I stay to the sides of the road, riding in the grass where I can, anxious not to leave a trail to follow. As the sun moves across the sky and the shadows lengthen, I start to see signs of the refugees gone before us. We pass a lost wooden doll, its scarred face turned skyward, the painted eyes following us eerily. I see a shoe, a little larger than mine, abandoned, and wonder how it wasn’t missed and what happened to its owner. Who could afford to lose a shoe? Other things litter the roadside: paper, broken glass, bits of cloth, leaving a trail for me to follow, and I do, using the remnants to guide me deeper into Tregellan and towards Scarron.
Because unless he too managed to steal a horse, Silas Kolby is heading north on foot, through a country he doesn’t know. So I’m going to ride like the wind to Scarron and find this girl first, before Silas does and they disappear into the Conclave for good. The only thing that makes sense is that she’s a philtresmith; I’m convinced of it. That’s why the alchemists want to find her so badly. Silas said they have limited supplies of the Elixir and my guess is it’s because she’s cut them off. Because of this bad blood. And now that the Sleeping Prince is here, they want to find her and reconcile.
Family first.
So I’ll beat him to Scarron, I’ll be the one to tell her that she’s in danger and that she should hide in the Conclave. I’ll escort her there. I’ll do his job, and when the Conclave are falling over themselves to thank me, I’ll tell them they can repay me by getting my mother out of the asylum, giving us sanctuary, and a few drops of Elixir each moon. A small price to pay for restoring their philtresmith to them.
And then, when Mama is settled, I’ll make Silas Kolby regret betraying me.
In the week that I first met Silas, I also turned seventeen, and learned that the Sleeping Prince was impossibly still alive, and had woken, invaded Lortune, taken Lormere castle, and killed the king, all in one night.
It was also the week that we both realized Lief was trapped there.
I told my mother what I’d heard at the well, trying to stay calm, all the while my ribcage constricting until there was no space inside me for air, no room to breathe. She looked at me, then turned her face to the wall. And I left her, walking out of the house, walking into the woods, walking halfway to Lormere before I realized where I was. The whole time, the pressure in my chest didn’t let up, becoming a solid weight between my lungs, until I grew used to it. I told myself that he might be all right, that he was probably on his way home even now. That was the thought that made me turn around. On the long walk back I convinced myself he’d be there when I got home, that we’d passed each other in the woods. That we’d laugh about it. That lightning hadn’t struck twice. But when I got to the hut he wasn’t there. And neither was my mother.
I found her half a mile away, buried in a pile of leaves, her arms shredded and bleeding from deep and jagged cuts. When I asked her what happened, she stayed silent, her eyes both wild and dead.
The following day I ventured back into those selfsame woods to find herbs, plants, anything that might stop the scratches from becoming infected. With the dark forest all around me, shadowed and secretive, I worried about everything, knowing something inside me, and in her, was broken, terrified it couldn’t be fixed. There was suddenly so much to be afraid of: poverty, illness, death. More death. Every rustle, every grunt, every bird call caused my heart to try to leap out of my chest, uncaring about the bone and flesh in its way.
My hands had trembled as I tried to peel willow bark away from the trunk, the blade on my beautiful apothecary’s knife – the last gift my father ever gave me – now dulled, my nerves ringing with fear. Then I heard the telltale crunch of leaves behind me, the snap of a twig that meant something big was there, and I turned to find a hooded man approaching me, his body lowered in a predatory crouch.