Chapter 2
two
Lysa
The garden drake hadn’t been difficult, she was just frightened, her internal magic churning in erratic spirals that felt quite wrong to my senses.
I’d stilled it with barely a thought, my hands pressed to her scales.
The relief in her bonded owner’s eyes had been payment enough, though he’d pressed a few coins into my palm anyway.
They clinked in my pocket as I pushed through the infirmary door.
My father was hunched over the account books at his desk, lamplight casting deep shadows beneath his eyes. He muttered numbers under his breath, crossing something out with such force the pen nib tore through the paper.
“Da?”
He didn’t look up. He reached for another sheet, this one already covered in red ink. Debts circled. Underlined. Starred with what looked like angry slashes.
Empty potion bottles crowded the desk’s edge, labels peeling, glass dusty. Crumpled bills were scattered between them like fallen leaves. One had tumbled to the floor. I bent to retrieve it and caught sight of the amount.
My stomach dropped. The room smelled wrong. Old paper and tallow candles, yes, but beneath that, the faint bitter scent of worry-sweat, of sleepless nights and mounting panic. The same smell that had clung to the walls after Mother died, when everything had started falling apart.
“We had four appointments today.” I set the bill carefully on the desk’s only clear corner. “Five, counting the emergency call.”
“Mm.” He rewrote a figure, squinting at his own handwriting. His hand shook slightly, making the numbers wobble. “And how much did they pay?”
I pulled the coins from my pocket. “The Hawthornes brought eggs. Mrs. Chen paid half in dried herbs…”
“Eggs.” He laughed, but there was no humour in it. “We’ll pay the apothecary supplier in eggs, shall we? I’m sure they’ll be delighted.”
Heat prickled along my collar. “They’re good people. They paid what they could.”
“Good people don’t keep a business afloat.” He finally looked up. The lamplight caught the red webbing of blood vessels in his eyes, the gaunt hollows of his cheeks. When had he started looking so old? “Do you know what we owe the property holder? The guild fees alone ...”
“I know.” My voice came out sharper than I’d intended. I knew. I saw the bills. I heard the creditors knocking. I felt the weight of it every time I accepted barter instead of coin because I couldn’t bear to turn away someone whose familiar was suffering.
He turned back to his ledger, pen scratching viciously across the page. “Another wyrm-keeper cancelled their contract today. Said they’re taking their business to the new clinic on East Street. The one with the proper facilities, the certified Brewmaster, the—“
“They have three times our funding.”
“They have paying clients.”
“I could take more emergency calls,” I said. “Expand into…”
“You’re already working yourself to the bone.” He slumped back in his chair, looking deflated rather than angry. “I failed, Lysa. Your mother would be…”
“Don’t.”
But he was already lost in it, staring at the ledger without seeing it.
“There’s our hero, back from saving the town’s dragons one at a time.”
I turned to find Briony in the doorway, her pretty auburn hair elaborately plaited with ribbons the colour of spring grass, her emerald skirts swirling as she swept into the room.
She always dressed like she was attending a garden party rather than visiting a struggling clinic.
Today’s blouse had delicate embroidery along the collar, impractical lace at the cuffs.
Everything about her was soft and lovely and utterly out of place amongst our dusty shelves and peeling paint.
My own leather apron was still splattered with drake saliva. My trousers were mud-stained at the knees.
She perched on the edge of Da’s desk, swinging her legs, her bright eyes fixed on me with that particular gleam that meant trouble.
“I had lunch with miner Herbert’s daughter today.
She couldn’t stop talking about how you calmed their drake with a touch.
Very romantic, the way she described it. All breathless and wide-eyed.”
“It wasn’t romantic. It was arcane animal care.”
“Mm-hmm.” She tilted her head, the ribbons catching the lamplight. “Speaking of, when are you going to find your love, Lysa? You can’t spend your whole life married to this infirmary.”
Heat crawled up my neck. Gods, not her as well. “And what about you? Still mooning over that apprentice silversmith who doesn’t know you exist?”
“He knows I exist.” Her chin lifted. “He smiled at me yesterday.”
“Revolutionary.”
“At least I’m trying.“ She leaned forward, her green eyes suddenly too knowing for her age, too sharp beneath all that softness. “When was the last time you even looked at someone that way?”
Never. The answer sat heavy in my chest.
“I’m looking at the account books,” I said. “Very romantic.”
Da made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. Briony’s expression softened.
A knock came sharp and urgent, three quick raps that made us all jump.
Briony slid off the desk. When she opened the door, the silversmith’s son stood framed in the doorway, rain-soaked and red-faced. Behind him, his father held a canvas-wrapped bundle against his chest.
“Oh.” Briony’s voice went soft and breathy, quite different from the teasing tone she’d used with me. “Lorin. You’re... wet.”
The boy’s ears went crimson. “It’s—there’s rain. Outside.”
“I can see that.” She touched his sleeve, her fingers lingering. “You must be freezing.”
“We’re sorry for the late hour.” The father stepped forward, tactfully ignoring his son’s flaming face. “But we thought... well, you’d want to see this straightaway.”
I wiped my hands on my apron, already moving towards the examination table. “What is it?”
“I found it this morning. In the garden, near the forge.” He laid the bundle down with gentleness. “The poor thing was stone dead. No marks, no signs of struggle. Just... gone.”
Behind me, I heard Briony laugh at something Lorin mumbled. “Your hair’s all mussed from the wind. Here, let me—“
I tuned them out, my fingers working at the canvas knots.
My father appeared at my shoulder, pulling his worn notebook from a pocket. “How old was the drake? Any previous health concerns?”
“Three years. Healthy as anything.” The silversmith’s voice tightened. “She was hunting mice just yesterday.”
The canvas fell away. The drake was small, no larger than a house cat, her scales dull grey where they should have gleamed jewel-bright. Her eyes had filmed over with milk-white cataracts, mouth slightly open, tiny fangs just visible. I’d seen death before. Too many times. But this...
I leant closer, tilting the drake’s head to catch the lamplight. There. Beneath the scales along her throat, faint silver veins spread in a delicate web, branching from her chest. They pulsed with a subtle luminescence even in death.
“Da.” My voice came out tight. “Have you ever seen this?”
He moved to my side, notebook forgotten. His breath caught.
“No,” he said. “Never.”
“I’ll need my references.” Da straightened, already moving towards the stairs. “There’s a section in Harrow’s Compendium on magical corruption, and that old text your mother kept, the one with the handwritten notes...”
He disappeared into the upper room where he was probably going to fall asleep reading through my mother’s notes.
The silversmith shifted his weight. “We should get home before the rain worsens. Will you... let us know what you find?”
“Of course.”
Briony caught Lorin’s hand, tugging him towards the door. “I’ll walk you out. Make sure you don’t catch your death in this weather.”
The door clicked shut behind the silversmiths. I heard my sister’s voice trailing off down the alley, something about tea, her tone pitched in that particular way she used when trying to sound mysteriously alluring. Poor Lorin wouldn’t know what hit him.
I turned back to the drake.
“Right, then.” I rolled my sleeves higher, pushing them past my elbows. “Let’s see what killed you.”
The examination table was too tall. I had to lean over it, my weight on my forearms, bringing my face close to the drake’s chest. The scales were cool beneath my cheek. I pressed my ear where her heart should have been.
Silence. Expected. But then, a faint buzzing, like a wasp trapped in a jar. I jerked back, my pulse jumping.
“That’s not supposed to happen,” I told the corpse. “You’re aware of that, yes?”
I fetched my scalpel from the drawer. I was incredibly tired, but my hands were steady.
They always were, when it came to this. I could calm a maddened wyrm without flinching, cut into dead flesh without hesitation, but ask me to make small talk at Briony’s garden parties and I’d forget how words worked.
The silver veins pulsed faintly beneath the scales. I pressed the blade’s tip to the largest one, applying careful pressure. The floor shuddered.
I froze, scalpel hovering. The sensation rolled through the boards beneath my boots, that same cold pulse from earlier in the street, but stronger now, like something enormous turning over in its sleep deep underground. The lamp flame guttered. Shadows lurched across the walls.
“Oh, brilliant,” I muttered. “The ley-lines are having feelings.”
The ley-lines were rivers of raw magic flowing beneath the realm of Lumenvale, feeding power to every ward, every enchantment, every piece of magic. Until lately, stable and predictable.
When the tremor passed, I set the scalpel aside and pulled out my notebook instead. The drake’s expression drew my attention as I sketched: mouth slightly parted, eyes wide even in death. She looked surprised, terrified, even.
I touched the edge of her jaw, tilting her head. “What did you see?”
The silver veins branched in patterns I’d never encountered in any text. They spread from the chest like tree roots, delicate and geometric, too deliberate to be natural. I sketched them carefully, my charcoal scratching across the page.
My father would want measurements. Samples. A full post-mortem report with proper documentation and—
The buzzing came again.
I pressed my palm flat against the drake’s chest. The sound vibrated through my bones, making my teeth ache.
“You’re being mysterious,” I told the corpse. “And unhelpful. In case you were wondering.”
I grabbed a clean jar from the shelf, selected a smaller blade, and carefully extracted a section of the silver-veined scale. It came away with a soft snick, revealing the grey flesh beneath. The vein pulsed once, twice, then went dark.
The buzzing stopped. I sealed the sample in the jar, labelled it, and stared at the drake’s terrified expression. Whatever had killed her, she’d seen it coming, and she’d been afraid.
It was almost dawn when I climbed the narrow stairs to my room.
My ceramic dragons waited on their shelf, small sentinels arranged by colour, crimson to amber to jade to midnight.
Fifty-three of them. I’d counted yesterday during one of my anxious rearrangements.
The emerald drake I’d named Clever sat too close to Ash, the slate-grey wyrmling.
I moved them apart, then reconsidered. Colour families.
That made sense. I shifted the entire amber collection left, creating space for better gradation between the yellows and reds.
My fingers trembled. I pressed them against the shelf’s edge until they steadied.
“You’re fine,” I told Ember, the tiny copper drake at the centre. “Everything’s under control.” But that was a lie, everything was not under control.
I touched each figurine as I passed, a ritual that usually brought calm.
Tonight it made my chest ache. These creatures didn’t fear me.
They were ceramic and silent, incapable of flinching from my touch, of whispering about my unnatural gift, of looking at me like I might shatter their magic with a careless thought.
The real dragons sought me out when they were suffering.
Trusted me with their pain. But their humans?
They paid in eggs and dried herbs and backed away the moment I’d finished, relief and unease warring in their expressions.
I wanted ... wanting was dangerous and selfish. The infirmary was drowning in red-inked ledgers while I stood here arranging toys like a child, while mysterious silver veins spread through dead drakes, and my father buried himself in guilt. I was useful. That was enough. It had to be enough.
But the hunger sat beneath my ribs anyway, stubborn and shameful.
I craved someone who wouldn’t fear my power, and who’d look at my Quieting gift and see strength instead of monstrosity.
My gift wasn’t like other Creaturae Arts.
I didn’t soothe the beasts with gentle magic or coax their temperaments into balance.
No, I reached into the chaos of their internal arcane energy and commanded it to still.
Forced it to obey me, really. Most mages worked with a creature’s natural inclinations.
I worked against the magic itself, bending it to my will whether it wanted to comply or not. No wonder people whispered.
I fell into bed still dressed, leather apron and all, too bone-tired to care.
The pillow smelled like herbs and smoke.
My own scent, worn into the fabric. Sleep dragged me under.
In the dream, silver veins spread beneath my skin, branching from my heart in delicate patterns.
I pressed my palm to my chest and felt that wrong buzzing, that wasp-trapped-in-a-jar pulse.
The ley-lines shuddered beneath me, enormous and cold, turning over in their sleep.