After Rodrigu’s execution, defensors had purged the University of anything associated with magic: all copies of the text he had used, Botanical Wonders of the Grace Loray Colony; his research; his stores of plants. Ben hadn’t been here since just after Rodrigu’s and Paxben’s deaths, but the University looked like the rest of Deza now: decrepit.
Weeds streamed out along the courtyard’s walkways. Trees and shrubs, long in need of trimming, nodded in the wind. The main building, a huge ivory structure with dozens of branching wings, was covered with graffiti of the Church symbol in broad strokes.
“Set up a patrol,” Ben said as his defensors opened the doors for him. He stepped inside, his eyes lifting to the ceiling, where a glass dome let in hazy light. “Summon the University’s overseer. I’ll need to speak with him to find the laboratory and other supplies.”
Men broke off to do his bidding, but Ben was already walking toward a door on the left. He remembered the University as well as he remembered every plant Rodrigu had taught him. All the information sat in his mind, locked in a box covered in ashes—but he wouldn’t let anyone know he remembered these sinful things so well. Not yet.
He heaved his shoulder against the door, knowing he’d find the laboratory behind it.
Tall windows lit an oak table littered with empty vials, mortars and pestles, shattered glass, and broken clamps, all beneath a film of dust and cobwebs. The delicate bouquet of plants still fragranced the air, earthy and bitter, the smell of long nights and his uncle’s laugh and Paxben crossing his eyes at him through the warped glass of a beaker.
Ben felt as if he’d been in the room as recently as yesterday. Rodrigu had stood in that corner, grinding plants; Paxben had sat at the table, kicking his legs on the stool; Inquisitors had scurried around the room, making tonics, filing reports.
“They’re testing plants,” Rodrigu had said.
Paxben had scrunched his nose in disbelief. “How do you test something for evil?”
“The tests reveal the effect. If the effect causes harm, it is evil.”
Jakes entered the room and dropped the chest onto the table. Ben jumped.
None of the other defensors had followed Jakes in, leaving them encased in sunlight, surrounded by ruin.
Elazar had planned the delegation to Grace Loray a year in advance—how long had he been planning Ben’s assignment? He knew how much Ben had loved his uncle and cousin, so Elazar had to know how much this—magic—meant to Ben. Did he want to free Ben from living a lie, and bring acceptance to Argrid, and reignite peace with Grace Loray?
“Have you heard anything?” Ben asked Jakes. “Have any of the defensors . . . have there been rumors of magic? Are others meant to report my actions?”
Elazar had briefed Ben’s defensors on the delicate nature of this project before they’d left for the University. But Ben had long ago accepted that members of his personal guard would always be more loyal to the king than to him.
Jakes gave Ben a sympathetic smile. “I hadn’t heard anything until today.”
“Would you have, though?” Ben nodded toward the rest of the University. “My whole guard knows we’re involved. If something is afoot, they’d keep us both ignorant.”
Jakes frowned. “What do you think is happening?”
Ben shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I’m afraid, I suppose.” He flicked a broken piece of glass across the table. “All who dabble in magic end up beyond reach. As you said.”
“The king and the Pious God ordained this task. The Devil’s touch will not corrupt you.”
Ben laughed, dry and sad. “You put too much faith in me, Jakes.”
And I don’t know how much further I would fall without you.
Ben gasped. He wanted to pour out the unworthiness that gnawed at him whenever they went to services and he watched Jakes sing hymns, his eyes closed in reverence. That was what had first drawn Ben to him—Jakes embodied the devotion Ben hadn’t felt in years.
Jakes took Ben’s arm, his face alive with piety.
“You know I came to Deza after my family died. My parents of influenza. My sister and her children of Shaking Sickness. But I really left because I couldn’t—” Jakes stopped. “My parents and sister believed in this country. In making it better. So I left to serve Argrid. The Pious God has me in your service as he has you in his service—because we are the best tools for his tasks.”
Ben parted his lips. He wanted to tell Jakes the truth. That a cure that could have saved his family wasn’t in a blessing from an absent God—it was in that chest. Ben had watched Rodrigu perform a test in this room, using botanical magic to cure a patient of influenza within a day. Prayer might work, but magic was always effective.
Except against Shaking Sickness. For now.
Ben said other impossible words instead. “The Mechtlands.”
Jakes squinted.
“If there were no responsibilities. No Pious God, no higher calling. We’d go to the Mechtlands,” Ben said. “It would be cold, and barren, and a raving warrior would probably kill us. But we’d build a hut. You could teach me how to fish. We’d never have to deal with . . .”
Ben waved at the University around them. At Argrid. At the Church and his father.
Jakes pulled the sun from the window to his smile. “Give a guy a chance, would you?”
“Apologies, Defensor. I’ll try to be more repulsive.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
Ben faced the chest. He opened it, hoping it would make him feel steadier. Vials of botanical magic stared up at him, each nestled in a snug velvet compartment.
Awacia. Healica. Aerated Blossom. Then—a brown flower. He struggled. Cleanse Root? One of the most powerful plants, capable of healing both internal and external wounds.
“Defensors and protesters destroyed most of the University’s resources after my uncle’s heresy,” Ben said. “We’ll have to find someone to assist us. Someone to . . .”
Take the blame, Ben wanted to say. Even with Jakes believing that this mission was right, Ben wouldn’t admit that he could name the plants in this chest, and was already piecing together how he could use the Healica and the Cleanse Root—
No matter how his new responsibility tempted him, Ben was playing a dangerous game with people who would cry Heretic! at the slightest provocation.
“We need someone who understands magic,” Ben said. But the ones who knew anything were priests and defensors, who only used their magic to condemn people.
A moment of silence in which Ben heard Jakes humming softly to himself. He didn’t recognize the hymn, but that was unsurprising—Jakes knew far more than Ben.
Finally, Jakes said, “The raiders. Maybe one could help us as a way to cleanse his soul.”
Ben nodded, the idea gaining traction. He knew which raider to ask, too. The one who had already proven himself familiar with magic.
The Mecht warrior.
6
THE COUNCIL MEETING devolved into arguments fueled by Milo and the Argridian diplomats, who offered occasional suggestions that bordered on insults. The room was on the edge of combustion—should they please the raider Head or the Argridians, or deal with Devereux in some other way? Should they act on Milo’s proposed bill to eradicate the stream raiders, or take another stance with Devereux’s sentence? The decision would be definitive. Too definitive.
If the Council killed Devereux Bell, it would mean war with the raiders—Head Pilkvist would take it as proof that the Council wouldn’t negotiate, and the Argridian contingent would push for the Council to act on Milo’s bill to eliminate raiders. If the Council gave Devereux to Ingvar Pilkvist, tensions with Argrid would spike and the peace treaty would dissolve—the Argridians would be outraged that the Council had complied with the demands of criminals.
Devereux’s fate would anger either the raiders or the Argridians.
Neither threat was preferable.
In the row ahead of Lu, a councilmember called out in favor of Devere
ux’s death—thereby endorsing the bill to eradicate stream raiders. Lu blanched, leaning closer to her father.
“Either we kill Bell and strike a match on the fuse of civil war,” Lu whispered to Tom, “or Ingvar Pilkvist kills Bell and the Argridian treaty likely disintegrates.”
Tom’s lips puckered. “Much is riding on one boy. Apparently Bell was caught in the market, assaulting a lady? A foolish mistake for someone with his reputation to make, especially at such a time as this.”
Lu’s cheeks heated, but her embarrassment was alleviated by her father’s implication. “You think this might have been planned?”
“We don’t have enough information to make assumptions.” Tom’s gaze turned to the door through which the soldiers had dragged an unconscious Devereux Bell. “If only there were someone with a proven talent for getting information out of people. Someone Devereux Bell might not be expecting.”
Tom looked at her again, a spark in his eyes. He was being coy, and she wanted to respond in kind, to joke about how capable she had been during the war. But a hole opened in her stomach, and she looked to the front of the room, to Milo, in a heated debate with Kari again.
“I’m not that person anymore,” Lu whispered. “I don’t have to be.”
Tom took her hand and drew her focus back. “No, darling. You would not be going after him as a spy or a soldier. You would be only questioning him, and as a politician.”
Lu weighed that. As a politician. Not as someone who would go with weapons tucked into her stockings or escape routes planned.
She smiled, soft and true, and squeezed Tom’s hand. That was all she needed to excuse herself from the meeting—everyone was so distracted that she simply walked down the aisle.
All Senior Councilmembers held apartments in the castle, where they stayed during particularly long sessions, so Lu stopped at her family’s apartment to gather supplies before she slipped down to the castle’s dungeon.
The two soldiers on duty snapped to attention as Lu entered the alcove that linked the wings of the dungeon. A ring of keys jostled at one’s hip, the only keys that opened the four doors branching off this bare room.
One of the soldiers stepped forward to intercept her.
She tugged at her satchel. “I’ve brought some supplies for Mr. Bell. He may be more likely to cooperate if we show him a few courtesies.”
The soldier’s eyes brightened. “Ahhh. Come to gawk at the notorious raider?”
The other soldier smirked. “I bet Bell’s got lovers in every port. Careful, miss—criminals only lead to heartbreak.”
The first one muttered, “And diseases.”
The other soldier snorted and covered it by coughing.
She had anticipated this. Lu adjusted her satchel over the dress she had changed into. The scarlet gown crested over narrow panniers that gave the skirt a fashionable drape from her hips, complete with a bodice stitched in a golden vine motif and bell sleeves accented by ruffles. Feigning lovesickness had been the second excuse she had planned.
With a delicate sigh, she patted her cheeks. “Oh no, an innocent visit, truly. . . .”
The soldiers shared another chuckle. One shrugged, unhooking the keys from his belt. “Eh, he’s restrained well enough. No danger in a short visit.”
“Maybe danger’s what she wants.” The first soldier winked at her.
They unlocked one of the iron doors that led from the alcove. A hall appeared before Lu, the stone floor slick from the moisture of humidity, iron bars designating each cell. Two other soldiers stood outside a cell on the left. When the door squealed, they glanced over.
The soldier who opened the door grinned at them. “Bell’s got a visitor.” He looked at Lu. “Been a quiet few days as far as serious crime, so you’ve got no other prisoners to worry about.”
Lu started down the hall, her silence stoking more chuckles as the door closed. The guards outside Devereux’s cell stepped out of earshot yet were still close enough to intervene if needed.
Bell was in one of the cells with a window, and the evening cast moonlight through; tapers in the hall lit all else. He was conscious now, spread out on the bench beneath the window, one leg crossed over the other, his foot bouncing. His eye was closed, his arm bent to cradle his head.
Lu stepped closer to the bars. “Mr. Bell,” she said.
Vex heard the door to his wing open and assumed it was someone come to interrogate him, so he stayed reclined, kicking his foot in the air.
But the voice that said his name was infinitely more interesting.
Vex grinned and rolled his head to face the hall. A few cuts from Pilkvist’s beating burned at the movement, but his grin stayed when he saw the girl outside his cell. She wore a fancy red dress that pulled out the golden tones in her brown skin and made her hair glossier in the light from the wall sconces.
“Now this is a surprise.” He flailed his legs into the air and spun off the bench, but his gut reminded him that he’d recently been punched in the stomach.
As he wheezed, the girl said, “You were given nothing for your injuries.”
Vex looked up. “Have you come to tend my wounds?”
She moved something over her shoulder—a satchel, the one he’d tried to steal from—and pulled out a jar of ointment.
Vex’s eye widened. “Seriously? But if you insist I disrobe, I must ask the same of you.”
The girl held the jar to her stomach. “I have matters to discuss with you, Mr. Bell.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Just Vex.”
“Vex. Truly?”
He grinned again. “Deeply.”
She stood close enough that if he was against the bars, they’d be nearly chest to chest. He took a step forward, not realizing until then that she might not appreciate being so close to the man who’d scared her half to death in the market. Would she have come down here if that were true?
This would tell him how much he’d hurt her. If he needed to make amends.
He sauntered over and rested his elbows on one of the horizontal bars, a dare in his eye.
The girl lifted a thin black eyebrow but didn’t move away. She wasn’t much shorter than he was, and the angle allowed for a certain vantage point that Nayeli liked to use during cons. It was why she spent so much money on the really nice silk stays. They lifted and pushed certain things higher and tighter and—
Vex swallowed, fighting a shudder, but it came anyway and he swallowed again.
“What could you want to ask me, Miss—” He waited.
“Andreu.”
“Andreu? As in the daughter of Kari the Wave?”
The girl was unruffled. “The daughter of a Senior Councilmember, yes.”
Vex grinned. “I figured you weren’t the typical riffraff who shop from raiders, but I never would’ve guessed you were the daughter of someone important. I know how to pick my marks.”
The muscles in the girl’s jaw bulged. She glanced at the guards, but they didn’t have much interest in their conversation.
“A matter you would be wise to keep to yourself, lest you wish to bring the Council’s wrath upon you,” the girl whispered.
A coil of black hair brushed her collarbone. She had a bit of Tuncian in her, which gave her skin that golden hue, but maybe a little Argridian, too.
“It is only due to my compassion that you aren’t dead already,” she said.
“Ah. So I’m indebted to you?”
“In a way.”
His smile flared. “What do you want in exchange for your assistance, Miss Andreu?”
“I picked up many things from your display in the courtroom, chief among them your disregard for the severity of your circumstances.”
She waited, eyebrows raised, and Vex rolled his eye.
“Of all the things we could be doing . . . fine, milady.” Vex shoved back and swept his arm in a dramatic bow. “Shockingly, you’re not the first person to accuse me of wanting to be here, and I’d bet what’s left of my reputation that y
ou won’t be the last.”
“What’s left of your reputation?”
“I’ve become the most notorious unaligned raider in Grace Loray.” He pressed back against the bars. “What possible reason do you think I’d have to ruin that? While I’m flattered your people think I’m a criminal mastermind, I’m here against my will, Túa Alteza.”
Your Highness, spoken in the fancy language of Argrid’s upper class to see if she reacted to it with the same haughtiness Argridian bullies showed. Though he’d dealt only with men, that didn’t mean his blackmailers wouldn’t send a girl to get something out of him. Actually, they should’ve sent pretty girls to sway him from the start.
But she didn’t flinch. “You were caught, alone, in the market. You didn’t try to run.”
Vex groaned. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve repeated this story since I got put in here, Princesa?”
The girl cringed.
“As with most aspects of raider life,” he began the lie he’d sculpted, “things got dangerous, and I got separated from my crew. Stopped in the market to gather enough supplies to find them. Saw a certain young lady, who shall remain nameless, and figured she’d have a few dozen galles on her, and—” He rubbed his bruised nose with a smirk. “She surprised me. It was stupid, but it was an accident, Princesa.”
The girl pursed her lips. She definitely didn’t like that title.
“You have to see the curiosity in this.” She tapped the jar on the iron. “Your reputation is that you have avoided capture because you know Grace Loray better than anyone. Surely you would not lose your own crew.”
Vex grimaced. If her mother was a Senior Councilmember, maybe she wasn’t an Argridian agent—but had the Council sent her here?
“Is this why you came here?” he asked, letting his irritation show. “The Council thinks I’ll spill my secrets to a pair of pretty eyes and tightly pulled stays?”
The girl smiled as if he’d given away something important. “I already know your secrets.”
“Do you now?” He echoed her smile, making his slier.
The girl leaned in. She smelled like . . . plants? He inhaled again, thrown by the scent. Yeah, he knew dried botanical magic when he smelled it.