Chapter 19
Magdala sometimes wondered if she might be part seer.
She had abnormally frequent dreams—lucid, symbolic, and strange.
Sometimes, she dreamt memories mixed with portents.
Her mother, who was so strong with magic her fingers let off violet sparks when she cracked her knuckles, swore that Magdala had the gift of second sight.
As Magdala lay unconscious, she pictured her mother again, standing on the crest of a hill as two men in red livery lifted Magdala onto a dragon’s back. The trees were flushed crimson, the rolling wildland moors purple with autumn. Tears tracked down her mother’s cheeks.
This was the agreement. Every autumn, she returned to Elegy and her father, her warm days of wildness locked away until spring.
She would not see her mother until the royal cherries bloomed and the frogs sang in the ponds.
She did not know why her parents never saw one another, or why her mother fled Elegy in the night when she was still a babe in arms. But her mother must have had a good reason.
“Why can’t you come, too?” Magdala called over her shoulder. The dragon’s wings beat, flattening the heather. A grouse scurried from the underbrush.
Her mother held her hands to her lips to amplify her shout. “There’s a ghost on Elegy Island!”
The higher she mounted, the louder the dragon’s wings pounded the air. Her head throbbed with each concussion. Her stomach churned. They were flying too high—there was no oxygen here. Her brain was compressing inside her skull …
Magdala awoke with a gasp. She lay in a soft bed, covered in dark sheets. The curtains were drawn, but a shaft of light shone between them, slicing across the faded carpet.
“Ash!” Zephyr shouted from beside her bed. It split through Magdala’s head like a pickaxe. “She’s awake.”
Magdala squeezed her eyes shut and tugged the sheets to her ears.
The bed creaked, and Magdala opened one eye. Asherton sat on the edge of the mattress, looking down at her with a furrowed brow. “Tell me how you feel, Mags?”
“Like a dragon is sitting on my head.”
He rubbed his thumb over his lips. “What do you think, Zeph?”
Zephyr passed him, a blur of blue sweater and tweed. “Oh, stop worrying, Ash. She’s fine. The venom isn’t dangerous except in very high doses. One little caterpillar couldn’t kill a woman of her size.”
Even in her foggy state, Magdala smirked. Angelonia would have dropped dead in an instant.
Asherton said with a nervous laugh, “After all that, and it was I who nearly got you killed. There’s irony for you.”
He touched the back of his hand to her forehead. Magdala flinched and slapped his hand away.
“Leave her be, Ash,” Zephyr scolded. “She’s fine.”
“She looks pale.”
“I always look pale,” Magdala slurred.
“No, you normally have a pink, rosy flush in your cheeks. You look peaked.”
“Stop talking. Your voice gives me a headache,” she groused.
The mattress rose as Asherton got up.
“As I suspected,” Zephyr said. He held the shirt Asherton had been wearing in front of him. Quickly, Magdala checked to see if Asherton was wearing a shirt now and found, with some satisfaction, that he was not.
“There’s that rosy glow,” Asherton said happily.
Magdala’s rosy glow intensified.
“Lucent Pine sap,” Zephyr announced. “Spattered all over it. Look.” He cupped his hand over a faintly soiled spot. A dim blue light glowed in the shadow. “That’s why Lewis attacked.”
Magdala sat up heavily. “Where does Lucent Pine sap come from?”
Asherton held out his hand. “Don’t hurry to get up.”
“She’s fine.” Zephyr sighed. “Remember how many times your brother was stung while he propagated those caterpillars? At least a dozen in a summer, and he never fainted.”
“Well, he was a lot bigger than Mags.”
“Not much,” Zephyr said, appraising Magdala over his spectacles. “In answer to your question, Miss Devney, Lucent Pine sap comes from one specific forest a thousand miles away.”
Asherton pointed out the obvious. “This was no accident.”
“You don’t say,” Magdala said moodily. Her head cleared enough for her to realize she was lying in Asherton’s bed. She froze, her fingers digging into the mattress.
“You do look better.” Asherton smiled. “Lots more color in your cheeks.”
Slowly, Magdala got out of bed. “So, someone got onto the island and put sap on the prince’s clothes. Without being seen. How?”
“And how could the assassin get on and off the island?” Asherton asked. “We would see a dragon. A boat, perhaps?”
“A boat is the only possible way.”
“I’ll search the beach.” Magdala brushed her wrinkled clothes and tucked her hair behind her ears. “For the rest of the summer, the prince should remain in the house …”
Asherton raised his eyebrows. “Like hell I will! I’d rather be assassinated than cooped up for my last summer of freedom before I’m sentenced to a life on the throne!"
Zephyr scratched his chin. “Perhaps, Miss Devney, if you did your job and remained with the prince …”
“I did tell her to take a break, Zeph,” Asherton admitted. “So, in this instance, it wasn’t her fault.”
Magdala opened her mouth to remind them that it wasn’t her fault in any instance, but a clatter of roots distracted her, and Anton blundered across the floor and latched onto her leg.
Magdala dropped her face into her hands. “I hate this place.”
“I’m not staying in the house,” Asherton said. “That’s my final word. Besides, if the assassin got into my room to taint my clothes, then I’m no safer in here than out here.”
“How did they get in the bedroom, though?” Zephyr said to himself.
Asherton raked his hand through his hair and then glanced at Madgala suspiciously.
“It wasn’t me,” she mouthed.
Asherton raised one eyebrow.
“It wasn’t!” she insisted in a loud whisper.
“Wasn’t what?” Zephyr asked.
Magdala let out a frustrated breath through her nose. “I’m going to check the grounds. Zeph, stay with His Highness and don’t let him roam around alone again.”
Zephyr frowned at Asherton. “Want to play a game of chess?”
“You get angry when I beat you.”
“That’s not true. You rarely beat me.”
“That’s because I let you win.”
Their bickering voices followed her down the hall.