He shook his head. “She’s on the rocks. I don’t dare try to move her.”
Fine. She’d have to hope that Larran was too worried to notice exactly what she was doing. “You go back to her, try to keep her comfortable. Caz and I will gather what we need and meet you there.”
He agreed to that and headed for the door.
“Wait,” she called. She darted out to the garden, plucked three tomatoes, and then returned and thrust them at him. “Go. Comfort her until I get there.”
He took the tomatoes, and his hands brushed hers. “Do you really think you can help her?” His eyes were anxious, and she saw every bit of fear and hope he was holding inside.
She knew she should say she’d try. Any decent scholar would couch her response in qualifications. It was inaccurate to claim any kind of certainty. But looking into his eyes, all she could say was “Yes.”
Clutching the concoction and a hastily scrawled copy of the spell, Kiela hurried through the woods, across the field, and down the stairs to the shore. She ran through the list of ingredients in her head, certain she hadn’t forgotten anything but calmed by the repetition of the list, and then the words to the spell, silently practicing the music of the syllables.
Caz galumphed beside her, using his tendrils to catapult his soil ball forward. At the stairs, he simply wrapped his leaves around his roots and rolled from step to step. He reached the bottom before she did.
Up ahead, she spotted Larran out on the jetty with Sian—the horse-fish was slumped over the rocks, and for one horrible moment, Kiela thought they were too late. But then Sian lifted her tail for an instant before lowering it again.
“We need a way to distract Larran,” Kiela said. “He’ll want to hover.”
“Tell him you need one more ingredient,” Caz suggested. “While he’s helping me find it, you can cast the spell.”
“Perfect. It’s a plan.”
“Just make sure it’s an ingredient he’d have in the kitchen, not, like, seaweed.”
“I wasn’t going to say seaweed.”
Caz halted at the end of the jetty, and Kiela stepped onto the first rock. From the house behind them, she heard the door open and turned her head to see Radane step out onto the porch. The rescued woman wore a loose green dress that fluttered in the breeze, her hair was tied back with a white bow, and she looked fully recovered from her ordeal.
Caz asked the question that Kiela wanted to ask: “Why’s she here?”
She supposed the new arrival didn’t have anywhere else to stay, but still . . . It was, at the very least, inconvenient to have her here too. Also, she was certain that Larran only had one bed.
Radane smiled radiantly at them. “Oh, good day! Are you here for the laundry?”
Laundry? Did she think—Never mind.It didn’t matter. “No, we—” Kiela didn’t want to spend the time explaining, not when Larran and Sian needed her. “Caz?” She turned and picked her way along the stones toward Larran, while Caz greeted Radane.
“We’re neighbors,” Caz told her. “We came to help Larran with his merhorse. We have an old island herbal remedy that’s good with colic. Learned it from an old villager years ago.”
Radane boggled at the spider plant. “You talk! What a fascinating revelation.” Kneeling, she began to examine him, lifting up a tendril and peering under his leaves. “I had believed sentient plants only existed on Alyssium.”
Caz recoiled. “No touchy, please.”
Kiela felt prickles on her neck and hoped that Radane’s reaction wasn’t going to be a problem. Sentient plants weren’t common outside the capital city, but there was nothing illegal about Caz existing. Unlike the cactus, Kiela was legitimately not responsible for his creation.
One problem at a time.
“Did this villager also create you?” Radane asked. “I would be honored to meet him or her.”
“Sadly, my creator died in a fire.”
If Radane was interested enough in Caz, it might be sufficient distraction for Kiela to get the job done. She raised her eyebrows at him, and Caz shook a tendril at her—go,it meant.
Kiela hurried down the jetty toward Larran and Sian. “I’ve brought the remedy.” She emphasized the word “remedy.” She wondered if she should repeat Caz’s lie about the old villager.
He didn’t look up. “She’s weakening. Look at her eyes.”
Her eyes were cloudy with flashes of light that swallowed her pupils. Her once-golden scales were a lemon yellow, laced with streaks of purple—faint, but after the merbaby, Kiela knew what to look for. Sian was definitely storm sick.She’s dying.An uneaten tomato lay beside her on the rocks.
