Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
He acknowledges me politely.
“Hangover remedy?” I murmur.
He shifts the package higher up and nods. “Better hurry back.”
He and his long legs stride off to help the prince, and I stare glumly after him.
I’m so busy staring after him, I almost don’t see her. Only a false step over cobblestone has me jerkily looking up in the other direction.
Eparchess Juliana and her mysterious silver mask glide across a dingy alley into one of the smaller apothecaries. I’d been there before, in my search for a cure. It doesn’t sell the usual herbs but rarer ones, ones that have traversed borders.
I follow and feign interest in some siren’s tear while the eparchess picks up a small box of seeds and takes it to the counter.
The vitalian recognises her at once and strikes up friendly conversation. “Here again so soon. You’re quickly becoming my favourite customer.”
Eparchess Juliana laughs, but the grind of her foot suggests she’s in a hurry.
The vitalian pours something into a pocket-sized pouch, and I try to get a better look. Difficult from this position . . .
“I heard you’ll be playing against the redcloaks tomorrow. I’ll put my money on you, of course.”
Eparchess Juliana takes the pouch with a polite, “See you there,” and strides out.
I drop the very pricey roots I’ve been ‘inspecting’, and start to follow—
“Anything I can help you with, there?” His smile is kind. I lift one of the roots and take it to the counter, bypassing the emptied box on my way . . . “What kinds of rare items do you stock?”
“Oh, some beauties.” The vitalian points to a dozen boxes, running off their impressive names and uses.
“The woman before me. She took a whole box of something. Was it particularly rare? Have I missed out?”
He laughs. “Semi-precious. Echowisp.”
My stomach twists.
Echowisp.
I hurriedly pay an outrageous sum for a root I don’t need and race out of the store, hopeful I might catch her to follow.
Nowhere in sight.
I sigh and slouch my way back to Vitalian Dimos and—I swallow—Quin. Each step has me feeling queasy and queasier, and I have to jostle myself on the stairs outside. Keep it together. Focus on the antidote.
Don’t let Quin know what his brother has asked.
I practice smiling a few times while bouncing on the balls of my feet, and when I think my act will pass, let myself inside.
I find them conversing over simmering potions. Dimos has consumed some of the elixir and is stacking a spell in his palm, a bright, swirling, misty magic. My heart aches to feel it.
“At first the victims will experience tummy aches,” Vitalian Dimos says. “That resolves itself after a day, leaving most to assume they’ve eaten bad food. But the poison is still there. It’s just biding its time until the gelidroot bubble thins. That’s when the poison leaks out, surges through the blood, and kills.”
“Caelus calculated four days for the soldiers.”
“Correct. How long it takes to work depends on the dosage of gelidroot in the poison.”
“Are you suggesting—” Quin begins.
I clear my throat, coming into the room. “The victims’ deaths can be timed.”
“Why give the redcloaks four days?”
“Presumably the killer needed them to finish a task first? Or have them die at a time that gives an airtight alibi?”
Or have them die after Prince Nicostratus arrived in town.
Quin’s lips are set in a grim line. “How long do the refugees have?”
I’m not sure what the reason is for timing the refugee’s poison, but I have a bad feeling about it. “The nannan should have started showing green veins. Get the coroner to investigate, announce the poison officially, then take all combined knowledge on it and the antidote to Thinking Hall.”
“Thinking Hall?” Vitalian Dimos muses.
“We’ve a ticking clock. We need all minds collaborating on this.” I gesture to the spell in his hands. “You’ve stacked most of the spell, but there’s still a key layer missing.”
“I have some theories . . .”
“Discuss it with others. Decide on the best choice. Do it now.”
“I can’t enter the hall. I’m wanted.”
So am I. But that seems unimportant in the scheme of things. Even if I get locked away, I have a moral responsibility to help the poisoned. In whatever way I can. Collective knowledge will be the fastest way.
I glance at Quin, unable to stop my lips from twitching.
His brow arches.
“Masks.” I tap his chest, right above where his heart should be. “Yours is practically welded on.”
His gaze locks onto mine in a way that has me shivering. “And what about yours?”
His words linger, cutting deeper than I want to admit. But there’s no time to dwell on that, not with lives on the line.
“Then let’s see how well we wear them,” I choke out, forcing my focus back to the task at hand. “We need to move.”
The rain hammers against the apothecary’s windows, blurring the view of Hinsard’s main square.