Chapter 36 The Patient
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The Patient
Inside the hospital wing, homesickness broke through Saffron like a wave.
The scandalous murals, the stalking velvines, the scents of clove disinfectant and fresh bed linen.
The last time she’d been in this room, she and Tiernan had sat by Auria’s bedside, chattering under their breaths about the prophecy Saffron had foreseen during their final assessment.
Everything had smelled of Auria’s ginger tea, brewed for her waking by her doting betrothed.
Now the world had changed. Tiernan was dead—such a crude, permanent word—and Auria loathed Saffron. This place was no longer her home, no matter how much it might feel like it.
The sight of her dragonesque former lover wrought both relief and guilt.
Nissa represented a steady place to plant a foot when the ground beneath Saffron was so uncertain, her last living ally in a world where enemies lurked around every corner—yet it seemed unfathomably selfish to draw Nissa deeper into this vicious web.
Saffron reminded herself, for the thousandth time of late, that once she was successful in unmaking time, none of it would matter.
In the dark of night, however, a troubled voice called up from some internal coffin.
Her subconscious understood that even though the suffering she wrought would be undone eventually, it was still real while it happened.
Pain would still be pain, and fear would still be fear, and grief would still be grief.
But this astute voice was inconvenient, incompatible with her mission, and so she tried to keep it buried, to focus only on the next few steps on this fraught path.
She nudged the patient awake.
Nissa blinked slowly, like a drowsy feline. She wasn’t one to spook easily, and where most would jolt or recoil from such a sudden appearance, Nissa merely sat up slightly straighter.
“Hells, Killor,” she muttered, voice thick with sleep, eyes bare of kohl, hair freshly washed and fluffy. “How did you get in?”
Saffron pulled the curtains around Nissa’s bed all the way closed, knowing that their muffling enchantments would conceal both her presence and their conversation. “Your smoking habit, and a levitation charm on my boots.”
“Admirably imaginative.”
“Happy to see you too—not least because you’re the only living soul who believes I’m undercover.” Saffron gave Nissa the kind of smile that hopefully said and I care for you deeply but know such a confession would make you wildly uncomfortable.
“Hells, I can’t believe Aspar didn’t have a contingency in place.” Nissa swigged from an old cup of cold mint tea on her bedside. “She knew that if she died, you’d be on your own. Trapped.”
“I was warned that this was deep undercover when I took the assignment. I just didn’t realize quite how deep she meant.
Although I’m starting to wonder whether there was a record of the operation, and the new captain either hasn’t bothered to follow it up, or—well, something more nefarious. What are they like?”
“Vel Karvas? Famously close with Grand Arbiter Dematus.”
“Ah.”
Corrupt, then. Or at least corruption adjacent.
Nissa fixed Saffron with a warning look. “Even if he does reach out to you, even if he does try and reestablish contact…”
“I shouldn’t trust him.”
“No.” A loaded beat. “I told Auria you’re undercover.”
“Did she believe you?”
Nissa shrugged, but it wasn’t nonchalant, her shoulders stiff, too high up her rune-tattooed neck. “You know what she’s like. Sanctimonious, self-righteous, a downright zealot when it comes to the law, a hellsforsaken—”
“Are you still on the Bloodmoons, or have you been reassigned too?” Saffron hurried the conversation on, aware that every second she spent here was another in which she might be caught.
“Remains to be seen. I’m on bedrest for another week. But even if Karvas reallocates me, I’ll still work it on the sly. You need a bridge—someone you can trust inside the Silvercloaks.”
Now they were entering uncertain territory—territory Saffron herself had not yet figured out how to navigate.
She spoke carefully, noncommittally. “There’s something you need to know.
The kingpin found out that I’m undercover, and he spared me, but…
he wants me to feed you false information.
Keep the silvers off the scarlets’ backs, keep you chasing your own tails.
And I have no idea how to navigate that. ”
“It changes nothing. Just find evidence against them and bring them down.”
“Yes, it’s exactly that easy,” Saffron replied dryly. “Besides, with Karvas and Dematus presiding over the operation, any such evidence would likely be buried.”
“They’re not beyond reproach, Killor.” A certain fire had kindled beneath Nissa’s tone. “If you brought me something ironclad, and the corrupt higher-ups tried to make it go away? I’d go right over Karvas’s head to the commissioner. To the fucking king himself, if I had to.”
Ironclad.
Like evidence of treason. Evidence of collusion with Nyr?th.
“What’s the alternative?” Nissa added, tucking her legs beneath her slender body, letting golden light burn in her gaze.
“You languish in the Bloodmoons forever? Jebat knows you’re undercover.
I told him the truth, and he believed me.
Seemed he already suspected as much. It wouldn’t just be Auria and me, newly minted Silvercloaks, approaching the commissioner. Jebat holds sway.”
Saffron pressed her lips together, tasting the sweet ghost of hot cocoa on her tongue. “I know. And if I uncover something substantial, I’ll find a way to get it to you.”
A lie. For now, she had to stay in the scarlet fold for access to their ascenite vaults.
Nissa’s stare shredded through Saffron like a prong of lightning. “Why did you come here tonight? Because we could’ve done this via wand without so much risk.”
“To ask a favor.”
Nissa stilled.
“I know I’ve already asked so much of you,” Saffron muttered, tripping over her words in the hurry to lay them down. “Information on Nalezen Zares, the half-formed tracing spell. But I need this for entirely different reasons.”
Saffron described Aspar’s final moments, the letter left behind by her father, the captain’s mysterious references to their relationship. How deeply Saff wanted to see his handwriting one last time, how badly she needed to see, in words, just how much he had loved her.
She omitted, of course, a significant portion of why it was so critical: a potential lead on a weaverwick of her own.
“I suspect Karvas has custody of it now,” Saffron finished. “But I see no reason for him to hand it over.”
Nissa’s expression was impenetrable. “And you want me to steal it for you.”
A hard swallow. “Yes.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to let me try and bring you back in? Recall the assignment. Plead your case, with Jebat’s help, to the higher-ups. Then the letter would be handed to you willingly.”
A subconscious longing opened up inside Saffron, a desire to return to her found family, a gaping hole into which all logic and reason might fall—if she hadn’t learned to control such things a long time ago.
“There’s too much that could go wrong. Even if you did somehow manage to convince a corrupt captain that I was undercover, I may not be reinstated in the Silvercloaks.
I still lied about my classification, still committed fraud to gain entry in the first place. I’m an ex-convict.”
“But you do want to come back. That’s what all this is for.”
“Of course, but I won’t leave the scarlets until I have enough evidence to destroy them.”
Nissa took a deep inhale, a shorter exhale.
“I don’t know, Killor. The reason I heeded your requests before was because your life was in danger.
This letter…I know it’s important to you.
I know it’s the last thing you have of your parents.
But it’s not a matter of life or death, nor is it urgent.
And if I get caught, Karvas will eviscerate me.
I knew last time that if I was found out, Aspar would be understanding—albeit furious that I knew of your mission—but now the game has changed. It’s not prudent.”
This last word struck Saffron across the cheek like the back of a palm.
“It’s not prudent.”
“If I’m kicked off the force, you’re out there alone. Trapped in the Bloodmoons. That is not a risk worth taking for a letter. But if you fulfill the assignment and make your way back to us, they’ll have no choice but to hand it over.”
Something ugly was simmering in Saffron’s belly, a petulant frustration, a childish ire. “I wouldn’t be trapped there alone. Jebat knows.”
Nissa’s golden eyes flared. “So you admit that me losing my job, my reputation, is an acceptable level of risk, because it wouldn’t impact you personally?”
Saints. “I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did. I don’t know who’s more selfish—you or Marriosan.
You only see your own goals, and you don’t care who you step on to reach them.
I am no longer your tool, your weapon, your piece on the chessboard.
” An icy cool had descended upon Nissa, a thousand times more terrifying than her scorching anger.
“But I remain a bridge, and I won’t leave you out in the dark.
Bring me new evidence. I’ll make sure it climbs the ranks, and this time, I’ll make sure it sticks. Then you’ll get your damned letter.”
“Nissa, I—”
“I’m fine, by the way. Thank you so much for asking.”
Guilt and shame and frustration simmering together into something wholly noxious, Saffron left the precinct the way she’d entered: through the open window, and with the two conch shells still tucked in her cloak pocket.
Levan listened for what felt like hours, until finally, Saffron Killoran leapt from the open window with floating boots, landing softly on the dark, dewy grass below. She pulled her hood up over her moonlit curls and strode back in the direction of the city center.
Horror beating in him like a second pulse, Levan raised his wand and followed.