His eyes shimmered in the starlight. “I’m not just tracking victim information. I’m going to find the cure.”
My mouth fell open. “I thought you were simply researching the plague itself.”
“That’s one aspect of it. An aspect I’ve been working on privately for years.”
“Years?”
He gave me a bittersweet smile. “It’s been my life’s work.”
I blinked. “How will you manage a cure? The Quiet Passing has been around for over five years and no one’s even come close.”
“Oh, you of little faith,” he said, rifling through his notes. He handed me a page with columns of numbers I didn’t understand. “Here you can see I’ve done a few tests on toads I’ve collected from the pond. I infect them with a variant of the bacteria, and after a week, inject them with my serum. About half make a full recovery.”
“Why haven’t you told anyone?”
“They’re just toads. I’ll need to practice on humans soon. And I’m still tweaking it. I’d like the result to be a full recovery for nearly every infection, not just some. And the testing process is…” he winced, rubbing his arm, “draining.”
Anger and confusion sparked within me. “It’s not some. Each recovery is a subject, a person you could be saving.” I thought of Gina and the absence that would be left behind in Kelara’s life aftershe was gone. I thought of Papa, and his dreams cut short—the travels never taken, the magic never mastered, the daughters he never saw reach their happy ending. I thought of all the lives taken, and all the lives that would be taken soon. My fists clenched. “And while you perfect your little experiment,yourpeople are dying. Or have you forgotten that people suffer outside the towering walls you hide behind?”
Thom fell quiet. After a few moments, he pushed his glasses up his nose. “I haven’t forgotten, Lyranore.” The muscles in his jaw clenched. “Why do you think I’m researching the cure in the first place, dedicating mylifeto fighting what’s killing our people?”
A rustling made us fall silent. We stared wide-eyed at one another, realizing our volume had grown reckless. Caleb ducked around a hedge to check the sound’s source. I fought to steady my breathing.
After a few moments, Caleb appeared again. My muscles relaxed as he gave us a tight-lipped smile.
“It was just Master Blackwood, sire. Out for an evening walk.”
Thom’s face grew wary. “Was he near enough to hear us?”
Caleb nodded.
Thom cursed under his breath. “That’s just wonderful.”
Questions surged to the tip of my tongue, but I forced my mouth to stay shut. Something in the tightness of Thom’s shoulders warned me not to pry further, especially after I’d just rebuked him in front of his own guard, and before a man on the Mage Council.
I stayed silent as Thomas gathered his thoughts and then began picking up his parchment.
“Will we get in trouble, Your Highness?” I asked.
He gave me a look. “I’m a prince. What would we get in trouble for?”
“You’re with a servant, Your Highness.” It was hard not to thinkof Ella and her memory everywhere in the castle. Even by this very pond, we used to sit and giggle over the gardeners and footmen. We were immediate friends when we started, and now the palace was emptier and more hostile than I ever thought possible. And while David had asked me to consider quitting, I wasn’t quite sure I wanted my employment to end the way Ella’s did, tearing a rip into the fabric of the palace staff and functions.
Prince Thomas’s face remained stoic, and for one bitter moment, I wondered if Ella and his brother’s situation crossed his mind at all.
“I’m with a student.” His expression darkened. “Anyone who questions my tutoring will be causing not only a problem for me, but for the King, who is incredibly invested in my studies.” He offered me a spellbook, one finger tucked between the pages. “And in the research you are assisting me with.”
I nodded and took the book from him. It opened to where he’d marked a misting spell, the same one I’d marveled at yesterday.
I smiled to myself, but the prince’s gaze didn’t meet mine, his mind still a thousand miles elsewhere.
My eyes skimmed over the instructions. I was to consider the air’s particles as something to shape, cradle, and coax, and move them with my mind. If I could move water, surely I could move this.
I set down the book to focus, picturing the air particles. My palms drew outward of their own accord, the movements more natural and evolved than instructed. My fingers swayed in the breeze. I pictured the air as it could be, in shapes of my own imagination. I reached for a motive, my mind coming up empty.
“Are you linking to your thread of magic? To your sense of duty?”
My eyes popped open. The air was as empty as it was a moment ago. Frustration gnawed at me. “No.”
