I staggered toward Urso’s little table. I picked up the shimmering jar. The vial of blood was empty, except for a tiny smear at the bottom. I had no idea whether it would be enough. Aino came forward to support me, and I let her. The anger at the back of my mind reared, but I pushed it back. I couldn’t explode. Not yet. My mind had to focus on other things. Like where I’d find more blood.
The laboratory. Where Farhod had so carefully dissected a specimen from Below. Where everything waited in jars.
The laboratory was cold and silent, and I shivered as we entered. Inkar lit a lamp on the wall. “What are we looking for?”
I went to Farhod’s anatomy shelf, peering among the labeled jars. Intestine sample, skin sample, a section of vertebrae—any of them might work, but I knew of only one guarantee. I picked up a little glass jar. His small, neat handwriting labeled it blood, dried, specimen male, citizen Below.
“Don’t you think you should stop your brother first?” Aino said as I shut the door to the laboratory.
“No,” I said in a voice so cold it clouded the air between us.
Aino paled. She said nothing more as we made our way to Father’s chambers. “Wait here,” I told her, and beckoned to Inkar, who followed me with a bewildered expression.
The scene beyond was as still as death. My family barely breathed. Munna hurried over to me. “My Lord Svaro—” they said.
“I know.” I covered my nose in an attempt to dull the stench. “I’ll explain later.” For now, I moved to the desk, pushing Farhod’s many remedies aside to set down my equipment.
I wondered if I should take anything else. Red poppies, for vitriol and strength, for life in the face of death. Calimony moss, hawthorn, dried bear’s blood. In the end, I took a little water from the messenger bowl at Father’s desk. I tapped dried blood into the cup, biting my lip. If I ran out of this before I managed the cure…
Munna watched me uneasily. “Your Grace, nothing’s changed for the rest of them.” Their voice held a note of warning, and I couldn’t say I blamed them. The last time I’d tried to interfere, I’d nearly killed everyone.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, and took Urso’s jar. Three glistening pearls—that might be enough. They were so fresh they sent a burst of blue into the air as I dropped two into the cup. Sparks wriggled through the water as I stirred the concoction, careful not to touch it—yet.
The cup turned warm in my hand. Color fizzed to the surface of the water. I kept stirring and focused. Colors shattered against one another, new tiny flowers bloomed and died. The ghost of a bear’s roar moved through my head, the taste of hawthorn burst on my tongue, all in a moment.
I moved to Velosha first. Some part of me still wondered if this was right. If the world wasn’t better without them. Would Father have spared time and effort to keep them alive?
But that was the point, wasn’t it? I wasn’t Father. I knelt, took a drink from the cup, and shaped the magic in my mind. Then I leaned over Velosha and blew into the catheter. I put a hand on her shoulder and thought about the magic leaving her body—all of it—and I knelt before her until her chest moved, and instead of water, she was breathing air.
The room had gone silent. Everyone had stopped to look at me. “I think she’ll vomit,” I said, and got to my feet with Inkar’s help.
Velosha drew a great, rattling breath. Then she turned to her side and began to heave.
I moved to Lyosha, now that I was certain of my success. Well, more certain. They could relapse, Below could make a countermove, any number of things could happen. But I had to trust what I was doing, then I had to face the rest of the problems I’d created.
I went to Farhod last, lying disregarded in his corner. The doctors had to prioritize the royal family, but seeing him hurt worse than anything else. For your sake, more than anything, I hope this works, I thought, and took my last drink.
He lay still for a beat, then a beat longer. How long had it taken the others? Should he recover faster or slower? As I counted heartbeats with no result, I tried not to let my fear overwhelm me. Every patient was different, sometimes things took time—
Farhod convulsed. His eyes opened. I knew he recognized me. He coughed a stream of water over his chin and smiled weakly.
My hands tightened around his shoulders, and I pulled him into a hug. “I did it,” I said, not caring that he coughed lake water and phlegm all over my coat and hair. “I did it.”
I woke up my selfish, angry, murderous family.
Inkar touched my arm as we left. “Saljo says they are preparing for another coronation in the Great Hall.”
“Sigis or Svaro? My little brother,” I clarified when she frowned in confusion.
“The little one, I think. Sigis is… furious.”
No doubt. I wondered if Sigis still wanted to marry me, or had encouraged Urso to kill me—or whether the duke Below had demanded my death. It hardly mattered. “I’ll have to change,” I said, brushing at the ruined front of my coat. “I hope you’ll help me.” I patted at my pockets, feeling for the lumps that indicated the dried blood and Urso’s little jar. All I needed, really, to make my grand entrance.
I hurried into my underclothes and selected the blue dress I’d worn for my coronation. Aino worked without speaking. With every brush of her hand against my arm or back, my stomach turned, over and over, until I thought I’d be sick if I opened my mouth.
But the dark fury had gathered in me ever since she’d saved me, with magic she shouldn’t know how to use. “You…” I swallowed and turned my voice as brittle and hard as ice. “You knew the whole time, didn’t you?”
Her fingers stilled between my shoulder blades. “Knew what?”
“You knew it was Yannush and Urso and Eirhan. How long?”
Aino paused. Then her fingers worked again, hooking the final buttons. “It wasn’t Eirhan.” Her voice was quiet, broken. I knew she was crying, but I didn’t turn around. “He was trying to protect himself. And I was trying to protect you. I told you to run, remember?”
“Did you plan it?”
Her fingers tightened. “No.”
I finally turned to face her. Her face was a mask, but her eyes glistened, tears held back by sheer force of will. As though she didn’t want to be ashamed. If anything, it made me angrier. “What did he offer you?” I stepped back, away from her caging arms, still raised to adjust my dress. “Power? Money? Some kind of title? What could Sigis give you that you couldn’t ask from me?” My voice trembled. The roaring rage stole my spare breath and I heaved for more.
The first of her tears spilled over. “Ekata, please. It wasn’t about him—”
Her hand came to my shoulder. I shoved it away. “Then what? What was so important to you that you gave me six days of hell? That you jeopardized my life and tried to kill my family?”
“I told you to run.” Aino shook her head; tears scattered from her chin like pearls. “They’d have sorted it out among themselves. But you wouldn’t go. And the longer you stayed, the more they thought about killing you, the more we had to do to make sure you stayed alive—”
“We?” I reached for her wrist, but she pulled away from me. She feared me, I realized. And it should bother me, but I was too angry to care. “Who’s we? Yannush? Urso?” Aino didn’t reply, but I knew from her stone face I hadn’t guessed right. “Below?”