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“Chamomile and valerian root,” Aisha states flatly. “Your turn.”
I blink, not expecting the healer to list off her tincture so quickly. It makes me wonder if she’s telling the truth. Then again, why would she lie? I don’t have time to ponder the reasons. Three sets of eyes are looking at me, waiting for a response. “I rubbed a paste of goji berries, ginseng, and guarana on his gums.”
The little hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge. Aisha studiesme again, her eyes looking deeper like she’s trying to see the colors of my soul. “How did you know that combination would counter mine?”
She’s a fool if she expects me to admit I’ve been trained in herbology. Or perhaps she thinks I’m the fool, desperate enough to admit damning knowledge in hopes it will aid in Ezra’s recovery. She may be a sanctioned Cerise, chosen by King Travers to work as a healer and pardoned from all the unforgivables, but I am not. “Lucky guess.”
“Forty-five minutes until sunrise, Bash,” Aisha says, her hawklike eyes never straying from my face. “Get her out of here before I change my mind and alert the watch.”
Fuck her. I’m not leaving Ezra in her hands. For all I know, she’s the witch who cursed him! “I go where Ezra goes.”
“Fine.” She scoffs. “Your friend is headed to the dungeons. You want to follow? Be my guest. I don’t care where you go so long as you leave Tarrish.”
“Fine!”
“No,” Bash interjects. He grabs his cloak off the floor and me by the arm, pushing me past the tapestry. His grip is firm but not bruising, though I get the feeling that if I were to fight, his tender touch would tighten.
“Let me go,” I demand when we’re in the front room, but my words fall on deaf ears. Bash drags me out into the cold and doesn’t relent until we’re by the horses and his body is between me and the house.
“If you go to the dungeons with him, you’ll be killed.” Bash holds the cloak out, and if I weren’t already shaking, my skirt torn, and my corset so thin he can see the puckering of my nipples, I would refuse the offering.
But I’m cold and exhausted after tonight. I wrap it around myself and hug the warm, fur-lined cotton close. “If I leave, Ezra is as good as dead.”
“Not necessarily. Aisha still works on the cursed. It’s just safer for everyone involved if the cursed are there versus here. When it takes the last part of their souls…” he hesitates. “I won’t lie. It’s bad.”
“I saw her journal. She can’t help him,” I protest. I feel like I don’t know anything about curses or how they affect someone. I thought they only took from the witch who cast the spell, not the soul desperate enough to call for one. All I know is that whatever is wrong with Ezra is spreading, and her tincture isn’t doing anything to heal him.
“She’s doing her best.”
“It’s not good enough!” My heart races, and heat pools in my chest again. I’m angry and my magic knows it.
“Do you have a better idea?” Bash shouts, and I take a step back. I slide my hand to the coat pocket and find the hilt of my dagger.
“Fuck,” he whispers, pinching the bridge of his nose. He closes his eyes and sighs. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not ready to say goodbye,” I admit, and it’s my first undoctored truth of the night. I draw my hand out of my pocket, dagger free.
“I understand, but the only way you’re getting into the castle is if you are arrested. Given your heritage,” he adds, touching the ends of my hair that have lost their dust, “you’d likely be killed before the soldiers detained you with the cursed.”
Bash is right; I wouldn’t stand a chance of finding Ezra in the dungeons. But he’s also wrong. There is another way into the palace, one that should give me damn near free reign to roam if I can make it past the first elimination.
I look at the sky, noting the subtle shift from black to blue. Soon, the sun will be up. Time already isn’t working in my favor. If I’m going to pull this off, I need to find my uncle, Sutherland, and make a month’s worth of preparations in less than a day. “I need to get back to Central Arcane. Will you take me?”
“Yes,” Bash sighs, his shoulders relaxing.
If all goes well, I’ll be within the palace walls this time tomorrow. I’ll find Ezra and heal him enough to bring him back to his senses, and then we are getting the fuck out of this province.
Iknock on a mahogany-stained door and wait. I’m confident this is my uncle’s room despite the attendant at the front desk of Arcane Suites being less than forthcoming. She wouldn’t tell me what room Sutherland Hargrove was in or if he was a resident this weekend. Given that there were only two inns for guests to stay overnight and that most, if not all, of the Culling families are staying at this lodging, I wagered my chances with luck.
Even if Sutherland had to steal the Silver to pay for the room, my uncle would be where the other families are because he wants to be seen. He wants the other families to know, that even though his land is a forgotten relic on the outskirts of Arcane’s borders, he is still a part of the court.
Finding Sutherland’s room is less a game of luck and more a test of intel learned in the time we’ve lived together. He has a peculiarity that drives him mad when things are out of place, even the slightest. The manor is kept precariously clean; not a spec of dirt or dust can ever be seen, and though he wishes he could keep everyone from wearing shoes inside, he understands the impracticality of the request. The time lost taking them off and putting them back on would allow for more dust to accumulate, so he’s settled on never allowing them into his room. The one place he swears death can never reach so long as he doesn’t invite the outside world in.
And this was how I found my uncle. By the singular pair of bootssitting outside a door that has a number four forged from iron hanging at its center.
“Khiara?” Sutherland asks, opening the door, his eyes wide with surprise.
My uncle is a tired man, nearing forty, but the years haven't been kind. His salt and pepper hair is meticulously styled to hide the thinning sections on his scalp. His face is wrinkled from worry and sun exposure, while his hands are rough and calloused from working the horses. He filed the rough spots down so they appear smooth upon the court’s skin, worried they could feel a roughness his life had bestowed that they could never understand.
