaries know so many different remedies, while healers know the bodies those remedies go into.
” Seeing the furrow in Jaren’s brow, she tried to explain better.
“If someone sick comes to a healer, we diagnose and then treat them with medicine, but rarely do we make it ourselves—a lot of what we use comes from an apothecary, or it’s an assortment of ingredients that we mix together based off an apothecary’s recipe.
Their role is to make medicine, ours is to decide which treatment is needed and administer it. ”