The Traitor Queen (The Traitor Spy Trilogy #3)(59)

“You’re lost in thought today,” Jonna noted. She moved to the table and leaned down to pick up the empty dishes from the morning meal. As she did, Lilia caught a strange but pleasant fragrance.

“Are you wearing perfume, Jonna?” she asked.

Jonna hesitated and looked a little guilty. “Yes.”

“What’s wrong?” Lilia frowned. “You don’t usually wear perfume. Are servants not supposed to?”

“Oh, nobody would be that fussy,” Jonna waved a hand, “but … Sonea doesn’t like this one. It was hers, but after she found out what it was made from she told me to throw it out. I like it and … well you can’t blame the plant for what it is. I don’t wear it when I’ll be around her, of course.”

“Which is why I haven’t noticed it before.” Lilia nodded. “It is lovely. What’s it made from?”

Once again, Jonna looked sheepish. “Roet flowers.”

Surprised, Lilia sniffed the air and tried to find some link between the odour and the smell of roet smoke. “It’s hard to believe the scent comes from the same plant.” Then something else occurred to her. “Where do the perfume makers get roet flowers from?”

Jonna shrugged. “I suppose from the people who grow it for the drug.”

Thinking back to Healing lessons on the sources of the Guild’s cures, Lilia considered what she knew about plants. Flowers usually contained a plant’s seeds. The Guild wanted roet seeds. From what Anyi had said, the plants the Guild had grown were not roet. They’d been tricked. Cery didn’t think any roet grower would dare sell seeds to the Guild – though they weren’t averse to cheating the Guild for what would have been a huge profit by substituting some other plant seed. If Skellin found out they had sold anyone roet seed, they wouldn’t live long.

Cery didn’t think roet was grown in Kyralia at all. He suspected it was cultivated elsewhere, harvested and dried before it was shipped to Imardin. Was the same true of the perfume? Most perfume makers were based in Elyne. Did they need fresh plants, or would dried ones do for making perfume?

Lilia stood up. “I had better go. Don’t want to be late and make Kallen nervous.”

Jonna smiled. “See you tonight.”

As she walked to the Arena, Lilia considered everything she knew and how little she could reveal in order to get answers to her questions. In brief moments of rest during Kallen’s lesson she weighed the risks and benefits. The sooner the Guild gets roet seeds, the sooner Kallen will help Cery. I just need to work out how to tell Kallen that I know the Guild is trying to grow it without revealing how I know …

She did not head to the University as soon as Kallen said they were done. He already had that distant, distracted manner where he didn’t meet her eyes but gazed into the distance when she approached him. As he saw she wasn’t leaving, he frowned and then his lips thinned.

“You can go now,” he told her again.

“I know, but I thought you’d like to know something: word on the street is that the Guild tried to buy roet seeds. Is it true?”

His gaze snapped to hers. His pupils widened. That got your attention, she thought.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear from your friends,” he told her.

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this why you won’t help Cery? Afraid the supply will run out if the supplier is captured?”

Kallen’s eyes flashed with anger and his jaw tightened. “You have no idea how lucky you are,” he told her.

She blinked in surprise then felt a flash of anger. “Lucky? Me? My closest friend tricked me into learning black magic to set me up for murdering her father, then tried to kill me. The only people who care about me are far away, or likely to die any day now.”

His eyes widened, then his expression softened. “I apologise. I only meant …” He looked away, grimacing as if in pain. “You are fortunate to avoid being trapped by roet. There are many, many magicians who wish they had your resistance.”

Like yourself, she thought. But she found she couldn’t sustain her disgust at him. His reputation as a man whose integrity was infallible was essential to his role as a black magician. To lose his will to a mere pleasure drug must be humiliating, and would have shaken his confidence. The fact that he was a black magician must be making the other magicians who knew of his affliction nervous. Though, it was as frightening to contemplate what could happen if high numbers of ordinary magicians were held hostage by Skellin.

“How many?” she asked, unable to keep the concern from her voice.

He frowned. “I can’t tell you that. But … we are doing something about helping them.”

“By trying to grow it?”

“To take control of the supply at least. To find a cure or breed a less damaging drug if we can.” Kallen sighed. “You are partly right. We may reduce our chances to acquire seeds if Skellin is killed. We can’t risk attempting to catch him. Yet.” He met her gaze levelly and a fierce determination entered his gaze. “I promise once we have what we need we will find and remove Skellin. That may include accepting your friend’s offer, if he is still willing to take the risk.”

Lilia nodded. She considered what he had told her. It made sense, and she could see no hint that he was lying. There was no advantage in holding back from telling him her idea.