“I thought you’d be back sooner,” she said with a smile.
Adrik led his horse to a stall. “Nina decided to have an adventure.”
“A good one?” asked Leoni.
“An informative one,” said Nina. “How long have you been at this?”
“All night,” Leoni admitted. She didn’t look well.
“Let’s go to town for lunch,” said Nina. “I can’t handle another meal of convent mush.”
Leoni stood, then braced her hand against the wall. “I—” Her eyes rolled back in her head and she swayed sharply.
“Leoni!” Nina cried as she and Adrik rushed to her side, just managing to reach her before she collapsed. They laid her gently back beside the camp stove. She was soaked in sweat and her skin felt like fire.
Leoni’s eyes fluttered open. “That was unexpected,” she said, and then she had the gall to smile.
“This is no time to be in a good mood,” said Adrik. “Your pulse is racing and you’re burning up.”
“I’m not dead, though.”
“Stop looking on the bright side and tell me when this started.”
“I think I botched the testing,” said Leoni, her voice thready. “I was trying to pull the pollutants from the samples, isolate them. I may have absorbed some into my body. I told you poisons are tricky work.”
“I’ll take you back to the dormitories,” said Nina. “I can get clean water—”
“No. I don’t want the Springmaidens getting suspicious.”
“We can tend to her here,” said Adrik. “Get her settled behind the sledge. I can make a fire and brew clean water for tea.”
“There’s a tincture of charcoal in my kit,” said Leoni. “Add a few drops. It will absorb the toxins.”
Nina arranged a bed of blankets for Leoni out of sight of the main courtyard and tried to make her comfortable there.
“There’s something else,” Leoni said as she lay back.
Nina did not like the gray tinge to her skin or the way her eyelids fluttered. “Just rest. It can wait.”
“The Wellmother came to see me.”
“What happened?” Adrik said, kneeling beside her with a steaming cup of tea. “Here, try to take a sip. Did one of the novitiates talk about seeing us in the woods?”
“No, one of them died.”
Nina stilled. “The girl who fell from her horse?”
“I didn’t realize her injuries were so serious,” said Adrik.
“They weren’t,” said Leoni, sipping slowly. “I think it was the river. She was in the water for a while, and she had an open wound.”
“All Saints,” Adrik said. “What the hell are they doing up at that factory?”
“I don’t know, but—” Nina hesitated, then plowed ahead. “But there are graves all over that mountain. Behind the reservoir, all over the factory yards. I felt them everywhere.”
“What?” said Adrik. “Why didn’t you tell us? How do you know?”
Leoni’s eyes had closed. Her speeding pulse seemed to have slowed a bit—a good sign.
“Is there more clean water?” asked Nina. “We should try to ease the fever. And will you see if there’s some carbolic in her kit?”
“Why?” Adrik asked as he fetched his canteen and the disinfectant. “Is she wounded?”
“No, I am. I got bitten by a wolf last night.”
“Of course you did.”
Nina shrugged off her coat, revealing her torn and bloodied sleeve.
“Wait,” said Adrik. “You’re serious?” He sat down beside Leoni and rubbed his temples with his fingers. “One soldier poisoned, another attacked by wolves. This mission is going swimmingly.”
Nina pulled a length of cloth from the sledge and tore it in two. She used one half to make a compress for Leoni and the other to clean and bind the wound on her arm.
“Then that girl Hanne rescued you from a wolf attack?” Adrik asked.
“Something like that.” Nina wasn’t ready to talk about Trassel. The last thing she needed was Adrik’s skepticism. “I think it’s possible there was parem in the bite.”
“What?”
Nina glanced at Leoni, whose eyelids fluttered. “I can’t be sure, but the wolves weren’t behaving normally. It felt like parem.”
“Then your addiction—”
Nina shook her head. “I’m okay so far.” That wasn’t entirely true. Even the suggestion of parem was enough to make her feel the pull of that animal hunger. But the edge of need seemed duller than she would have expected.
“Saints,” said Adrik, leaning forward. “If it’s in the water and Leoni was dosed with it—”
“Leoni isn’t acting like a Grisha exposed to parem. She would be clawing at the walls, desperate for another dose.” Nina knew that all too well. “But her other symptoms are similar to exposure, and enough parem could kill someone without Grisha powers, like the novitiate.”
“It wasn’t parem,” Leoni mumbled. “I don’t think.”
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I am,” said Leoni. “There’s something corrosive in the water.”
“Can you drink some more tea?” asked Adrik.
She nodded and managed to push up to her elbows. “I haven’t isolated it yet. Why didn’t you tell us about the graves when you found them, Nina?”
“You’re sure you don’t want to go back to sleep?” Nina asked, then sighed. She looked down at the folded compress in her hands. “I don’t know why. I think … They led me to the eastern entrance.”
“Who led you?”
Nina cleared her throat and patted Leoni’s brow gently with the cloth. “I heard the dead … speak. I heard them all the way back in Elling.”
“Okay,” Leoni said cautiously. “What exactly did they say?”
“They need our help.” My help.
“The dead,” repeated Adrik. “Need our help.”
“I realize I sound like I’ve gone loopy, but we need to get inside that factory. And I think I know someone who can help.”
Nina brought Leoni back to the dormitories before nightfall and got her tucked into bed. Her fever had broken and she was already feeling better—further proof that whatever she’d found in the water was not parem. So what was wrong with those wolves, and what had been in their bite? And what had killed the novitiate?
She took a plate of kitchen scraps out to the woods and set them at the base of a tree in the silly hope that Trassel might find his way to her again. They’d probably be eaten by some ungrateful rodent.
Standing at the edge of the forest, Nina looked up at the factory, its lights glowing gold in the gathering dusk, the windows of the eastern wing dark. She thought of the twisting roots of Djel’s ash, carved into the walls of the reservoir.
There’s poison in this place. She could almost taste it, bitter on her tongue. But just how deep does it go?
The next morning, Nina was pleased to find a summons to the Wellmother’s office had been slid beneath their door. Nina was to meet with her and Hanne after morning prayers to discuss the possibility of language lessons. So Hanne did want to learn more about her Grisha gifts—even if it was only to control them.