his face and knocked him to the ground.”
“Luckily, she seemed as stunned as we were,” Kiernan said. “I was able to catch her, and James and I returned her to the crate.”
“Is this something we need to be concerned about?” Xavier asked. “We can’t have the Arboreal attacking our buyers.”
“Or actors,” James added.
“I’m not rightly sure, to be honest,” Kiernan said. “I’ve never known it to happen before. Boris has not moved once, in all the months we’ve had him. He mostly hums those strange songs that help his saplings grow.”
“Francis said he’d never seen anything like it, and he spends the most time with them,” James said.
“Such a wondrous turn of events,” Kiernan was muttering to himself. “First this girl appears, then those ruins in Braxos, then Boris comes to life.”
Leo could see the gears in his father’s head working. “Wondrous,” he murmured. “Yes. But fortuitous or something more?”
“You think these events are connected?” Kiernan asked.
“I do not believe in coincidence,” Xavier replied dryly. “I told you, Ezra. I told you the island existed. We must get to it before anyone else. That is imperative. A Pelagan ship is what we need—it’ll be faster and will draw less attention once it reaches Pelagan waters. There are going to be a lot of people, Kaolin and Pelagan alike, who will be tracking Braxos down.” His eyes grew distant. “Braxos,” he murmured, as if the name was a long-forgotten friend.
But the moment vanished as quickly as it had come, and when he spoke again, his voice was stony.
“Ambrosine will be assembling ships as we speak. We have to act quickly.” The name Ambrosine was familiar, but Leo couldn’t seem to place it. Everything felt dull and fuzzy, as if this conversation was happening in a dream.
His father turned to James. “You still know people at the Seaport?”
“A fair few, from my old days playing the taverns and such.”
“Yes,” Xavier drawled. “And such.” James’s face flushed, and Leo felt he was missing something. “I want to know everything that goes on down there—who is setting sail, and in what ships. I need a sense of the competition. And the rumors, too, no matter how far-fetched. Is that understood?”
James nodded curtly. He looked down at Leo. “Your son should put some ice on that cheek. He’s going to have one hell of a bruise.”
The word dislodged something in Leo’s brain. When he’d been with the girl, stared at her face, noticed the color of her eyelashes . . . there had been no sign of Branson’s fist, of the bruise he had seen forming the day before. How was that possible? Surely there should have been some mark left at least.
“No bruise,” he mumbled. His jaw ached.
“Not to worry, it will be gone in a couple of weeks,” Kiernan said.
“The ladies like a man with some battle scars,” James said with a wink. “Just don’t tell them it was a tree that hit you.”
They weren’t understanding at all. “No.” Leo pushed himself up on his pillows despite the pain. “The girl. She had no bruise.” He looked to his father. “You saw how hard Branson hit her. Her face should have been bruised, but it wasn’t. It was . . . like he hadn’t hit her at all. You saw her,” he said, turning to Kiernan.
“I did,” he said. “She was assaulted, you say?”
“She was trying to run,” Xavier said. “Something of a pattern, it would seem.”
“But the boy is right, she did not have a scratch on her.” Kiernan rubbed his chin, muttering to himself, then gasped. “Perhaps her blood.”
“Her what?” James asked.
“Her blood—it is blue and . . . and it sparkles.”
James snorted.
“See for yourself,” Kiernan said indignantly, taking the vial out of his bag and holding it up. It was even more impressive drenched in the sunlight pouring through Leo’s windows than it had been in the theater. The light that flickered through its rich blue depths was captivating to watch, like flames of silvery fire. James’s doubtful expression turned to one of wonder.
“Perhaps there is something of a healing nature that lives in her blood, an antibody of some kind, or . . .” Kiernan sighed. “But I am just guessing.”
“Test it.” Xavier’s voice had the edge of a man trying very hard not to sound too excited. His eyes were fixed on the vial.
“I beg your pardon?”
He nodded at Leo’s face. “If this blood has healing power, test it. On him.”
“Sir, I do not think that would be