All around the room, babies cry and children chatter. The elderly moan and creak, while middle-aged men and women share quiet conversations.
I jerk back from the keyhole, my voice shaking with disbelief, awe,fear, and a dozen other conflicting emotions, because this can’t be what it looks like.
It can’t.
I had a hard enough time believing Queen Tessa and her courtiers could sip small doses of bagrava tea without becoming wild and unhinged. But this is another development entirely. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the bagravahealedthese people.
We take turns watching through the keyhole. Every minute, I expect the effects of the bagrava to overpower the patients and stir them into a frenzy. But an hour passes, maybe more, and they never lose themselves. Instead, their smiles and conversations gradually fade until each patient is once again lying still and catatonic on their cots.
“I don’t know what this is, but you have to stop it,” I tell Alaric. “It isn’t right. These people will be permanently damaged. Addicted.”
“I’m more concerned withwhothese people are and how they got here,” Alaric says, pointing to a red-cheeked baby with dark curls. “That one looks eerily similar to Lady Hawthorne’s child, the one that died suddenly in its sleep several months ago. And I’d swear that’s Lord Fillibus’s daughter.” He nods at girl who looks around my age. “She supposedly got lost while foraging outside the walls. We presumed she froze to death.”
“Is that Elodie’s mother?” I point to a woman with long silver braids who looks like the skeletal twin of the smiling woman I saw in the portraits adorning Elodie’s walls. “Where are their families?” I wonder. “Isn’t it odd there are no visitors? That no one has stayed to sit with or care for their loved ones—especially the younger children?”
“What’soddis that this facility exists and I was unaware of it.” Alaric’s voice quivers with rage.
“It must be an illegal establishment, acting outside the law,” Delphine suggests, but Alaric shakes his head, his nostrils flaring wider with each breath.
“There’s no way they would have access to this much bagravawithout the knowledge and support of my father and his councilors. Which means this facility isn’t operating illegally. I’ve just been kept in the dark.”
I place a gentle hand on Alaric’s shoulder, but he brushes me off, and before Delphine or I can stop him, he grips the knob and charges through the door.
Thirty-Five
“What in the name of the kings is going on here?” Alaric roars.
The nearest caretaker, who was collecting empty soup bowls, shrieks and fumbles her tray. Dishes clatter noisily to the floor, and several of the other nurses scream. The patients, however, blink slowly at the commotion—if they notice it at all. Most are staring silently up at the ceiling, returned again to stone.
Delphine and I slink into the room, keeping our backs against the wall, as Alaric shouts and stomps down the long rows of beds.
“Under whose orders do you operate? Who gave you the authority to open this facility and use bagrava in this way?”
The ground noticeably shudders with each of his steps, and for the first time since arriving on the mountain, I see a glimpse of Soren’s temper in him. I see how easy it would be for them to lose control of their power in a fit of anger or outrage.
“Someone had better start talking!” Alaric bellows when none of the nurses come forward.
“Settle down,” a familiar voice drawls from the far side of the room, and a wave of revulsion washes over me. I want to run—far, far away—but Delphine reaches for my hand and squeezes it tight as Garitt Von Nevus emerges from the shadows. His velvet robes and glowing complexion look especially ridiculous here, in this sea of plain white sheets and sallow faces.
“Von Nevus,” Alaric spits. “Somehow I’m not surprised to find you here. Who are these people, and why wasn’t I aware of this facility?”
Von Nevus smirks and casts his eyes about the room, breaking into a full-blown grin when he spots me. “Ah, good. You brought Indira.”
The sound of my name on his lips makes me want to scream.
“Answer me!” Alaric roars. “Now!”
“It’s so unbecoming for a prince to throw a tantrum like a toddler.” Von Nevus tuts and leans casually against a bed frame. “And yelling will do no good. I don’t take orders from you.”
“You’d better start if you want to leave this warehouse alive,” Alaric warns, raising his hands.
Beneath our feet, the stone floor shudders even harder.
“Alaric!” I cry out with alarm, but his attention remains fixed on Von Nevus.
“Tell me!” Alaric commands.
When Von Nevus still doesn’t answer, fractures zigzag up the plaster walls of the warehouse. The bed frames rattle and clank, and the nurses who haven’t already fled bolt without a backward glance at the helpless patients.
