She had held tight to Elias when he walked the stairs of the tower in the darkness. There had been five of them, and now, finally, they were up in the top of the tower, in the queen's room.

“I don't dare to put the light on”, Elias said as he sat her down. Instead, he lit up the room with a small flame from his hand.

“She has a lot of books”, Sasha said, looking at their covers, eager to read them.

“She uses to make potions, trying them out on my father”, Elias said as he scanned through the notes on her desk.

Sasha went over to stand beside him. There was a controlled mess in the room. Paper notes were everywhere, on her desk, at the tables, on the floor, but the ingredients to her brews stood in perfect order. Each bottle is marked with squiggly writing. They stood in alphabetic order. Several shelves in the room, with even more ingredients than her mother had had.

“These are just recipes, not a single note of what they do”, Elias complained.

“Maybe the books will give a clue?”

Sasha sat down, taking a look at the notes on the table. Elias was a healer and a magician, but he was no witch. Sasha had helped out with brews since she could walk. What was just pure nonsense to him made a clear picture to her. And the more she read, the more parts of the puzzle she got, the more worried she became.

“Why are we here?” Sasha had stopped searching the room. She was tired, and the tension in her stomach just got worse with each clue.

“The king is sick, and he is getting worse. My mother refuses to tell what it is all about.”

“I know, but why the tower?”

“There had to be an explanation somewhere”, Elias muttered.

“You want to cure him?” Sasha whispered.

“She says I can't, and that might be true. If I don’t know what is bothering him I don't even get the chance”, Elias sighed, putting another book back on the shelf. “Not that she seems to know what she is doing either.”

“Write down the recipes of the brews, maybe mother can figure something out”, Sasha said. She was a coward, but she didn’t want to be the one that told him.

She walked over to the bookshelf, looking at the titles. Her fingers brushed the old worn covers. There were a lot of books here, what caught her interest was the ones she hadn’t seen before. She took one down and sat on the sofa and started writing.

“Do you think there are any hidden valves here?” Elias asked. He had gone through the room twice and was looking for anything he might have missed.

“Why? I don't think she has bothered, who besides her would be granted access. Just take a look at the place, she hasn’t even cleaned her desk, just left the latest note and run over to the king.”

“It feels like such an anti-climax.”

“Maybe I can find a strong truth spell and we could coax it out of her? There are some really interesting formulas in these books”, Sasha pondered.

“Could you brew something that colors him pink next time?”, Elias asked, mischief in his eyes. “This is a lost cause, but I could at least play a prank with him.”

Sasha took some last notes, questioning if she should just steal the book. Would the queen note if one of them was missing? She pondered the idea for a while but ended up deciding that it was worth far more being able to sneak in again unnoticed.

“I am tired, Elias. Could we just not leave and meet Denise?”

She didn't have to fake the yawn. If it wasn’t for the risk of getting caught she would have slept in the queen's tower.

“Sorry rebel”, Elias walked forward, bending down beside the sofa and scooping her up in his arms. “You have done more than enough, I will carry you princess.”

Sasha gulped. Thinking of the messages in between the lines in the potions. Yes, she had done far more than enough.