I’m about to ask for specifics when I stop myself, the pieces slotting into place in my mind. A servant who calls the king by his given name. A servant with a bulging bag of coin. A servant confident she has sway over men, enough to call them to muster. To inspire them to fight. I think I understand now. I remember the knowing look on the soldiers’ faces when Kirin said I was a camp follower. I deliberately don’t think about her knowing my brother.
“Errin,” she says softly, and I look at her. Her face is solemn. “It won’t stop. The Sleeping Prince won’t stop at Lormere. Your Council knows that. He’ll come here next. And he’ll do to the people of Tregellan what he’s done to mine. Your people slaughtered. Your people’s heads mounted atop poles. Your people running.” She puts her goblet down and crosses the room, pausing before she reaches for my hands.
“I’m not saying I can beat him. I know the odds, and as you said, he has golems, as well as his human forces. But I have to try. If I can get word to Lormere that they have reason to hope, and fight… You know, in the last war, they were losing against your people. And then … they rallied. They were given cause to hope and it made them fight harder. I would give them that. Help me do it. And I’ll help you.”
Kirin said Lormere’s greatest weakness was that they didn’t try to fight back. And now here is this girl, this Lormerian servant who wants to make it happen. Who believes that she can.
I pull my hands from hers and stand, moving past her to the window. I press my forehead against the cool glass, watching as new drops of rain merge with older ones until they become tiny rivers that run down the pane. Flashes of lightning illuminate the horizon; I can see where the cliffs must begin. Where the land ends.
The philtresmith isn’t here, and without her, I have no chance of finding the Conclave or getting the Elixir. Perhaps she was never here at all; maybe Ely was wrong, delirious with pain. How could I be sure he knew what he was saying? The only way I’ll know for certain is if Silas shows up, looking for her – and then what? Do I try to follow him, reason with him, beg him again? I huff quietly, my breath fogging the pane as I imagine it. No. That bridge is well and truly burned. The one thing I’m certain of is that I have to get Mama back; she’s all I have. She’s my responsibility.
I try and sort through it all, taking quiet, deep breaths as the minutes pass, each one like a decade. What choice do I have?
“Well?” Dimia says behind me. “Will you join me?”
I turn to face her. “You’ll help me keep my mother safe? No matter what you hear about her?”
Her eyes narrow briefly, but she nods. “I swear.”
“Yes, then. I’ll be your apothecary.”
A dark look crosses her face. “I need you to swear it too, Errin Vastel. No blackmail, no double-crossing, no betrayal.”
I blush and hold out my hand. “I swear it. I won’t betray you. I just want to keep my mother safe.”
Her eyes bore into mine for what feels like an age. Then she nods, clasping my hand between both of hers. “And so it is done.” Her words send a thrill through me, as though someone has walked over my grave. “Thank you. Tomorrow, we’ll leave, go to Tressalyn straight away. I’ll buy your mother’s freedom and then we’ll bring her back here. But for now we should get some rest,” she says. “There is another room that could be used for sleeping, though it’s presently unfurnished. I’m afraid I’m not used to living with so much space. Before we leave tomorrow I’ll engage a carpenter to see to it for when we return with your mother. But tonight you’re welcome to take my bed.”
I shake my head. She doesn’t insist; instead she gathers blankets and cushions, trying to make a kind of bed.
“Goodnight, then,” she says, pausing in the doorway to what I assume is her bedroom. She looks as if she might speak, then closes the door firmly. I shed my cloak and bed down in the pile of blankets she’s created for me. In my new home. And I