Page 103 of Turncloak

Spinebark was a rare form of pain relief so powerful—and addictive—that the continent had been stripped clean of it during the Battle of Independence between Bellandry and the Eastern Republics. Though many attempts had been made to replant the spine trees that produced it, the saplings would never take to the soil in which they had once thrived. An ongoing source of bafflement for botanists the world over, but also, as most people tended to agree, for the best. Spinebark addiction and subsequent withdrawal ravaged the Eastern Republics in their first decade of freedom from the Bellandrian throne, and they were almost reconquered because of a weakened army.

Levan tried not to let his disquiet show.

With a final nod farewell to the terrified apothecaries, and instructions to meet him at the Acolyte Avenue portari gate the next morning, the kingpin left the shop and made his way to another.

Artan’s Antiques was a dusty old establishment that Levan abhorred in most meaningful ways. It was so disorderly, so chaotic, its artifacts levitating and diving at random intervals, its shelves laid out with no clear order or pattern so that you could never quite find what you were looking for. Levan suspected Saffron would find it all rather charming, but he tried to make his own visits as perfunctory as possible.

“Afternoon,” he said, to the slender, fox-faced proprietor with hair the color of sun-burnished wheat.

Unperturbed by his scarlet cloak, Artan gave him a little mock salute as she failed to wrangle a set of cursed polderdash cards back into their wooden sleeve. “What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering whether you might have anything that…” He trailed off, which he was not usually prone to doing, but the unspoken words filled him with a sense of failure.

Anything that might mend a broken connection to magic.

It seemed a death wish to go on the quest to Bellandry with his magic still splintered, yet paranoia curdled in his belly at the thought of confessing to this random shopkeeper that the kingpin of Atherin’s deadliest criminal organization was weakened.

Artan raised a brow, but did not prompt him to continue.

As he reached for a small black mourncrow ornament on a shelf, however, she glanced at his golden hand and then hissed, like some sort of feral serpent. “I wouldn’t touch that, if I were you.”

Withdrawing his palm, he frowned. “Why not?”

“It’s supposed to make you dream of lost loved ones, like its living counterparts, but…every time I’ve touched it, it’s given me horribly realistic nightmares. My lost loved ones Risen from the dead and come to seek vengeance on me for letting them die in the first place.”

“Ah.” Perhaps not the best talisman at the present moment. “Why be honest with me? Surely your job is to sell whatever you can?”

“Oh, no,” Artan said cheerfully. “Those lost loved ones were dreadfully wealthy and left me everything. This is merely a hobby.”

“Perhaps I’ll just leave it, then. Thank you for your candor.”

As Levan turned to leave, however, his gaze caught on a jewelry cabinet—and a very familiar necklace hanging inside. Delicate gold chain, wooden oval pendant, two gemstones set on its surface. Purple sapphire and glittering emerald.

Saffron told him she’d lost it.

An immense dread expanded low in his stomach.

What would have been worth trading her most precious possession for? The last thing she had left of her parents—her parents themselves, their bodies, their souls. Surely there was nothing. Certainly not that painmaker she’d used in the Havenwood, or—

Oh.

A weaverwick was not the only thing required to turn back time. Levan knew for certain that his mother’s old hourglass had been left behind in his father’s office that night, and such things were incredibly rare, incredibly expensive to purchase from establishments just like these.

Saffron was so hellsbent on seeking the protection of tempavicissan that she’d trade anything for it. But Saints, how it must have hurt her.

He should feel angry, should be writhing with it. She’d used that hourglass to betray him. And yet all he could think of when he saw that pendant was the girl she must have been at six years old, watching her parents as they were brutally slain by mages in cloaks just like his. He thought of the jeweling ceremony, how heavy those gemstones must have felt around her young throat. He thought of how she had not spoken for half a decade thereafter, thought of how her hand went to that very pendant as an adult when she was feeling too much.

He lifted his golden palm to the glass cabinet, his breath fogging the front.

“How much for the necklace?”

The fifth and final visit Levan paid was to Harrow Claver, whom he had not seen or heard from in weeks. It was Asting evening, which meant he’d be sinking bottles of honeywine and heckling the poor bard at the Twelve Jackals, a centuries-old tavern tucked around the corner from the Palace.

The King’s Prophet was hiding something, and it was time to figure out what.

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