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Lord Petret nodded. “All of us. They put the poison in the food.”
“How do you know that?” Gethin asked.
“They told us,” Lord Petret replied.
I turned to meet Cari’s gaze.
“Why didn’t we know this?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Cari replied. “Perhaps the soldier didn’t know about it?”
“He should have,” Lord Petret commented. “Everyone does.”
“What if they lied to you?” I turned to Lord Petret again, unable to contain the sudden hope rising in me. “They might have lied to keep you in line.”
It would explain why the soldier hadn’t known. Cari would not miss such important information as she wandered in his mind, and I didn't think that he would be unaware of something all the prisoners knew.
It made sense. This could all be a lie told to the prisoners to make sure they would not attempt an escape.
“They didn’t lie,” the man lying on the bed beside Lord Petret’s desk shifted on the bed to face us.
“But how do you...”
“I experimented with it,” he said, straightening on the bed. He was a tall man, that much I could see before he even made a move to get up. He was lean but muscular, and although I could not tell his exact age, I knew he had to be closer to Lord Petret’s age than mine. “They give us the antidote once a week. I skipped a week and waited to see what would happen.”
“What happened?” Cari asked nervously.
The man met her gaze with a serious expression. His features were familiar. I couldn’t help but try to think of where I might have met him. If he was a lord, it was likely that we had met somewhere before. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
“I started having symptoms,” he replied. “I would have waited longer, but I was worried that it would kill me earlier than I expected.”
“What were the symptoms?” I asked.
“Shivering,” he replied, turning to me. “Red eyes. Coughing, and lastly, clotted blood from the lung. That was the final warning. I decided to take the antidote when I started coughing up blood. Luckily, it seems the antidote is quite effective, as soon as I took the antidote, my lungs cleared up. My vision came back a few days later.”
“Your vision?” I asked. “It had turned you blind?”
The man nodded. Like Lord Petret, he was quite calm about it.
“So you have the antidote for an extra week?” Cari asked.
“For one fae only,” the man replied. “It won’t be enough to break us all out of here.”
“But we do have at least a week,” I said, trying to regain my hope. “We can escape now and try to figure out a way. Healers...”
“Healers won’t be able to figure out a way,” the man said.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
He didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he met my eyes and got up. He was a few inches taller than me, but it was enough for him to tower over me as he stood up. I realized then that he was much more bulkier than I’d initially thought. His arms were thick and strong as though he had carried a sword for many years.
“I am a healer,” he said, meeting my eyes with an intimidating gaze.
It sounded like a lie. No. This man had to be a warrior of some kind... He was strong and looked capable of hurting someone if they got in his way.
“A very good one!” Lord Petret said. “Lord Tynan’s remedies are famous.”
Lord Tynan. I remembered hearing that name, and always in the context of healing, but I had never met the man because he was said to be a recluse.
