Chapter 25
t takes Sebastian two full days to stabilize.
Finn is summoned by the queen around dusk on the second day.
After some back-and-forth with the insistent guards, he obeys, but not before swearing to find me after attending to his duties.
There’s no chance for us to speak privately about what’s transpired.
Maybe that’s fortunate. I don’t know how I’d start to explain.
By the end of it, I’m a husk of myself. When I try to rise, my legs wobble traitorously beneath me.
The captain, who has remained a watchful presence since Finn left, surges forward to help. “Let me escort you to your room,” Roburn offers.
“I’m fine,” I mumble, forcing myself to take a few steps. “I just need to sleep.”
“I insist,” he says.
I catch myself on the doorframe, debating. I feel dangerously close to collapsing. “Fine.”
Roburn lends me his arm. I use the dregs of my willpower to stay upright as he leads me into the hall.
It’s quickly clear that trying to get back myself would have been a bad idea. I’m stumbling as the captain leads me toward my room, sheepishly grateful as he supports most of my weight.
I can’t process the wreckage that we pass. There’s glass and debris everywhere. Ash covers everything. People mill about, mostly servants and commoners, scrubbing blood and carrying bodies. Cleaning up.
It can’t have been only days ago that we were dancing. I’ve aged a decade since then.
Roburn leaves me after promising to send servants with water and food. I think I thank him for the kindness, but I can’t be sure. My head feels stuffed with cotton.
I should run. I should get out of the palace as soon as possible. Finn saw my Talent. He might not have reacted during a moment of crisis, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t preparing a cell for me now.
But there’s no time for worries before I collapse into a dreamless sleep.
When I wake, the light beyond my window is flat and gray.
I lie in silence for a long time. I know what I’ve done, and yet I can’t quite comprehend it.
I don’t regret saving Sebastian. I’m just scared.
I let the terror burn through me, let it sear and kill everything.
I imagine all the ways they could punish me, all the things they could do, bracing for the worst. My ears strain for the clatter of footsteps.
At any moment, the Frumentari should be coming to arrest me.
But no one comes.
What are they waiting for?
There’s one thing I know for sure: I need to get the hell out of this castle.
Finn didn’t seem disgusted by my Talent. But that doesn’t mean I’m safe. I am the being he was bred to hate and kill, the monster his kingdom has sworn to hunt.
Only two considerations stop me from walking straight out the palace gates this very moment.
The first is Cygnus. After all we endured together while trying to get through the gates, it doesn’t feel right to abandon him and our mission without saying goodbye.
Surely he’ll understand why I can’t stay.
The second consideration is the omnidraught.
As much as I’d like to run to the Ironwoods without a backward glance, duty demands that I at least pass off the work I’ve done.
Am I in mortal danger every moment I stay in this castle?
Yes. Almost certainly. But how many innocents would die if I just vanished to save my own skin?
Eventually, I get up and dress. I find Anna in the hospital, which is pandemonium in the wake of the attack.
“Hi. Glad you’re up,” she says. “We’ve got laundry coming out our asses if you feel up to it.”
I nod dizzily, looking out over the wreckage.
“Do you know exactly what happened?” I ask, my throat raw.
“We’re still trying to figure that out.” She sounds very tired. “The attackers were a mix of Ursandorn soldiers and Elves. No one knows how they got in the city. At this point, our best guess is that they flew over the mountains somehow.”
My gut twists. I picture dragons, Verdin’s weapon of choice. The legends say they died after the fyres. I wonder, with rising dread, if the Elves found out some way to resurrect the dragons. Are we resorting to all the empire’s most terrible weapons? Is nothing off-limits?
But I don’t have time to think about the Elves’ war tactics. “Where is Cygnus?”
“He’s with the queen. She moved him into the North Tower to attend to Sebastian.”
Anna hurries back to her work, and I stay rooted in place. Frowning.
I can’t risk meeting Cygnus in front of Queen Davina. But I don’t think anyone else in this hospital would have a prayer of finishing what Ragglestaff and I started. I probably should have just trusted him from the beginning. I curse all the stupid, egotistical reasons I didn’t.
I head to the storehouse alone, intending to write Cygnus a letter with instructions.
But when I close the door behind me and look out at my work, the finely ground ingredients, the alchemized liquids dripping through the gleaming instruments—a rush of willfulness overcomes me.
I’ll try one more time. One. If it works, it’s meant to be.
If it’s not…I’ll walk away with my conscience clean.
I pull out my mortar and pestle to grind the last of the cliffcrow feathers I gathered.
Then I snatch up a notebook of Ragglestaff’s and lay it open before me.
The main problem is the catalyst. I’ve already tried Ironwood sap, hydra venom, dead nettle nectar, selkie tears: all the activators I’ve trained with. I’m out of ideas.
I can almost hear Mother’s voice. Being a Healer means that you give until you have nothing left. Then you give more.
Please, I pray to Elowyn—to any Gods who might be listening. I’ve done all I can. Give me something.
I flip through the pages, skimming nonsense I’ve already reviewed countless times. I turn past endless passages about pain, illegible charts mapping bloodlines, whole pages of the same phrases scrawled over and over: GIVEN NOT BORN GIVEN NOT BORN GIVEN NOT BORN…
IT IS NOW IT IS NOW IT IS NOW IT IS NOW…
THE FOUR WILL COME THE FOUR WILL COME THE FOUR WILL COME…
I turn the pages faster and faster, growing more desperate and furious. Finally, I just snatch up the whole notebook and hurl it at the wall. A page slices my finger open, and I yank my hand back, sucking the blood off my finger with a scowl.
Stupid, Gods-damn useless book.
Stupid, Gods-damn useless Talent.
I pound the cliffcrow feathers ferociously, slamming the pestle as if doing so with enough force will turn back the clock.
For every person I have tried to help, I’ve hurt even more.
Maybe I saved Sebastian’s life, but how many will die because I just can’t stay here and finish the job I was tasked with?
I give up on praying and start cursing everything instead.
Curse the Gods. Curse the Verdish. Curse Finn and his cowardice.
Curse the infernal bloodborne magic that never brings me anything except pain. So much pain.
I stop grinding.
I’m frozen. Transfixed. And then all at once, inspiration blasts through me like lightning—just the way it did when I was knee-deep in the lake, trying to save Cygnus. Fractured pieces fly together, clicking into place: the chalice, the catalyst, my pain, my Talent coursing through my blood….
Blood. Is blood the catalyst?
I dump the powdered cliffcrow feathers into the cauldron with my latest attempt at the onmidraught.
And then I unsheathe my father’s dagger.
This time, I don’t pray to any Gods. I pray to him.
Let this work, Father. Please.
I slice my palm open. Deep. Crimson blooms and trickles into the cauldron, and I reach for the stirring spoon. I’m hardly breathing as I stir once, twice, three times…
It starts steaming.
I almost weep with relief. I keep stirring, and the mixture transforms, alchemizing exactly how it should. The muddy mixture clarifies and turns a brilliant gold. It’s exactly the same viscosity as the all’s-cure Mother brews. And after fifteen clockwise turns, I know I’ve done it.
The omnidraught is complete.
I need to get it to someone I can trust—and suddenly I know exactly who.
Quickly, I fill a small vial of blood to add to my ingredients and mark it in my notes.
Then I heal my palm, hurry back to the main hospital, and track down Daisy in the laundry room.
She’s helping sweep up the glass from the medicine cabinets, which were smashed to bits.
“I need a favor,” I say, rushing up to her.
“Okay?” She looks me up and down. “What’s wrong?”
“Not here. Come with me.”
Daisy doesn’t protest as I lead her back to the storehouse.
After shutting the door behind me, I wheel around.
Then I take a deep breath and tell her everything.
My Talent, my mother, the Moragorion, the plague.
I share the whole story of the day Mother left and the truth about Ragglestaff.
I tell her about revealing my Talent to Finn, the omnidraught, and my plan to leave.
The only piece I leave out is the gates and my mission with Cygnus.
That doesn’t seem like my secret to tell. But the rest of the truths tumble free.
Daisy’s eyes widen exponentially as I speak, but she doesn’t interrupt me. And to her credit, she doesn’t recoil in disgust. She just listens.
Finally, I come to my conclusion. “I need you to make sure that all of this gets to Cygnus.” I gesture at my workbench, where the cauldron, the mortar and pestle, the jars of flowers and ingredients, and Ragglestaff’s notes are spread.
“And I need you to tell him that the final catalyst is blood. You’ve helped me with most of it.
You know where to get more cliffcrow feathers.
The Crown can source him the rest. With your help, he should be able to duplicate what I’ve done. ”
“Why don’t you just tell him yourself?”
“He’s with Queen Davina. My secret is out, and I’ve done the only job they brought me to do. If I don’t leave now, I’m going to end up in a cell—or worse.”