Chapter 8
fter our conversation, I resolve to put Finn out of my mind.
What Daisy shared about his reputation has confirmed my worst suspicions. He’s not here because he doesn’t care. The most likely explanation for Finn’s absence is that he’s off on a lark, surrounded by beautiful women with fascinating stories about their adventurous lives.
You didn’t come here for romance, I remind myself firmly. You’re here to do a job.
Everything else is just noise.
The one rumination I allow myself is about Mother.
It’s been nearly two weeks since I left the Ironwoods, and she still hasn’t come for me or sent word.
I check the ravenry daily for news, but there’s nothing.
I wonder if she’s made it home and found my note yet.
Perhaps she’s still trying to sort out the plague.
Apprehension gnaws, but I temper it by leaning in to my work.
I’m determined to complete the queen’s mandate as quickly as possible.
With a clean storehouse, focusing on the cure becomes easier as I progress through transcribing Ragglestaff’s chicken scratches. Like compiling a puzzle, I see his vision more clearly with each small piece I assemble. Slowly, it starts clicking together.
He called his cure the omnidraught. I assume that the name was chosen to reference the plague’s varied symptoms. In one book, I find page after page with observations on subjects in quarantine.
Their symptoms ranged wildly, with no discernible pattern in age or gender.
It seems that unlike me, he was afforded direct access to patients, and I wonder, with an ache in my chest, if that was the reason he died.
Gradually, I uncover his theory. I’m elated when I realize that what he was trying to create is not all that fundamentally different from all’s-cure—the most common potion in my arsenal.
The ingredients are slightly different, but the building blocks are the same.
All easy in theory. I can’t wait to share the good news with the queen.
I’m in high spirits when I finish my work and head to meet Daisy for a late lunch.
We’ve fallen into a pattern of sharing our meals, and I look forward to our conversations, which often contain colorful reports of the court gossip.
Usually, the hospital is clear at this time of day.
But I notice an atypical commotion as I pass through the staging area.
Nurses and Healers are clustered around the front doors, where several soldiers are being dragged in on stretchers.
I spot uniformed VIA, and other soldiers in black uniforms I’ve never seen…
And then a voice sounds that I’d recognize anywhere.
“Where is she?” it booms.
I spin around just in time to see him hurtling toward me.
Finn.
Gods help me, my knees almost buckle at the sight of him.
He’s sunburned and travel-worn and smells like a horse, but otherwise Finn is unchanged: tall, impossibly handsome, and real.
He wears a black uniform. All my careful determination to cut him out of my heart thaws in an instant.
“Look at you!” Finn closes the distance and sweeps me into a crushing embrace that has every head in the hospital snapping our way.
“You’re—going—to—break—my—ribs,” I wheeze, and he chuckles as he lowers me.
Whispers skitter around us, and I’m half aware of how improper we look. But it’s hard to care when he’s finally here, in front of me. After the last several weeks, he feels like the first solid thing I can hold on to.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to meet you,” he says, his hands slipping into mine. “Roburn said you got here all right.…Have you been settling in? I heard they put you up in the East Tower?”
I feel every eye in the room on us as he gazes down at me, beaming. “Yes. The room is great.”
The room is great? Really?
“And Cyg’s got you at it already?”
“Naturally.”
The cool voice sounds from behind him. Finn rounds to reveal Cygnus stalking toward us, looking predictably unamused.
“I hear you get the credit for finding her,” the Head Healer drawls. “I have to commend you; it’s hard to believe someone so beautiful could be a capable apothecary.” The words are almost a compliment. But I glare back, hearing the insinuation.
Finn, however, seems unbothered. “She’s really something, isn’t she?” He beams, tossing an arm around the Head Healer. “Lyria, Cygy and I go way back. Trust me, you are in capable hands.”
I have feelings about the nickname Cygy, but I hope they don’t show on my face. “Is that right?”
“You won’t find a better Healer in the Midlands,” Finn boasts. “He’s a genius—won every prize under the sun for it when we were in Belshire.”
Cygnus’s smile is tight. “It’s my pleasure to serve.”
He’s a decent liar. Finn might think him indulgent and long-suffering, but my Talent tells a different story. I perceive the slight change in his scent, the subtle flex of his muscles—telltale signals of stress. Cygnus does not like Finn.
And I’m already certain he loathes me.
Still maintaining that placid mask, the Head Healer slides out of Finn’s grip. “If you’ll excuse me, I have surgery scheduled for this afternoon.” He straightens his coat. “We’re taking Jeredsen’s leg.”
All the light leaves Finn’s face.
“What about the others?” he asks roughly.
“Recovering fine,” says Cygnus.
“That’s good, at least.”
They exchange more words I don’t have context for. Then, after tossing me one more disdainful glance, Cygnus mumbles about being needed elsewhere and drifts away.
When Finn swivels back toward me, his eyes are glistening. “Those are my men,” he explains in a low voice. “We got ambushed on a mission. I’ve been attending to their families.”
Cold washes down my spine. I feel terrible for every assumption I’ve made about him being off with other women. All this time, I thought he’d been cavorting, but he really has been away on important business—just as his letter said. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
He reaches out and seizes my hands. “We shouldn’t talk about it now. But I need to hear everything I’ve missed. You should join us at dinner tonight.”
“Tonight?” My stomach lurches.
“Yes. And I’ll explain more.”
“Where?”
“In the Great Hall. We’re hosting a few guests. You should join us and meet my brothers.” He gives me one of those devilish grins. “And afterward, we can talk more in private.”
Logic and emotion battle within me. I should not get any closer to the royals than absolutely necessary. Proximity invites scrutiny. But the desire to be closer to Finn, physically and emotionally, is overwhelming.
“Tonight,” I agree, breathless.
Finn gives me one more squeeze before gliding back to his soldiers. I feel weightless as I hurry off to tell Daisy. When I pass the Head Healer’s office, I think I catch Cygnus shaking his head.
But I must have imagined it.
I’m grateful when Daisy offers to help me get ready.
She picks out a sleek seafoam-green gown with gold trim.
The sleeves are gauzy and impractical, hanging nearly to the floor.
I’ve never shown so much collar-bone, but she insists the ensemble is faaabulous.
When she reaches for my hair, I’m hesitant to take off my kerchief.
To my relief, the concealment charm holds, and Daisy chatters on as usual while arranging my hair in an updo.
When she’s done, she drags me to a mirror to admire her work.
Though I am exposed with my ears on display, I must admit, I feel beautiful, and I might look it, too.
I’m running late by the time I hurry into the Great Hall and find the party well underway. My pulse thrums as I pause at the threshold, taking it in.
A long table splits the chamber, with fires dancing in the hearths.
Dozens of courtiers mill about, sipping sparkling wine or engaged in conversation.
I see a mixture of ages and skin tones and shapes, some round and some slim, each more beautifully dressed than the next.
I’m flooded with gratitude toward Daisy, as my ensemble feels neither too plain nor ostentatious.
With luck, I can blend into the background.
I search the hall for one familiar face and come up empty.
“Lyria, isn’t it?”
“Yes?” I spin at the interruption and come face-to-face with the most glamorous woman I’ve ever seen. She might be sixteen or thirty-six; between the makeup and jewels and elaborate coiffure, I can’t be sure. Her dress is pale blue with a fur trim that perfectly sets off her silvery hair.
“I’m Odessa Erik,” she purrs, “princess of Sulnik.” The way her eyes drag up my figure makes me feel like she can see through my clothes.
I squirm. “How did you know my name?”
“I make it a point to know what’s happening at court,” she says, flashing a tight-lipped smile.
“Your appointment caused quite the stir. In Sulnik, our Healers are women of the cloth. It’s not considered proper for a young lady to work in a hospital.
I do admire Verdinae and its liberating customs. So very modern. ”
Oh, so it’s like that.
“Feel free to stop by the East Wing sometime.” I return her smirk. “I’d be happy to help with whatever ails you.”
Her smile calcifies, and my Talent flares with the impulse to smack the look right off her beautiful face. Before I have the chance, we’re interrupted by what sounds like a tinkling bell. I look across the room and watch Queen Davina rap her fork against her flute of sparkling wine.
“If you’ll all take your seats,” she says, “I’d like to get dinner started.”
I pick a spot toward the end of the banquet table, as far from Odessa as possible.
Another drop-dead-gorgeous woman, this one brunette, takes the one opposite.
It doesn’t escape me that the chairs around us remain unfilled.
I still haven’t found Finn among the crowd, and when the party settles, it becomes evident that he’s absent.
The possibility creeps over me: What if he’s abandoned me again?