have been scrying this letter since it was sent. If you are amenable to helping, please touch your right hand to your nose. If you aren’t, thank you very much for the money and education. You’re dead to me.
“A bit much,” I whispered and touched my nose. “Point taken, however.”
“Here.” Charles held out another letter with the same seal. “Messenger had specific instructions, but I am curious to a fault, so I tipped well to leave it to me.”
“Thank you,” I said, not meaning it at all. He laughed.
Well, at least someone was putting the family money to good use.
Good. That boy you saw was my friend’s brother. His name was Gabriel. There will be no forgiveness for this.
I’ve been working with Laurel to scry for common soldiers and give them information about the court, and if we tell Laurel about Gabriel, they can tell the rest of the Demeine. Flyers, posters, placards—we tell everyone what they did to him. What they want to do to the rest of us. People may decide to believe it or not, but I think they will. We just have to tell enough people. We hope. That’s what we need your help with—getting the word out. We can’t leave the school.
Also, I’ve enclosed a letter for my brother, Macé. He’s Chevalier du Ferrant’s new hack.
I’m glad you’re not dead to me.
“Me too,” I muttered.
I tucked Macé’s letter into my pocket. I gathered a few small strands of power, channeled them through my hands, and burned the letters to me in my hands. The ash, with a bit of material from my blood, I wiped away as nothing more than water. Madeline had come to stand behind me, and she took a deep breath. I nodded.
“We have a plan,” I said. “Except…”
I looked across the empty infirmary bed to Charles.
He crossed his arms and smiled. “You really should be more careful about working for Laurel.”
I felt the soft prickle of Madeline gathering the noonday arts behind me.
Charles must have felt it too because he held up his hands. “I have been informing Laurel of the physicians’ and apprentices’ movements for months. Brigitte, the Laurel from Bloodletters, told me you visited her.”
Madeline’s magic dissipated.
“But you adore Laurence and being a physician,” I said. “Why?”
“Because Demeine is deeply flawed, and though it hates me, my family name provides me a safety others do not have. Demeine’s society is a double-edged sword that I and many others do not fit into for one reason or another, and Laurel’s goal is to make Demeine safe for everyone. A nation should be a shield, not a weapon,” he said. “I won’t lie. I was shocked you joined Laurel, Emilie.”
That was when he had started trusting me.
“We have things we need to tell you,” I said, glancing at Madeline. “But not here. Laurence’s?”
Charles nodded.
I led us to the tent, Charles walking behind Madeline and me. She was about the only person I trusted there, but it wasn’t odd now that I considered it, that Charles was part of Laurel. If he was lying, I was fairly certain the two of us could take him in a fight.
Probably.
Laurence’s tent was blessedly empty. We made Charles enter first, and I nearly groaned as he grinned.
“This isn’t a happy occasion,” Madeline said in her flat tone. “Monsieur.”
Charles sat down hard on Laurence’s cot. “What’s happened?”
“Pièrre du Guay used a hack’s body as fodder to repair the king’s wounds from using battle magic,” I said. “He could feel everything, and when they were done, they left him to rot. With the amount of magic they channeled, I imagine degradation is accelerated. There were other bodies, and they were not fully human in how they were breaking down.”
His jaw tightened, and a trio of wrinkles creased his forehead. His white skin paled till his freckles were nothing but flecks of rust on snow.
“We want to tell people,” I said softly, “and we especially want to tell Laurel, if they can still get the word out. You know Brigitte?”
“Yes, I do. I knew the contact in Bosquet first, Aaliz. They were a friend of the family. They helped me…” Charles let out a deep breath slowly and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll help. If people know, there will be no distraction big enough to make them forget.”
“So, Laurel can help?”
Charles wobbled his hand back and forth. “The real Laurel—the ones who started it and said they would take the fall for any arrests—haven’t been in contact with the