“That’s it?” Hellebore startled. “They just both die?”
Taiyo nodded. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. That he’d succeed and they live happily ever after?”
Taiyo’s eyes softened. “It doesn’t always work that way, sunshine.”
“Well, that was a terrible story, so now you owe me yours.”
“I didn’t know you were such a romantic. I would have thought you of all people would have appreciated a tragedy.” Taiyo’s fingers brushed Hellebore’s belt, fingers fiddling with the leather. “But if you insist—even though surely you’ve had it memorized by now—you know I was desperate to find a way to cleanse the garden and stop the rot. I believed that because the irises share the same kind of magic, only a smaller amount ofit, that I could make a connection between myself and the irises with my magic and my magic would purify them. It helped, but the rot didn’t disappear. All I did was transfer it into my magic and my blood.”
Taiyo was right. She did have it memorized. But…
Hellebore immediately started scrambling out of Taiyo’s hold.
“Hellebore? Hellebore!” Taiyo wheezed when her elbow connected with his abdomen as she forced him to relinquish his hold.
“I’m such an idiot!” Hellebore ignored him, successfully stumbling to her feet and racing for her worktable.
“What? Hellebore, what is going on?”
Hellebore grabbed her notebook, spinning around as Taiyo stumbled out of his chair after her, one arm wrapped around his stomach. She held it up as she grabbed a vial of decayed petals.
“I’ve been thinking about this all wrong. I don’t have two problems to solve, just one!” Hellebore waved the petals in the air. “I don’t have to cure youandfind a way to cure the irises. I cure the irises and that is how I’m going to cure you!”
“Hellebore, I already told you that doesn’t work. You don’t have to—”
“Oh, will you stop it! How about instead you say, ‘Thank you, my brilliant alchemist,’ or ‘How are you going to do that?’” Hellebore came to a stop in front of him again, beaming from ear to ear. “Why, my dear Sun Elf, of course I’ll tell you. You got yourself into this mess because you thought of an idea only an alchemist could accomplish and went through with it with only your magic. Now you have rotting sludge for blood. I cure enough of the irises, thenIuse them before the eclipse to keep your heart from giving out. With enough irises, I can cleanse your blood. You couldn’t separate the rot from the magic. Once I have healthy irises, I can.”
Taiyo’s hands caught her elbows, holding her in place in front of him, a grin on his face. “Your dear Sun Elf? I rather like the sound of that.”
Had he heard nothing else of what she’d just said?
Also, where had that come from? The words had spilled out before she’d even realized it.
“Taiyo. Focus.” Hellebore pulled out of his arms and shoved the vial into his face. “If I cure the irises before the eclipse, then I can use them to purify your blood before you lose your connection during the eclipse.”
Taiyo blinked, reached up, and pushed her hand out of the way. A light started to flicker in his eyes. He breathed out, “My brilliant alchemist.”
Hellebore laughed, dancing back out of his arms and back toward her worktable. “Fine. Don’t thank me yet. Thank me when I have a cure for your irises.”
Although her mirth was only surface level. The hope entering Taiyo’s eyes cut her to the core.
He hadn’t believed her until this moment that she could even save him.
Chapter 19
Hellebore couldn’t have heard that right.
She looked up from the magnifying glass and whipped around to see Haruko in the doorway of her lab. Taiyo was holding the door, looking half-ready to shut it in her face.
“—stay long, you know I wouldn’t ask you to stay long, but you’ve been shut away in here for months now, and they are whispering that you’re afraid. Each whisper of the Moon Elves’ movements or a sighting of a scout has them all in a tizzy. You need to be at this ball.”
Right.
Hellebore had been so isolated from Chymes’ court for the majority of each year over the last decade, she hadn’t even thought twice about any functions she’d be expected to attend as queen. Or that Taiyo would still be required to attend them.
She hadn’t so much as learned the name of a single noble in the months she’d been there.
