Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
At last, I turn my head and blink in the luminarium. Olyn has already spotted us and is racing over the field. Hope floods her face at first sight of me, and I bow my head deeper against Quin’s back. She stills, and the horse shifts, like it senses the flaring tension.
“I hoped you’d gotten out before they sealed the gates.”
“I didn’t, but we found another way.” My voice wavers. “We’re working on getting the herbs.”
She lowers her gaze. “The mother and daughter have scales now. I don’t think they’ll manage the night.”
My hands tighten on Quin’s waist as I tell her to separate them from less critical patients. Place them in a nearby house. “I’ll treat them first. As soon as I have enough to make the spell.” Squeezing my thighs around Quin, I say, “Patients can’t see me empty handed.”
Outside the magistrate’s office, evidence of anger and panic remains. Excrement has been flung onto the building, and many still linger in the courtyard, waiting helplessly for the magistrates to come back and do their duty. Help them.
I slide off the horse and grab Quin’s arm to steady him when he bites back a cry as his leg hits the ground. “Let’s get inside.”
At the top of the stairs before the door, Quin turns to the crowd and points to the speaker’s ledge. “Bring everyone together. There will be news at sundown.”
A wave of murmuring gathers as we move inside.
Quin guides me to the first resting place he sees—a bench placed in the sunlight under a window, long enough for me to stretch out on, separated from the magistrates’ desks by a folding screen. After finding a blanket, I curl up there, closing my eyes to the comforting scratches of Quin writing close by. Can’t help anyone tired. Nothing to do but wait.
“Quin?”
He murmurs, “I’ll prepare all the tea I can find for when you wake.”
“How did you know . . .” that’s what I’d ask?
The scratches on paper pause. “Let yourself rest now.”
Trust me, his voice says.
My limbs slacken; a deep tired breath whooshes out of me, and I fall into a slumber.
Iwake to a ruckus.
I spring to a sitting position and listen as I adjust to the strong rays of burnt orange light coming through the windows. Sundown.
Bastion and his men are filing into the room.
“We’ve traced the water to three farms,” Bastion says. “We managed to warn the farmers their crops and the water are compromised and—with the promise of government compensation—got them to burn their fields.”
Quin makes a sound of approval.
Bastion continues, “The people rely on those crops for most of their food. We had to go through the stores and burn more than a third.”
“Supplies were already tight.”
“It’s worse. Some of the flour in store is full of weevils.”
“Sift it. Remove the bugs and keep quiet.”
“But it’s—”
“Better than starving.”
A sneer, “Will you eat it?”
Simply, “Yes.”
I loosen the hands around the blanket I’ve been crushing.
“How many days do we have?” Quin asks.
Another responds, “They were running low before this. Now—”
“How many days?”
“Three. Maybe four.”
Silence.
Ten days. That’s how long they’ll keep the gates sealed after the last case. Ten days we need to survive.
More footsteps. “You’re back,” Bastion says.
The thump of knees hitting the floor. “Forgive us.”
I tense.
“Herbal supplies in the nearest towns are gone already. We took the liberty of checking the redcloak camp—they are also out. Everything has been sent to the capital under the regent’s orders.”
Quin curses quietly.
Bastion growls. “The redcloak camp? Are you tired of living? If you’d been caught—”
“We saw a safe opportunity and took it.”
“I sent three of you. Now there are only two.”
“I sent one brother further south. Pylaios. It’s bigger, he might find what we need there.”
“He’ll need at least two days.”
We don’t have that time.
I lunge out of bed, shirt untucked, hair a wild mess around my head. I round the screens and rush forwards. “Did you find anything? Something?”
A small pouch is produced. “That’s everything.”
I snatch it from him, open the drawstring and finger through the dried herbs. Some caelumthorn and strands of starglow. My stomach sinks.
Bastion picks up a small cup from a side table where a few teapots rest and pours himself a drink. I swipe it from him before he tips it to his mouth and he blinks at me. I down the cold tea. “I need this. All of it.”
I set out all seven cups, fill them all from the pots and shoot them back, eyes narrowed on Bastion, daring him to take them from me.
Quin watches thoughtfully, letting me have my aggravated moment. I refill the cups again, and choke on a lump in my throat swallowing down the last one.
There are no supplies.
My eyes are hot, my vision blurry.
People will die.
I pace the length of the room as the vespertines file out again, laden with instructions I didn’t listen to. I stare out the window at the setting sun, blood red over the rooftops. I turn sharply, return to the teapots and shake them of any residual drop. My eyes dart to Quin as he leans casually against the desk, watching me with that infuriatingly measured gaze.