He drew me back against his body, and I felt stronger with his warmth against me. One man, a harpy, looked over at the faun. He shook his head but bent back, and together, they lifted the litter without their hands.
“I will do my best,” said my mother. “My daughter shall accompany me.”
“As will my doctor,” said my captain. “He will know if your intent is to deceive.”
She looked Echo up and down.
“Thoughtspinner. Such a gift would be useful in the Court.”
She smiled, but it was a dagger. Brilliant, sharp, shining, and deadly. In that instant, I remembered all the reasons that I hated her, all the reasons I had left.
“This way,” she said, and as she flowed away with the litter to the shadows, Echo followed. I looked up at Thanavar, asking everything but without words. He nodded swiftly and stepped back, but there was shadow over his gold-flecked eyes, and it filled me with dread.
“Come with us, Priestlord,” said Song. “We will discuss your terms.”
They turned and disappeared into the temple. I watched him go, certain my wayward heart went with him.
Everything in this room spoke of my mother. Every shelf, every vial, every jar, every blade. It even smelled like her, and once again I was six years old, watching her dissect my pet rabbit to teach me what a body looked like on the inside. Also, to not get attached to anything on this erthe.
That was a lesson I learned full well.
This time, the subject was not a rabbit but Devanhan Fahr, First Mate of theTouchstoneand Crown Prince of Oversea. He looked dead.
I dragged my eyes from him as she worked, moving her hands above his body like she was spinning a web. Echo watched her, and I wondered if he was listening in his clearseer way. I also wondered if he’d helped the captain know which of the illusions were real and which were not.
I could see Fahr’s heart beating, written in the patterns above his chest. It looked wrong, off, delayed somehow, but I couldn’t see why.
“Three shots, you say?” asked my mother.
“Yes,” said Echo. “Here, here, and here…”
She narrowed her eyes, her fingers spinning rune like a weaver.
“You have the shots?”
“I do.” He produced a wool sack from his satchel. “They are quite rusted. I was thinking there might be something toxic in the rust.”
He poured them into her palm, and she lifted one to her eye, tasted it with her tongue.
“Not rust,” she said. “Poison.”
“Poison flintshots? Why, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
She covered the balls with her fingers, and instantly, they dusted into ash.
“It is sickening his heart and lungs.” She looked up at him. “There is something I can try.”
She turned to me.
“Honor, you will assist.”
She led me to a wall of moss, against which her shelves were stacked. Just like home and her greencellar of herbs, roots, and mystery. She reached for a jar of ointment, snatched a stoppered tube of yellow gas, and scraped some moss with a long fingernail. Dropped them all into a mortar and passed me astone pestle.
“Grind them, seven tenths.”
Flashes of my childhood. Silently, I set to work.
She moved to a copper-and-glass distillery set, where a clear liquid dripped into a brass bowl. She dipped a finger into the bowl, and mist rose at the touch. Once again, she put her finger to her tongue, and I saw her beautiful face fade into her skull. Nothing new. I’d known the bones of her face long before I could speak.
