Page 133

I shake the thought away, knowing this may be my only chance to escape the watchful eyes of Kylian and Eagan. I am eager to see if the crops held or if the curse swallowed everything the moment my magic left the soil.

I move toward the door, my hand trailing the wall for balance. Then finally, with one hand on the knob, I stop and glance back, worried his sensitive hearing will catch me sneaking out.

I carefully edge the door open and step out, closing it behind me without a sound. The corridor is quieter than I expected. No guards at their usual posts near the bedroom door. No servants passing with linens or trays.

My bare feet are silent against the stone floor that warms slightly where the sun reaches through the narrow fogged windows. I take the stairs down, having to grip the railing when my legs threaten to buckle. I keep going because the only thing louder than the ache in my body is the need to create medicine—not only for the sick children, but for Arlo as well.

If Arlo survived the night.

My body moves faster just thinking about him, alone in the infirmary with nothing to treat his wounds.

The heavy doors at the base of the eastern stairwell open to daylight so bright it blinds me. I raise my hand against it and squint through the gaps between my fingers. As my vision adjusts, the world outside swims into focus, and all I see is green. So much green. The fields are alive.

Not just alive, they appear to be thriving. The rows I planted in the dark are bursting with life, and the growth has pushed beyond the furrows. Grass, real grass, has broken through the dead soil along the edges of the field. It creeps outward in patches of pale green that weren’t there yesterday. The red stain of the poisoned earth is still visible in places, but it’s retreating, pushed back by roots that refuse to surrender the ground they’ve claimed.

It isn’t only the field. The stream that cuts down from hills alongside the castle used to run the color of rust, thick with the same rot that poisoned the ground and the people who drank from it. Now it runs clear over the stones, catching the light in a way I have never seen on this island.

A woman kneels at its edge filling a jug without needing to strain it through cloth first. The iron stench that clung to everything has thinned enough that I can finally smell the sea beneath it. The curse is loosening its grip, not all at once, but in the same way a fever breaks, in slow degrees you only notice once you are on the other side of it.

And the people. Humans move between the rows with baskets on their hips, bending and pulling weeds that have appeared overnight. They exclaim over the size of things that shouldn’t exist.

Vampires walk among them, and my breath hitches at the sight. A vampire guard carries a basket overflowing with tomatoes, holding it steady while a human woman adds more from the vine. Another crouches at the end of a row, carefully digging around a potato mound while a boy of maybe twelve watches and points to where more are hiding.

Children run between the rows, their laughter carrying across the field. The sound of it is so unexpected that it overwhelms me. Voices rise around the field. Not the frightened murmurs of people terrified of me. It’s the sound of genuine conversation—excited, bewildered, grateful conversation.

I step into the sun, and the warmth pools across my skin. Soaking through the cloak and into my bones. I lift my hand, spreading my fingers and letting the light fall between them. The heat gathers in my palm, golden and real, and I close my eyes.

I have missed this. The open sky above me and the ground alive beneath my feet. The freedom of standing outside without the suffocating weight of hiding what I am. The wind off the ocean pushes my hair back from my face, and for the first time since I arrived on this rock, the air doesn’t taste of death.

I don’t let myself stand in the sun for long. I move into the rows. The herbs grow thick on either side of me, their scents rising as the sun heats their leaves. First I grab feverfew, which looks a lot like wild daisies, stripping a handful of stems and tucking them into the fold of my cloak. Yarrow next, snapping the flat-topped clusters at their bases. Rosemary, a full branch of it, the needle-like leaves already releasing their sharp scent as I break the stem.

A woman crouched at the end of a row looks up as I pass. Her hands are full of onions, dirt clinging to their papery skins, and she watches me take a bundle of herbs from the basket beside her. I open my mouth to explain, to apologize, to justify why I’m taking it, but she speaks first.

“Take what you need.” Her voice is rough, her eyes red rimmed. “My boy’s in the infirmary. Three days with that fever. Eagan said that you’re here to help.”

My throat tightens as I nod slowly. “I’m going to try.”

“Please,” she says as she reaches into her basket and pulls out a bunch of garlic so fresh the roots are still damp with soil. “Take it.”

Others nod or murmur their greetings as I pass, and a man sorting herbs into piles sets aside a bundle of chamomile and pushes it toward me without being asked. A girl no older than fourteen runs up with her apron full of tomatoes and tips half of them into my arms before darting away.

By the time I reach the edge of the field, I’m carrying so much that the cloak’s fold can barely contain it. I have mullein sticking out of pockets, wild lettuce jammed in another. I have to refuse some offerings, unable to carry any more. Passing a young boy, I ask if he can retrieve water and meet me at the vault. His eyes scan for his guardian, who quickly nods for him to do as I ask.

The path to the vault feels shorter in daylight, though my legs still burn with the effort of the uphill climb. I shoulder the heavy door open and step inside, setting everything down on a counter.

It isn’t long before the boy from the field comes and sets a large copper jug of water beside me. He eagerly watches for a few seconds, standing on his toes to reach out and touch a tomato. Grabbing one, I pass it to him, and his first big bite spills juice down his chin.

“What are you making?” he questions between bites of the tomato that he can barely hold in two hands.

“Medicine,” I answer just as a woman’s voice calls from outside.

“Alex!”

I lift a brow, peering down at the child. “I’m guessing you’re Alex.”

He nods, giving me a big, gapping grin. “Go on, before she thinks I’ve kidnapped you to turn you into soup.” The boy giggles and rushes out, leaving me to work.

The knowledge of my fingers has always been more than my mind. It has carried over the years of making do with less than enough, but my mother taught me to work with what the ground provided. Wild garlic from the forest edge. Dandelion root. In boiling water, pine needles were steeped in a crude tonic that tasted of tree sap and soil.