CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
After our experiment with potion unmaking, I left Master Carter early. I wasn’t sure whether I should confide in him about my premonition concerning Thomas.
When my brief trance finished, the sight of my master hunched over his desk, scrawling notes in his floor-length mage robes like those from my vision, left me shaken.
A mage would do this to Prince Thomas, but who? Could I even trust Master Carter, with the level of influence he had in the Capitol?
Days passed with more experiments and more of me ignoring the secrets and fear swirling through my mind. After a week of reading and rereading a few of Thom’s letters, of pondering a cruel premonition and his written apologies, I still wasn’t sure what to do or how to feel.
I’d told myself I only wanted to see Thom again to ensure he received my warning. But was that the truth? Could my feelings be so simple after reading his letters?
After learning that I’d been wrong about him all this time?
On the way home one afternoon, I clasped my shaking hands together and turned into the herbalists’ shop.
Despite spring’s arrival, a warm fireplace still crackled in the shop’s corner, a tea kettle dangling above with a gentle whistle.
The shop owner, Mama’s dearest friend, smiled warmly at me beneath thick brows and round cheeks.
“Lilyan send you out for something?”
I nodded. Ever since Asha had fallen ill, Mama worked fewer hours at the shop to help more at home. It also gave Kelara an excuse to get out of the house more and focus on her business rather than Asha’s health.
“Lotus leaves?” the shopkeeper asked.
“Yes.”
“I’ll grab them from the back.” She disappeared around the corner behind a doorframe covered with hanging flower garlands.
My eyes wandered over the shelves. I’d been here many times since I was a child, yet the shop’s wild assortment of trinkets and remedies still fascinated me.
The most exotic ingredients would be kept in the back, such as their mammoth tusks and pixie dust. But even within the receiving area, the shelves housed troll shoes and lilyflower houses, goblin earwax, and “lucky” eyelashes from giants.
Each jar had a fascinating story to tell from a place beyond the Capitol, beyond even the borders of Amouridia.
I remembered Papa’s atlas, the words I’d said to him on the last day of his life. About our dream of exploring the world.
We’d never be able to do that together. But now, with Junira’s offer, there was a chance I could travel in memory of him.
My stomach sank. If Asha was ever to get better.
My eyes roamed over a large section of shelves lined with Blackwood potions, from headache cures to energy elixirs. The name was familiar beyond its fame. Hadn’t Thomas and I discussed the Blackwood family once or twice?
Stephen’s note, that was it. There had been a request to remove the young prince from the line of succession. And that evening by the pond… Master Blackwood had heard Thomas discussing how close he was to perfecting the cure.
Yes, the Blackwoods had come up a few times during my friendship with the prince.
I disliked them, now that I could remember it. But I also knew one thing—their potions were famed throughout the land for a reason. My gaze caught on one in particular:
A Sleeping Sickness Delay Draught
Slows the spread of sickness through the body. Keeps loved ones alive, in hopes of a future cure.
My fingers curled around the cold bottle. Why had Mama never brought this one home? Was it not worth at least trying?
A cleared throat made me whirl around. The shopkeeper caught my eye, a sack of dried lotus leaves beside her.
“Anything else?”
I rubbed my finger against the potion’s tag, the soft clink of glass cementing my decision.
“Just one more item,” I told her.
On my walk home, birds trilled in the trees lining our city streets while I twisted my lips in thought. I imagined the conversation Thom and I would have upon reuniting, imagined an ending where perhaps we could be given a second chance.
Perhaps I’d finally admit to him that I was, on occasion, just as arrogant as he was.
Mama was sitting hunched over in the living room when I arrived. Her face was buried in her hands. Her shoulders shook.
The house was heavy and silent.
My stomach churned with dread. There was only one threat to our home’s peace, one that sucked the air out of my lungs at the very thought.
“Asha?” I could barely force the word out. The elixir I’d just purchased weighed heavily in my pocket.
I took a shuddering breath and pressed my fingers to my eyes. “Great Mage,” I muttered, my voice cracking.
Mama’s arms wrapped around me. “Oh Lyra.”
My vision blurred. “No.”
“I can’t believe you’ve gone to all this trouble.”
My body stiffened. When Mama pulled back, the smallest of smiles rested on her reddened face. “You’ll want to see her, I imagine.”
I dropped my sack. “What?”
Mama pulled me along into Asha’s room, my steps uneven, my legs unsteady.
At the door, a jolt coursed through me.
Thom sat on Asha’s bed. In the year and a half since I’d last seen him, he’d grown a beard, dark and neatly trimmed.
His hand pressed against Asha’s small, sweaty forehead.
Kelara watched with worry between her brows.
His eyes were focused, his face intent, as he lifted her wrist to check her pulse. Mama cleared her throat.
His eyes caught mine, flashing with surprise and alarm.
“Hi Lyra,” Kelara said, but my attention had been stolen by the one person I least expected to ever come to a commoner’s home.
After two heartbeats too long, he looked down. I let my gaze fall too, looking anywhere but at him. My breath shook. “Prince Thomas. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Caleb shuffled from foot to foot in the corner, and my lips curved upward. He barely noticed, hovering near Kelara with a sense of unease as she sniffled, her face blotchy and tired.
Thom wiped his hands on his robes. “I’ve returned.”
“I see that.”
Mama gave me a meaningful look, and I sent it right back. “What brings you here?”
“I…” He looked lost for words. “You might not have heard, but I returned briefly to Amouridia for the banquet at Autumnfest.” He scanned my face, sensing my lack of recognition.
“It was a very brief stay. But in that time, I conversed with a fellow maid of yours, named Anna, who told me you’d quit the palace. ”
“I quit a year ago,” I murmured.
“Yes,” he said. “And she told me you spent much of your time taking care of your niece.”
“My mere niece,” I teased.
Thomas’s gaze briefly dropped to my mouth before his own tilted upward.
“Yes,” he said, distracted. I pressed my lips together.
“Did you receive my letters?” he asked.
“Just a few weeks ago, actually. I… I haven’t made it through them all.”
He adjusted his spectacles. “Did you, perchance, read the final one I sent?”
I shook my head.
“The first one from Pa’abo?”
“Yes.” Heat rose to my cheeks as color tinged his own.
“I received yours.”
I raised a brow. So he knew how I had spent the year he’d been gone. How I’d grown. How I’d finally bested him, at a price I had been happy to pay.
And he knew he was in danger.
A weight I hadn’t realized I was carrying suddenly lifted.
The room fell silent. My mind spun, but no questions came to mind, no concise explanation of the thoughts and feelings I’d begun to have for him once again.
He cleared his throat. “Are you attending the ball?”
“For Prince Theodore’s birthday?”
His face broke into a sincere smile. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen one so written into his expression, making his eyes crinkle and light up.
“That’s what he says,” Thom said. “It’s a ruse to lure Ella back to the palace. He needs to see her again.”
“I’m sure you’re displeased,” I said, remembering his argument with Theodore shortly after Ella fled the palace. Remembering the way his face had flinched when I accused him of ruining their happiness.
His eyes held mine, something painful flickering there. “Actually, it was my idea.”
My breath hitched.
He tucked the blanket around Asha once more and got to his feet. “I’ll leave you,” he said. “Please read that final letter and let me know your… opinion of it.”
“Alright.” The word was more breath than anything.
“I brought something for Asha. I’ve been working quite hard on it the past few months.”
He bowed, the three of us curtseying, and he strode from the room, trailed by Caleb, who offered my sister his kerchief on his way out.
The door clicked shut behind them.
My face burned as Mama and Kelara turned to me, identical grins spreading across their faces.
It took a great deal of debating, and even more eyerolls, to explain what the mage prince was doing in our home.
After my family dissolved into delighted giggles, I was able to steal away from their gossip, taking my letters and curling up in my room to read the final few by candlelight.
I pulled the last letter from the bottom of the second stack, adjusting my seat to be more comfortable as evening descended upon the house.
I cracked open the seal and got lost in Thom’s final written words on the page.
AutumnFest, 33
Loveliest Lyra,
I hope—oh spirits, I hope this letter finds you.
I have completed my research. I have found the cure. My trials and experiments are over.
And it is all thanks to you. You—glorious, brilliant, beautiful you.
And you will likely never know, if all goes well.
I have heard of your niece’s turn for the worst, and finished my first batch of the antidote as quickly as possible.
I shall cure Asha and return to the palace without disturbing your life, my presence soon little more than a ghost in your memory.
It is abundantly clear you’ve moved on, moved beyond me in ways I fear I shall never move beyond you.
I think, for me, you are it, Lyra. You are the one my short time on this land has allotted for me. And I kick myself every day for turning you, your hungry eyes, your wandering hands, your wild heart and brilliant mind, away.
Yours, if only you would still have me,
Thom