“My own beautiful concoction,” he said, reaching back up and pulling out a silver tin.
She furrowed her brows, jumping onto the counter beside him. He gave her a side-eye but continued with whatever he was doing.
“What’s in it?” Amaris asked.
He popped open the tin to reveal a needle and syringe.
“Oh, hell no! You’re not doing drugs on my watch.”
“Drugs?” He inclined a brow, drawing up the dark liquid.
“Whatever you call it, you’re not injecting that into your system to get high.” She leaned over, reaching for the syringe, but he held it in the air.
He pushed against her forehead with his free hand. After reading about cudweed, she’d scoured the tower for needles, but the one in Esaias’s hands was way more extravagant.
“I’m not about to be taking uppaway, if that’s what you mean by high. Besides, you smoke that, not inject it.”
He lifted his shirt and pinched whatever bit of fat he had and injected the liquid into his abdomen, wincing as the needle broke his skin.
“What’s in it?” His eyes pierced her soul, but she narrowed her gaze. “I’m the mystique. It’s my duty to know what herbs people are taking.”
He groaned. “I have difficulties regulating the sugar in my blood.”
“You’re a diabetic?”
“A what?”
“How are you not dead?” Without modern medicine or insulin, people usually didn’t live past twenty in the olden days, and whatever he’d injected into his abdomen sure wasn’t insulin.
“I don’t know what you refer to it as, but it’s usually referred to asmamat.”
Amaris flattened her gaze. “Ma-what?”
“Mamat. It’s Gorrin for sugar.” He tucked in his shirt and grabbed another jar of a clear liquid, using a cloth to clean the syringe and needle.
“Regardless,” she began, “how are you not dead?”
He tapped the jar with the amber liquid. “My parents are filthy rich and pay their mystique well. When I was six, I developed the disease, so he set about making a cure. He came up with this.”
“I haven’t read anything about it in the mystique’s journal.”
“And you won’t. Cornelius was a short fellow, so I hid it on the top shelf. Oakheart’s mystique came up with the recipe. I make it myself.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when I was treating you for scrying fever? That’s kind of an important thing to tell your provider.”
“Speaking of scrying fever, why is it that I healed so quickly?”
“What do you mean?”
“It took weeks for Gris to heal overseas.” He raised an inquisitive eye.
Cornelius never wrote the names of his patients down, but she must have been the single survivor.
“I don’t know.” Amaris shrugged. “I followed the instructions from her care.” At least, she thought she had. She followed the recipe he’d written down and the rest of the treatment plan. Her fever and rash had lasted for two weeks according to the journal, while Esaias had healed in about a week.
“Her survival was a miracle in itself. The tonic is likely useless. It didn’t work for anyone else.”
“But it worked for you,” Amaris added, contemplating the curiosity. Maybe the herbs in Luana were stronger than overseas. “With yourmamat, you should’ve had it worse, but maybe it helped. How did you manage? You were barely conscious at times.”
