drinks a lot of wine, he’ll never get better. He’ll need to buy this same potion every time his gout flares up for the rest of his life. You tell him if he wants the gout gone, he needs to stop drinking. If he won’t, which I’m betting will be the case, start putting two drops of this—” Kylar handed the man the second vial, “in every glass of his wine. It will give him a terrific headache. Make sure you do it every time he takes wine. While you’re at it, you can give him this each morning and night for his bad stomach. And feed him less. Give a little of this last one with each meal, it should help him feel full sooner.”
“How’d you know he had a bad stomach?”
Kylar smiled mysteriously. “And take him off everything else the physickers have ordered, especially the bloodletting and the leeches. He should be a new man in six weeks, if you make him lose weight.”
“How much?” the steward asked.
“Depends on how fat he is,” Kylar said.
The steward laughed. “No, how much do I owe you?”
Kylar thought about it. He did some math of what the ingredients had cost and doubled it. He told the steward.
The mousy man looked at him, astonished. “A bit of advice, young man. You should get a shop on the north side, because if this works, there’s a lot of noble business that’s going to be coming your way. And another thing: if this even helps a little, you should charge twice that. If it actually does what you said, you should charge ten times that—otherwise the nobles won’t believe it’s real.”
Kylar smiled, warmed just to hear someone speak to him as if he knew what he was doing—which he did. “Well then, you owe me ten times what I said before.”
The steward laughed. “If Lord Garazul gets better, I’ll do better than that. Here’s all I’ve got on me in the meantime.” He tossed Kylar two new silver coins. “Good day, young master.”
Watching the man go, Kylar was surprised how good it felt. Maybe it was better to heal than to kill. Or maybe it was just good to feel appreciated. How had Durzo done it? He’d been a dozen different heroes over the ages—maybe scores of different heroes. Hadn’t he ever wanted to just announce himself? Tell everyone who he was, and have them show the proper awe? Here I am, adore me.
But Durzo had never come across like that. Kylar had grown up with him and had never had a clue that his master was the Night Angel, much less any of the other identities he’d had. Why not? Durzo had seemed arrogant in certain parts of his life. He’d certainly shown a huge disdain for most wetboys and most of the Sa’kagé, but he’d never equated himself with the great heroes of history.
The pang of loss cut Kylar again. Gods, Durzo had been dead three months—and despite the passage of time, it wasn’t getting any better.
Kylar felt the little box in his pocket. He died so I could have Elene. Kylar tried to push Durzo from his mind with that thought. Let’s just get through Uly’s birthday, and then I can ask Elene to marry me. Then Uly can hear more creaking than she’s ever imagined.
“Kylar,” Uly said, jerking him out of his reverie. “Are you going to answer my question?”
Ah, shit. “Uly,” he said gently. “I know you don’t feel like it, and you’re certainly as smart as someone a lot older, but you’re still a . . .” He furrowed his brow, knowing the next part wasn’t going to go over well. “You’re still a child.” It was true, dammit.
“No I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I just had my first moon blood this week. Aunt Mea says that means I’m a woman now. It really hurt and it scared me at first. My stomach got real sore and my back and then—”
“Ah!” Kylar waved his hands, trying to make her stop.
“What? Aunt Mea said it was nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“Aunt Mea’s not your father!”
“Who is?” Uly asked, quick as a whip.
Kylar said nothing.
“And who’s my mother? You know, don’t you? My nurses always treated me different from the other children. The last one always got scared whenever I got hurt. When I got a cut on my face once, she was so afraid it would be a scar that she didn’t sleep for weeks. Sometimes a lady would watch us