Once Broken Faith (October Daye #10)(121)

I settled for neither. “I worked in retail during the holiday season, and I’ve met October more than once,” I said, barely managing to keep myself from snarling. “I can handle a little blood.”

“Even when it’s your brother’s? I don’t want to fight with you, Highness, or find myself banished because you don’t like what I have to do in order to do my job.”

I took a deep breath. That didn’t do much to make me feel better. I took another one. Finally feeling calm enough to speak without yelling, I said, “I’m staying. You have my word that nothing you do in the course of helping my brother will be held against you.”

“Heard and witnessed,” said Cassandra. I glanced at her, surprised. She shrugged. “You pick things up.”

“I guess you do,” I said.

Master Davies moved toward the head of Nolan’s bed, pausing to put his valise down on the bedside table and begin rummaging through it. His hands seemed to dip deeper than the bottom of the bag. That was an easy charm, for some fae; treat the leather, spell the stitches, and produce something that was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Like a TARDIS doing double-duty as a book bag.

He produced an antique silver scalpel and a glass bowl barely larger than the tip of his thumb. After glancing nervously in my direction, he bent and nicked the side of Nolan’s jaw. It was a clever place to conceal a cut; if not for the fact that Nolan hadn’t needed to shave in eighty years, it could have passed for part of his normal morning routine.

The cut wasn’t deep, but it was enough. A few drops of blood welled up. Master Davies used the blunt side of the scalpel to direct them into the dish. Straightening, he put the scalpel down next to his valise and waved his hand over the blood, chanting something quick and sharp in a language I thought was probably Welsh. The smell of his magic rose again, stronger than before, chilling the room by several degrees. I shivered. Cassandra didn’t. She was staring at the air above the blood, eyes slightly unfocused, like she was looking at something I couldn’t see.

I frowned. Something was wrong here. Something was—

“Oh, oak and ash.” Master Davies’ voice was hushed. My head snapped around, attention going back to him. He was pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand, the smell of ice and yarrow hanging heavy in the air. He looked like a man defeated.

And Nolan was still asleep.

“Master Davies?” I had to fight to keep my tone level. I nearly lost the battle. “What is it?”

“The elf-shot—” he began, and stopped, thinking better of whatever he’d been about to say. Carefully, he put the dish containing my brother’s blood down next to the scalpel and turned to face me, folding his hands behind his back. “Your Highness, the cure I developed was intended to treat elf-shot. Do you understand what that means?”

Irritation washed through me like acid. “It means my brother is supposed to wake up.”

“Yes, it does. But more, it means that I was able, with the assistance of Sir Daye, to brew a tincture specifically designed to counter a sleeping charm developed by Eira Rosynhwyr.”

“I know that,” I snapped. “You tested Nolan’s blood before, to make sure he’d been hit with a variation of the charm that your cure could fight.”

“And he was, and it did,” said Master Davies. “The problem is . . . people have been tinkering with the recipe for elf-shot since it was created. Some of them were trying to make it kinder. Others were trying to make it worse. Do you know who brewed the elf-shot that felled your brother?”

“I wasn’t exactly in a position to ask when it happened,” I said.

“Yes, of course. My apologies.” He took a deep breath. “The elf-shot itself was a standard recipe. As close to generic as you can get without changing the way it works. But it was hiding a secondary charm, something related, yet not the same.”

“A second sleeping spell?” I asked, aghast. “Can you do that?”

“Could I do that? Absolutely. It would be child’s play. Elf-shot is so dominant in the blood while it’s active that it can be used to hide all manner of things. The alchemist who brewed this spell tucked it behind the elf-shot, and keyed it to consciousness. The second spell might as well not have existed until your brother woke.”

This time, despair washed through me, chasing away the irritation. “So he’s going to sleep for another hundred years, or until you find another cure?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Master Davies. “This isn’t elf-shot, which—cruel as it is—comes with certain protections. Someone who’s been elf-shot doesn’t need to eat or drink. They don’t even really need to breathe. Elf-shot in its purest form was designed not to break the Law.”

“So what are you trying to say?” I wanted to go to my brother, grab his hands, and hold onto him so tightly that there was no possible chance he could slip away. I was failing him again. I was a queen now. I had our father’s crown and our father’s knowe, and I was going to have our father’s failures, too, because I wasn’t going to save Nolan.

I had never been able to save Nolan.

“This is a more traditional sleeping spell, the sort of thing people used to cast on each other before we had elf-shot.” Master Davies grimaced. “Remember that elf-shot was a kindness once. It was a slumber people could wake up from. This is just . . . it’s just sleep.”