“Then where is your armor?” he asked, and I winced at the reminder that I didn’t have any, that I’d given it up.
He squinted at me. “And why is there a bruise on your neck?”
I slapped a palm against the bruised area where a damn chunk of stone had hit me, then winced as I remembered I’d also injured my hand fighting the tower, and it hurt like a motherfucker.
“I’m not an official guard,” I gritted out, ignoring the question about the bruise. “I’m the high prince’s personal bodyguard. That’s why I’m here, actually. Have you seen him?”
Arthur let out a strangled noise. “You lost the High Prince of Fairwitch?”
“More like he ran away from me.”
Arthur started pacing. “This is exactly why you cannot be trusted as a guard. In my day, I’d have never lost sight of a godwitch. You know, they called me?—”
“The Beast,” I finished for him. “I know. You’ve told me.” I stalked away from him and deeper into the dungeon, determined to find Cillian before he did something stupid like leave the town limits. I wasn’t sure why he couldn’t just stay put and stay safe. We’d gone to the trouble of rescuing Niamh, putting our lives in danger, all so he could “save” our city, yet he did things like this. Put himself at risk, even though he knew I was trying my damndest to protect him.
“On guard!” Arthur’s voice echoed behind me, and I shook my head, wondering not for the first time what the real Sir Arthur had been like.
As I approached the heavy iron door that covered the tunnel, it opened without me lifting a finger. Then the tunnel began shifting upward and away from the town on the other side.
“No, dammit. Where are you taking me?” The tunnel groaned as it curved to the left, then upward, and a strong wind forced me forward. I tried to fight it, but there was no point fighting against the castle’s magic.
The wind blew harder, shoving me toward a solid, thick wall. I dug my heels into the ground, trying to stop my forward momentum, then held out my hands and braced for impact right as the wall opened and I flew through it. I turned to try and get back into the tunnel, but the stone wall closed behind me like there had never been an opening there at all.
I slammed my hand against the wall, crying out as I felt something pop in it. Fucking fuck. I really needed to remember I’d injured it.
“Oh, you finally came to see me. Took you long enough. Mother’s about had a fit, you know.”
I turned, realizing exactly where the tunnel had brought me: to the healer’s quarters. My other younger brother, Nevan, stood in front of me, brown hair short, neat, and slicked to the sides, dimples pecking his cheeks as he smiled and pushed his round spectacles up his nose. “I have something to treat that.” He nodded toward my neck and wound his way around the large counter covered in winding tubes, bubbling cups, and scattered papers.
He rifled through the papers, plucking one from the mess. “Ah, here we go.” He squinted through his glasses. “Uh-huh, uh-huh. Two large scoops of this,” he mumbled. “Four small scoops of that. Oh, interesting. I forgot that powder was useful in healing broken bones.”
I cleared my throat. Nevan might very well forget about me. He did that sometimes. Got so wrapped up in his work, he shut out the entire world.
Nevan dropped the paper back into the mess and glanced at myhand, which I was having trouble moving because every time I did, excruciating pain radiated up my arm.
“So why didn’t you come sooner?” He passed by a tube filled with a green liquid, and it belched, bubbling over the top and spilling out, the green juices splattering to the floor. Nevan sidestepped it, not even batting an eye at the mess as he leaned down to study the tube. “Huh. Never seen that happen before.”
“To answer your question, I’ve been busy,” I said as he lifted my hand, studying it. “Cillian has gone on one of his excursions again.”
“I know.” Nevan turned and grabbed one of the many glass potion bottles scattered across the back counter. Some of them were empty, while others were filled with different colored liquids. “I sent him.”
My mouth dropped open. “You did what?”
He lifted the empty bottle and walked to the adjacent counter, using tongs to lift some flower petals out of a jar that he dropped into the vial. “Mother and I knew if Cillian was out of the picture, then you couldn’t hover and you’d be forced to come see me, so we told him to get lost. Literally.” He scooped a yellow powder into the bottle. “I’m glad the castle helped you along. I figured it wouldn’t be until tomorrow that you finally gave in and came, which, of course, would mean your injuries were getting worse in the meantime while you suffered for absolutely no reason at all.” He whirled around. “Not very practical.”
Whereas Cillian was all fun and games, Nevan was all work and no play. Some might even call him obsessed. He rarely left this part of the castle, always tinkering with new potions and alchemy.
I gritted my teeth. “You actually sent Cillian out of the castle without me by his side?”
Nevan turned and crossed his arms over his apron. It was splattered with dots of blood that had me wondering who he’d already attended to this morning. “He’s going to be fine, Wolfe. He’s a grown man. He can take a walk in town without you by his side. I think you forget that sometimes.” He paused. “Or you just don’t want to admit it.”
My younger brother annoyed me to no end with his observations that hit far too close to the truth.
He turned and added some blue liquid to the bottle, the mixture fizzing and turning a dark green. “You might as well sit,” he said over his shoulder. “You know the castle will just keep forcing you to come back until you get treatment.”
I huffed and sat on a wooden stool that sat beside a little stand full of metal tools, none of which looked particularly pleasant. Nevan had become the healer in Fairwitch by default. His interest lay in alchemy, in using the magic infused in the world to create powerful potions and new types of magic that could help people. But he’d given up his dreams of studying at the University of Magic & Science to stay here and apprentice with the healer so he could take over when she retired.
He carried the sloshing liquid and a bowl of white powder and stopped in front of me.
