Chapter 19 Thorns #2
Lucien cleared his throat. “I- uh- I just came to see if you wanted a break and to read- I know Brielle likes stories, so I asked Max- I’ll just go,” he said.
“Stay,” Brielle whispered. “Please.”
Luci sat up, already fighting back the urge to chastise Brielle for her poor judgment.
“That would be good, actually. I wanted to speak with you, Luci,” Noah said.
Lifting her eyes, she saw Noah with his hands in his pockets still, but a muscle in his jaw flicked, and she understood he wasn’t saying something. It made her joy fade into a faint mist, dissipating into nothing.
“Okay, but just for a minute.”
Bending down, she pressed another kiss to Brielle’s forehead that was cool beneath her touch. No fever. Whatever he used was working better than she ever could have hoped.
“I’ll be back,” she said.
“Obviously,” Brielle murmured.
She felt the smile on her lips and promised herself she wouldn’t take for granted any minute with her. Shifting off the bed, Luci pointed a finger at Lucien.
“Do not exhaust her and don’t do anything. I’ll be back in a minute,” she said.
Lucien held up his hands, book in tow. “You are intimidating.”
Narrowing her eyes, she let him sit with that notion. Whatever was happening between him and Brielle was a terrible idea, but there were bigger problems to tackle.
Sparing a small pet for Calcifer, who lounged on the windowsill on his back, stretched as far as his body could go, she made for the door before she could change her mind.
Noah followed behind her. She couldn’t look back.
If she did, then she would lose all of her resolve.
The moment the door shut behind them, her heart filled with lead, and she knew she was making a mistake.
“She will be fine for a bit, but I need to show you something,” Noah said gently.
Throat thick, she nodded.
Every step to the infirmary felt like a nail in a coffin. No one understood Brielle’s illness as she did. What if she began coughing, Lucien wouldn’t know to give her a spoonful of honey. If she started with a chill, he wouldn’t know to put a warm towel under her feet.
The infirmary was in a state of chaos. Empty and half-filled vials littered every surface. Some liquids of varying colors boiled and brewed. The smell was as chaotic as her room was. Fresh tears gathered in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Brielle wasn’t his to love and to heal, but he’d been working at a furious pace to see her well. Now she was awake, all because of his labor. There weren’t enough words to express the type of gratitude she felt in her very soul.
Noah nodded his head before going to the bookshelf and withdrawing a gray leather book with gold trimming.
Dust scattered from it, visibly soiling the air and gathering beneath pooling sunlight. The pages were brown and tattered, worn down till none of the pages lined up any longer.
“This is the oldest book in the infirmary. Most of the recipes are useless because they use some element of what they call ‘dust’. There are recipes for anything you can think of, headaches, and dizziness. Nausea, trouble conceiving, even bunions. But that’s not why I wanted you to look at it.
Many require what they call the Midnight flower.
Luci’s heart stuttered in her chest. It was improbable.
The sort of thing that only happened in fairytales, where coincidence after coincidence lined up in some fate-filled destiny.
And there it was. In perfectly scrawled black ink over brown parchment.
A drawing of the flower she’d seen in the room of mirrors.
A long stem with needle-like projections coming out from the top and down in a neat row.
“I’ve seen this flower before,” she whispered.
Noah’s mouth fell open, and a spark like a shooting star filled his eyes.
“This- Luci- the implications of this discovery- it-” he took a shaky breath and ran a hand over the stumble gathering over his face. “There is a- they call them spells- it can cure nearly any illness. If this is real- if you’ve seen this flower–”
Luci lifted her eyes to his. “We could save Brielle.”
His smile was the brightest dawn after the darkest night.
“We could save Brielle,” he answered.
“It’ll take two weeks, most likely, to get it. Do you think-”
It was too hard to finish the question, to say the words out loud.
His smile faded. “I don’t know, but I’ll try.”
Yet without the flower, her fate was sealed. Some things didn’t require thought.
Lucinda Blackthorn knew the answer before the question was even asked.
As she pulled open the door of the library, she hoped that the precocious prince hadn’t found a new hobby.
She needn’t have worried because as soon as she stepped in, there he was with his head craned over a book while the quill in his hand moved at a furious pace.
“I’m busy,” he said without looking up.
“If I go with him, does the chance of his success increase?” she asked.
That got his attention.
He lifted his gaze, and to his credit, he didn’t show even a hint of a smile. Instead, his expression was flat without a hint of feeling.
“I was wondering when you’d ask,” he said.
Wiping at a stray tear with the palm of her hand, Luci held her ground.
“Why?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It was your vision, and you were seeing through your eyes. It makes sense that you should be there. It wasn’t an if, but more so an inevitability.”
There were implications to this that she didn’t have the mental capacity for at the present moment.
The things she saw– the things he said. It burrowed under the surface, waiting for a sunnier day to emerge.
What did erupt was the vision of Brielle healthy and happy, running through a field of midnight flowers.
“I’ll go,” she said.
The prince turned his head back to the paper in front of him, already forgetting she existed.
“Obviously,” he murmured.