CHAPTER TWENTY
I played with a length of twine, my mind in the clouds, my soul thrumming with restless energy. My knee bounced beneath the tiny desk in the room I shared with Anna and Drea.
I should have been gone, too, helping wipe down the palace walls today. Instead, I had snuck away after finishing my section to avoid extra responsibilities. With Ella gone, I already had enough on my plate.
And it was all so very dull.
The twine rested in my hand. My calves ached, and I used my other hand to rub the muscles that protested the very idea of standing after hours of scrubbing and washing and mending.
Hours that I would never get back.
I dropped the twine and returned my attention to the stack of letters before me.
I was supposed to be continuing my research, tracing who was most affected by the disease and why.
These letters had been sent to Thom from Junira, where much of the research was being conducted through the University.
Amouridia’s Mage Council were searching for more information about the disease as well, but with less prestige, connections, and resources, Junira bore the brunt of the work.
I broke another wax seal and scanned the physician’s note for the names of the infected, and any clear traits. I listed each in the columns Thom had crafted ahead of time for me.
Thom’s method was painfully slow. Because this project counted toward university credit, every resource requested required approval from his supervising professor.
Once authorized, the professor would reach out through the mage network to access the material.
It would then be sent back to the university for copying, mailed to Thom for his independent research, and eventually returned to Junira for storage.
Part of me wondered if Thom’s emphasis on using this for his treatise, on making sure his academic work was approved by the board, was slowing down the actual progress of finding a cure.
The end of my quill brushed against my lips, which were pressed together in thought.
If it were up to me alone, I would forego Junira’s involvement until research was further along. Without their mediation, I could reach out to victims, mages, and physicians throughout Amouridia by myself, and then once finished, submit all my findings at once.
Then again, I wasn’t attempting to get on the Mage Council. I was simply trying to find a cure for those dying while progress limped forward.
Besides, while Junira was afflicted, their population was much lower.
I believed Amouridia was likely the earliest source of the illness, although Thom warned me against wasting time tracking the plague’s spread.
I sighed, rubbing the corner of my eyes and refocusing on the Junirian physician’s words, looking for names, ages, addresses, genders, magics, occupations…
My head weighed heavily, the words on the page blurring.
“Lyra?”
My body jerked, my eyes flying open. I blinked, the world coming back into focus. When I finally glanced to the left, Anna’s brow was raised, her eyes soft.
“I was just taking a rest,” I said, quickly folding up the classified letters before me.
Anna nodded, although her gaze twinkled as she wandered over and placed a steaming cup near me. Bitter, nutty steam rose and curled in the air.
“My aunt wanted us to take a break after the tedious morning shift, especially with Ella gone. We were having tea in the kitchen.”
I blinked at the coffee before me. “Oh.”
“I know you don’t care for tea,” she said, walking backward toward the door. “Thanks for finishing the stairwells.”
The words “thank you” were on my lips, but by the time my shock had abated, Anna had slipped away.
I sipped my drink and dove into the next letter, my mind awake, my soul a little less lonely.
When I arrived that night, Prince Thomas was hunched over on a boulder, scrawling out a message on a piece of parchment in the starlight. I cleared my throat, and he spared a glance my way.
“Good evening.”
“It’s practically night time.” I winked at Caleb. “Your poor guard.”
A smile formed on Caleb’s face. “I’m on night duty. Another guard is supposed to watch our prince during the day.”
“And you’re just fine with the prince up at all hours?”
He chuckled. “You try telling this man what to do. Especially with a beautiful woman waiting for him.”
I flushed and turned to Thom, who glared at Caleb in a way that confused me even more.
“Enough, Caleb,” he said with princely authority. “I pay you, not the other way around.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Thom.”
Caleb laughed at my expression. “Miss Lyra, he might be prickly, but he’s got a soft center. I promise I take no offense.”
“You have a very loyal guard,” I said in disbelief, knowing I wouldn’t be able to follow Prince Thomas around all evening.
A faint pink rose on Thom’s cheeks as he fiddled with the edge of his spectacles.
“Loyal’s one word for it. The truth is, most of the time, I don’t take offense because I’m not even listening to him.”
Thom snorted. “He’s been with me since I was ten,” he said. “And he’s always been a good sort of man. It’s nice to have someone older to rely on for advice.”
I smiled. “My sister’s like that for me. She makes mistakes, but she sees the world in a way I wish I could. In her eyes, it’s brighter. Kinder.”
“Sounds like a lovely soul,” Caleb said.
“She is.”
Thom rose to his feet. “Say, aren’t we supposed to be having a lesson?”
I was tempted to ignore him—I’d been enjoying the chat with Caleb, but I suppressed the frustration.
I didn’t want to be out shivering in the cold longer than I had to.
I rubbed my hands together and moved closer to the pond, to the prince.
My eyes flicked over his parchment scribbles.
“Are those your notes for your treatise?”
He nodded. “Thanks to your charts, I’ve made a great start on the background portion.”
“And what’s going to be so groundbreaking that you make it on the Mage Council?”
His eyes shimmered in the starlight. “I’m not just tracking victim information. I’m going to find the cure.”
My mouth fell open. “I thought you were simply researching the plague itself.”
“That’s one aspect of it. An aspect I’ve been working on privately for years.”
“Years?”
He gave me a bittersweet smile. “It’s been my life’s work.”
I blinked. “How will you manage a cure? The Quiet Passing has been around for over five years and no one’s even come close.”
“Oh, you of little faith,” he said, rifling through his notes.
He handed me a page with columns of numbers I didn’t understand.
“Here you can see I’ve done a few tests on toads I’ve collected from the pond.
I infect them with a variant of the bacteria, and after a week, inject them with my serum. About half make a full recovery.”
“Why haven’t you told anyone?”
“They’re just toads. I’ll need to practice on humans soon. And I’m still tweaking it. I’d like the result to be a full recovery for nearly every infection, not just some. And the testing process is…” he winced, rubbing his arm, “draining.”
Anger and confusion sparked within me. “It’s not some.
Each recovery is a subject, a person you could be saving.
” I thought of Gina and the absence that would be left behind in Kelara’s life after she was gone.
I thought of Papa, and his dreams cut short—the travels never taken, the magic never mastered, the daughters he never saw reach their happy ending.
I thought of all the lives taken, and all the lives that would be taken soon.
My fists clenched. “And while you perfect your little experiment, your people are dying. Or have you forgotten that people suffer outside the towering walls you hide behind?”
Thom fell quiet. After a few moments, he pushed his glasses up his nose. “I haven’t forgotten, Lyranore.” The muscles in his jaw clenched. “Why do you think I’m researching the cure in the first place, dedicating my life to fighting what’s killing our people?”
A rustling made us fall silent. We stared wide-eyed at one another, realizing our volume had grown reckless. Caleb ducked around a hedge to check the sound’s source. I fought to steady my breathing.
After a few moments, Caleb appeared again. My muscles relaxed as he gave us a tight-lipped smile.
“It was just Master Blackwood, sire. Out for an evening walk.”
Thom’s face grew wary. “Was he near enough to hear us?”
Caleb nodded.
Thom cursed under his breath. “That’s just wonderful.”
Questions surged to the tip of my tongue, but I forced my mouth to stay shut. Something in the tightness of Thom’s shoulders warned me not to pry further, especially after I’d just rebuked him in front of his own guard, and before a man on the Mage Council.
I stayed silent as Thomas gathered his thoughts and then began picking up his parchment.
“Will we get in trouble, Your Highness?” I asked.
He gave me a look. “I’m a prince. What would we get in trouble for?”
“You’re with a servant, Your Highness.” It was hard not to think of Ella and her memory everywhere in the castle.
Even by this very pond, we used to sit and giggle over the gardeners and footmen.
We were immediate friends when we started, and now the palace was emptier and more hostile than I ever thought possible.
And while David had asked me to consider quitting, I wasn’t quite sure I wanted my employment to end the way Ella’s did, tearing a rip into the fabric of the palace staff and functions.
Prince Thomas’s face remained stoic, and for one bitter moment, I wondered if Ella and his brother’s situation crossed his mind at all.
“I’m with a student.” His expression darkened. “Anyone who questions my tutoring will be causing not only a problem for me, but for the King, who is incredibly invested in my studies.” He offered me a spellbook, one finger tucked between the pages. “And in the research you are assisting me with.”
I nodded and took the book from him. It opened to where he’d marked a misting spell, the same one I’d marveled at yesterday.
I smiled to myself, but the prince’s gaze didn’t meet mine, his mind still a thousand miles elsewhere.
My eyes skimmed over the instructions. I was to consider the air’s particles as something to shape, cradle, and coax, and move them with my mind. If I could move water, surely I could move this.
I set down the book to focus, picturing the air particles.
My palms drew outward of their own accord, the movements more natural and evolved than instructed.
My fingers swayed in the breeze. I pictured the air as it could be, in shapes of my own imagination.
I reached for a motive, my mind coming up empty.
“Are you linking to your thread of magic? To your sense of duty?”
My eyes popped open. The air was as empty as it was a moment ago. Frustration gnawed at me. “No.”
“It’s important, Lyra.”
I had thought about it, slightly. So much of the easiest magic for me was related to mending and restoring what once was. It reminded me of Thom’s, who found healing the body to be the easiest magic.
But then there were the premonitions, a type of magic I’d never seen anyone have before, and one I was afraid to voice now. Having a gut feeling seemed common enough, but surely the vividness of my instincts had some supernatural element?
And then there was the feeling that motivated so much of my magic lately, the fury that dug itself deep, the competitive streak that only seemed to come out around a certain prince.
The desire to return to before he met me, before this splinter of a silly attraction bit so deeply into my time with him.
How could he affect me so? And was that natural?
I was too ashamed, too embarrassed, to even bring it up. Even so, I could feel my cheeks flaming as Thom observed me closely.
“You know something,” he said, and I suddenly wished the prince talked more than he thought.
“Can you have more than one thread of magic?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s probable. I believe I have more than one. It’s still a new field, remember. I don’t have all the answers.”
“What are your threads of magic?”
He shifted. “Well, um.” He fiddled with his glasses, only making them more crooked. “I believe I see the world in pieces. Parts.”
I tilted my head.
“Like when you construct a table or a chair from scratch, I suppose. You must fit the pieces together exactly. Have good attention to detail. Want everything to fit.”
“So?”
“So this is why I excel at healing magic. I can put the body back together, turn chaos into order. I can visualize a diagram of the body, of how it’s supposed to be, and move it back into place. When I do minor magic—water, earth, air—it all relates back to that thread in some way.”
“Huh.” My gaze flicked to Caleb, who stood steadfast, his back to the hedge, his eyes straight forward. I looked back at Thom. “You said you had other threads?”
His cheeks pinkened again. “Well, I might. I’m not really sure yet.” He pushed his glasses up. “But I’m getting to understand another one this summer.”
“Oh?”
He refused to meet my eyes. “I am learning that finding somewhere to belong, of fitting together with another soul, can be just as detail-oriented and magical. The chaos of loneliness submits to the order of belonging. I think the desire to do so… it can be more powerful than expected, a conduit with unlimited magic if you find the right person.” He scratched his jaw.
“That desire has worked as a magnifier to a few of my spells lately. It’s quite impressive. ”
My pulse quickened. I looked out at the pond, the water’s surface smooth and bathed in moonlight. My fingers fidgeted with the ribbon tied around my wrist. Thom’s eyes dropped to the movement.
“Have you succeeded in ripping the parchment yet?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“You should try again,” he said. “I think it might help you find some answers.”
His comment was cryptic, but I let it slide tonight. He’d given me enough to think about for one day.
As we continued the lesson, only two things were clear, both of which filled me with unease.
I liked how I felt here with him, and I didn’t quite want the night to end.