CHAPTER 72

The big day finds me down in the lab, holding a vial glass vial over a candle and taking care to not let it break from the heat. The mixture inside bubbles softly, a dirty furious orange. It’s taking longer than it should, and I wonder if I made another mistake, if…

The potion changes color. The orange turns darker, angrier even, and then, slowly, red overtakes from top to bottom. I breathe out, put the potion away to breathe, and stretch my tense muscles.

I can spot a faint light at the very top of the ventilation shaft, which means morning has arrived, and I should be getting ready for the fight.

The filtered light brings yesterday to the fore of my attention. The pain is a dull and confusing memory.

Lagos leading the way down into the bowels of the keep. Deeper than the galleries, deeper than the dark private rooms. A scowling and scarred man bowed to Lagos and opened a door for us in the dark, which gave way to a long, barely illuminated corridor ending on an ornate iron door. On both sides of the corridor was a row of dingy stone cells, and we walked past each one, a slow parade of prisoners, more wight than people, stopping at the last one on the right.

Lagos shined a light on the interior. The image inside was still burned into my mind.

“Valkas wanted you to know,” Lagos said. “He wanted to make sure you understood.”

Medrein lay against the back wall of the cell, insensate, with his eyes semi open. Blood had flown from a wound on his forehead before drying in a red stripe on his face. The rest of the visitation was a blur. My father didn’t answer when I called him. Lagos didn’t expand on what he meant. Soon after he led me out of that corridor, and escorted me to my rooms.

I don’t know how I fell asleep, but I know I slept badly through most of the afternoon, hectic dreams interspersed with bouts of wakefulness that finally propelled me out of bed. On my way to the lab, I passed Gedden in the hallway, who informed me that Lysander hadn’t yet returned from Hollow House. His face contorted as he noticed something was wrong, which dragged the words out of my mouth.

“You think something is keeping him?” I asked.

“I’m sure,” he said, letting his own worries obfuscate mine. “I just don’t know what. Delos went to check.”

I wouldn’t get to practice with whatever magic item Lysander had gone to collect, I noted to myself, resuming my path. Troubled, I dragged my feet passing Hilde’s door, but didn’t knock. The world was asleep, but Meriana didn’t seem the type to care the hour at which her orders were disobeyed. Her secret, the one thing I could hang over her head, loomed vaguely in my mind, a key that could be twisted to great effect.

If I could find out what the secret was. If I could free Medrein first. If I could make sure Rue was cared for, wherever he was. If, first of all, if my stupidity didn’t cause Essa’s death too.

If you survive, supplied the dungeon mind.

Yes. If I survive. The thought stayed with me all the way to the laboratory, where I closed the door and worked against my faults, using my one hand with twice the care to offset the absence of its sister.

And now my works are complete. At least my time is over.

Five little vials had resulted of my time in the dungeons, lined up now in front of me. Two are strength potions, a ruddy red liquid that oozes more than sloshes when shaken. Another, a muted rose pink, is a simple healing potion. I’d hoped to make more, but they were time consuming. The remaining two vials hold a dark and brackish liquid that covers only a small portion of the glass contained. Poison. Gedden had been wrong; I wasn’t better at poisons than potions. These two vials were the result of a night of careful measuring, tweaking, and guessing. I hadn’t attempted an armor potion again.

Fearful of being late, I collect my vials and a belt with pouches that I’d discovered at the very bottom of a pile of material, and leave the room. Again I pause by Hilde’s door, and again cowardice makes me resume walking, up the stairs and into the galleries and passages that lead to the cluster of rooms that belong to Lysander, feeling more eyes on me than usual.

Gedden paces the hallway, illuminated by the light streaming in from the tall windows, looking down over the city and the ocean. He doesn’t crack a joke when he sees me appear, but instead shrugs, throws his hands out to both sides.

“What?”

“Lysander,” he says in a strangled tone that seems to imply every explanation has been provided. The he points into the rich doors that leads into Lysanders and Delos’ room.

Delos is inside. The dark-haired elf is sitting down on the large double bed, tapping his foot on the thick rug and worrying his bottom lip like a dog would a bone. I can tell he hasn’t slept.

“What happened?” I insist.

Delos only shakes his head.

“He wasn’t there,” Gedden answers. “At Hollow House. Never made it there, apparently.”

I stare at them both, dumbfounded.

“He travelled there—” I begin, trying to piece the issue together.

“He travelled to Hollor’s Fall,” Delos says, his voice even though I can a slight tremor in his lip. “He didn’t have his amulet. He got a horse at Roark’s, the man himself and some assistants confirmed it. And then nothing.” He shakes his head. “Amelia never saw him enter.”

I cross the room to a sturdy bedside table with Lysander’s nonmagical jewelry strewn about. I sift through the baubles, and finally open a drawer to find only a book. A hefty tome called Refreshments of the Court of King Domar the First.

“What are you doing?” Delos demands, looking over his shoulder.

“He might have left a clue,” I say. “Maybe he was planning something, maybe he had to go somewhere else…”

I pick up the book. It’s exactly what it promises: a listing of refreshments popular at the time of one specific king, complete with recipes and historical information regarding each drink. It’s uselessness is such that it confounds me.

“Mossgreen,” I say. “Did he see him?”

Delos turns to me. His eyes are red from tiredness, but his mouth is curled with fury.

“Mossgreen wasn’t there.”

“Did you check the cave?” Gedden asks suddenly, striding into the room.

“Of course I checked the goddamn cave,” the elf snarls. “Went there twice. Yelled for Mossgreen all night long. Nothing. The bastard either left or is hiding.”

Silence creeps into the room, burying each of us in our own thoughts. At the same time I was aware of a building din, a growing restlessness in the depths of the keep.

Mossgreen had been making threats, I think. He wasn’t happy. Maybe…

I didn’t want to believe the blind old troll had seriously done something to Lysander. I remember him urging a sapling to grow straight up, towards the light, wonder if that same creature could have attacked the elf as he was returning home.

Yes. Yes he could.

Easily. Mossgreen’s patience at the end of its wick, Lysander walking through his forest after gods know how long… Something must have snapped. I page idly through the book, trying to find notes, codes, anything…

Hold on.

A page refuses to turn, like it’s glued to its neighbors. I try a few more and find the last section of the book, a certainly dazzlingly interesting section about which courtspeople favored which drink, is glued together into a solid structure. I turn last unglued page, and there, in a carefully cut cavity, I find the ruby sparkling of the refresh potion.

“Look.” I say to the world at large. “He left it here.”

Delos looks at me, but makes no movement to grab the potion.

“What does that mean?” he asks me, sounding like a lost child.

I don’t know what to tell him.

“Lysander can’t die,” I say instead, pocketing the potion. “He’s fine, and all we have to do is find him. Delos, you should…”

“I should go back,” he says, nodding. “Which means leaving you to your fate. I won’t be there for the duel.”

“Screw the duel. If I die, I need Lysander to be able to fulfill his promise to me. I need you to find him.”

Delos nods, stands. His hands are still unsteady, his movements quick and erratic. Strange to think this bundle of worry has jumping out of windows to impale himself on Essa’s sword over and over again just a day ago.

Leaning against the doorjamb, Gedden mutters to himself. He lefts his head to look at us, his mouth creased with apprehension.

“What if this is it?” he asks. “What if Valkas made his move and we were too distracted to see it? What if this is war?”

“When we arrived…” Delos starts like he just remembered something. Then he stops, hesitates, and finally resumes. “In the keep, I mean. Lysander asked me to go speak to Madame Keys at a pre-arranged place. But she wasn’t there.”

“Lysander and Mossgreen gone, Malco fighting a battle to the death that he can’t win… It can’t be coincidence. You have to be careful, Del.”

“Why me?”

“You’re the only one left. “

“No,” I say. “You aren’t. Amelia. She’s an outlawed Champion; Lagos and Teryon both saw her a week ago. If Keys really betrayed Lysander…”

“It’s daytime,” Gedden mutters, his eyes flickering to Delos’. “She’ll be weaker.”

Delos stands in silence, hitting his leg with slow, rhythmic thumps.

“I’ll go to her. Prepare as best as we can, in case something happens. When the duel’s over, you need to come right back to Hollow House, Ged.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Gedden says.

Delos makes a face before looking down at me with cold and steady eyes.

“I’m only being realistic,” he says. “You need to be ready. Every second you spend dallying is a second Valkas gets to prepare. Be. Ready.” The elf stops to look me in the eye. “Cause him pain, Malco. Don’t let him forget you.”

While his words still hang in the air, a flash of green light brightens the room for an instant. When it fades, Delos is gone, leaving nothing behind but the mark of his heavy feet on the thick, rich rug.

Gedden breathes out next to me.

“You’re not to pay attention to any of that shit, alright?” he says, stepping out in front of me on the spot Delos was just standing in. “Causing pain and being remembered is all well and good, but better still is surviving. If this is true, if Valkas finally moved against Lys, then all bets are off and we don’t need to keep pretending to be civilized. We can run away.”

The thought of Medrein lying in the dark on a pile of his own filth, of Essa left behind, crosses my mind, along with the glee on Rao’s voice as he stabbed me through my wrist.

“No,” I say, suppressing a shiver. “You don’t understand. I want to fight.”

“Malco, I know the guy hurt you, but…”

I shake my head, stopping him before he can continue.

“It’s not that. Yesterday, Lagos took me to the catacombs. They have my father there.

Ged’s eyes widen, and then, slowly, gradually, his face falls.

“Are you sure it was him?” he asks, without much hope.

“I am. He told me what would happen if I didn’t cooperate. You didn’t know?” I ask. It’s a stupid demand. I can tell he didn’t.

“I swear to you I didn’t,” Gedden says, looking down in embarrassment. “But… But that doesn’t excuse it. We trusted Keys to keep us informed of what Valkas was doing, but she never said, and I…” He sighs, palms open to the sky. “I should have found out somehow. Should have prodded. I’m sorry.”

Are you really? The thought comes unbidden to my mind. Lysander is the mastermind, Delos the muscle, and Gedden’s job is, as far as I can tell, people. Enlisting soldiers for the cause, drumming up support for Lysander. Am I being manipulated? I decide that I don’t care, that it doesn’t matter.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say out loud. “I can’t run away. They’ll kill him.”

Gedden seems lost. Out of balance. He sits down on the bed, looking down at his feet. A lifetime ago, when I used to accompany my mother on her healer rounds, every new house used to carry with it an air of lurking danger. Would we come as angels of healing, or spirits of death? We’d walk into somber households, darkened and smelling of herbs and human refuse. Most times, Dala would produce a miracle from careful observation and skillful application of potions. And sometimes, we would arrive too late, or the disease would be beyond her capabilities, or the patient would be too far gone, their body too weak to fight. In both cases, their loved ones looked at my mother like they would a judge. Good news would make them cry. Bad news would make them vacant, eyes unfocused, hands lacking purpose. Gedden sits like the latter.

“I didn’t think it would really happen,” he mumbles. “I thought Lysander would come up with a plan, that something would happen. Guess Valkas did outplay us. Didn’t think the man had it in him.” Gedden looks at me, a sharp, prodding look. “I’m sure your father would rather you left rather than die for him. Am I wrong?”

I don’t respond, letting my gaze communicate my intentions. I’m long past caring about what Medrein would want. Since the day he let Valkas take Katha, in fact. This? Staying, instead of running away? I’m not doing this for him. Maybe knowing the leverage the Black Sword have over me makes my decision easier for Gedden to swallow, but in truth?

I used to think of Rao did to me as a misfortune, as if I’d failed to pay attention and gotten my hand crushed under a felled tree. No one’s fault but my own. When Gedden had described the Reavers the other night, the Godtouched who care not about who they hurt, who live without law or rules or mercy, I sympathized. At one point, I’d thought that of all Godtouched. Now, knowing that only some of them are like that; that Rao’s attack hadn’t been an unfortunate encounter with a force of nature but a choice… Delos is right. I want to hurt Rao. Even if it’s the last thing I do.

Steps sound in the corridor outside, a soft pattering. Nough appears in the doorway, carrying an overlarge staff topped with feathers plucked from the goblin’s back.

“Hey, Ged. Kid. Fight’s starting soon. Val sent me to make sure you’re ready.”

“How thoughtful,” Ged says with a viperine smirk that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Really, can’t thank you enough for being so attentive.”

The goblin doesn’t answer. He’s leaning on his staff like a shepherd, eyes focused on me.

“Ready, kid?”

“Need to get a couple things. From my room.”

“Get on it, then.”

I cross the hallway to my bedroom, which faces Lysander and Delos’. My heart is picking up speed, and I force the excitement down, keep it contained. I grab the dagger and a short arming sword, manageable with my single hand. Then, for lack of a better magic item, I throw Mossgreen’s mantle over my shoulders. There will never be a better chance for it to prove its worth as a war mantle.

With those items and the many-pouched belt carrying my potions, that’s it. I give the room a once over, making sure I’m not forgetting anything, when Observant catches something out of place. It’s so small I have to survey the room again before the general impression of wrongness turns into a specific detail: the corner of a small piece of paper, peeking out from under my pillow.

Rao Spaun, says the paper. Mirrore Galerie thurd roomm.

I blink. My mind races. Who…

“Ready, kid?”

“Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I am.” As much as I’ll ever be. “Let’s go.”