A Poison Dark and Drowning (Kingdom on Fire #2)(10)

“Good night, Doctor. Thank you,” he said, and left. Fenswick approached me. He wanted to talk, and I guessed the subject.

Avoiding his gaze, I picked up one of the pestles for grinding herbs. It was still covered with yellow powder—he’d been mixing dandelion root. It was supposed to help suppress infection.

“I’m afraid he’s getting worse,” Fenswick said. Worse. As though this were some cold, or a chill that was mildly dangerous. Worse didn’t seem the right word for a boy who had shadows at his beck and call. A faint buzzing started in my ears. I dropped the pestle, which hit the table with a hard thunk.

Rook was being swallowed by darkness, and I hadn’t done a damned thing to help him.

“What about that mugwort extract? If it’s purified and honeyed, it’s supposed to be very effective.” I’d finally found that damned recipe after tearing through every one of the Blackwoods’ botany books I could lay hands on, and even then it had been in Latin. I’d had to double-check my translation.

“We’ve gone through every tome on herbalism I know,” Fenswick grumped. “We’ve even used forbidden practices from Faerie. Do you know how hard it was to get powdered bat eyeballs?”

“We’re missing something.” I was missing something, but if I only worked a little harder…

“He’s coughing black blood.” Fenswick pricked up his rabbit-like ears. “What further proof do you need?”

No. No. I put my face in my hands.

“We have to keep trying. Please.” I remembered being out on the moor with Rook that day when everything changed. Maybe if we hadn’t gone away from the school, if Gwen hadn’t found us, if Agrippa hadn’t saved us, if, if, if. Memories danced through my mind. The time we’d gone swimming in the miller’s pond, daring each other to leap into the cold water first. The day I’d revealed my powers at our meeting place on the moor, and the wonder on his face as he regarded the patch of scorched earth in front of me. Screaming as I erupted into flame when the shadow Familiars tried to take him away. His battle with Korozoth to save me. The apple he’d given me only a few days before. The moment in Agrippa’s kitchens when we’d nearly kissed—all those moments leading to nothing?

No. I wouldn’t allow it. “Please,” I said again, with more force.

“I doubt anything will change.” Fenswick began to stack some pewter bowls.

“Then I think we should tell him what’s happening.” I’d had my fill of lying to those I cared about.

“Don’t,” Fenswick warned. “Such honesty could prove fatal. Fear and anger accelerate the poison.”

I cast a weary glance over the apothecary. The same herbs and fungi, the same bowls and bandages as always. We’d tried new remedies nearly every night for months, and nothing had changed.

“Give him some peace,” Fenswick said with a sigh. “He deserves that.”

“All right,” I muttered, rubbing my burning eyes. “Would you mind if I read in here for a while?” Fenswick’s ears flapped in surprise. Shivering, I said, “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Fine,” he said, gently.

I went downstairs, gathered my papers from the library, and then let Lilly help me prepare for bed. It would be cruel to keep her up much later than this. Afterward, I took my wrap, lifted Mickelmas’s chest onto a cushion of air, and brought it upstairs to Fenswick’s apothecary. I was going to go through the whole damned thing if I could. Anything to keep my thoughts preoccupied.

I read as the bells outside struck midnight. Tired, I cupped my chin in my hand and listened.

Bells were a necessary part of my life now. After the ward fell, the Order agreed that it needed a way to signal to every sorcerer in the city simultaneously. The result was a system of bells, which would ring in simple patterns to instruct and assemble us. Two long, solemn tolls, three quick, light ones, and one more loud peal? That would mean R’hlem was on the outskirts of town. We’d not heard that pattern yet, thank God.

Tonight, after the twelfth bell, I waited. And yes, four long, rolling chimes followed. A simple changing of the guard along the barriers. I’d have to take a shift tomorrow afternoon.

Fenswick cleaned his spoons and measuring cups and lined up glass vials of fungi and unsavory-looking animal parts. He took such joy in all his little oddities, but seeing a dish filled with cold jellied goose intestine did make me a tad ill.

“What exactly are you trying to find?” Fenswick asked an hour later as he poured me some hot black liquid that smelled like licorice. I took a sip, gagged, and swallowed the whole thing. It worked; the tiredness rushed out of my body. I felt as though I could climb several mountains in one go, and rummaged through the trunk again.

“A clue.” Hissing, I sliced my finger on a paper, and a bead of blood welled on the tip. I laid my head on the table and forced myself not to start banging it.

“Why should your magical trunk help you there?” Fenswick took a thimble of that licorice stuff for himself. “Surely whatever you want won’t simply spring to your fingertips.”

His words struck me. Whatever you want. I grabbed my packet and fished out the note Mickelmas had left me. His last communication, two months ago, read: Never what you want, ever what you need, until we meet again.

Perhaps it wasn’t simply a note. Trust that old devil to slip a spell in where I least expected it. Blood welled on the tip of my finger again, and I remembered one of the old pamphlets I’d read from Zachariah Hatch, Queen Anne’s favorite magician: Blood oils the hinge of reality, swinging open the door between what is wished for and what is.