Poisoned: The Book of Maladies Page 14

  Sam punched him on the shoulder, and Bastan shrugged it off as they entered the room. Had she her augmentations, he wouldn’t be able to so easily shrug it off. A threat like that from Bastan was meaningful. It was more than likely that he would find some way to force her assistance. It was entirely probable.

  “What happened?” Bastan asked.

  “She was attacked.”

  “Did you see the attacker?”

  “He’s a larger man. And she’s tiny.”

  As Kevin helped her to a cot, Bastan glanced from Elaine back up to Sam. “You’re tiny, but I’ve seen you face down much larger men.”

  Sam shrugged. “With the help of the paper. Otherwise, there’s not much I can do.”

  Bastan turned to a nearby desk and wrote a note on a slip of paper, folding it neatly and placing the wax seal across the edge. “Take this to the university. Ask for Alec,” Bastan said to Kevin.

  “University? You’re sending me for a real physicker? You know they won’t come to Caster.”

  “Not a physicker, but a student.”

  “Looks like this woman needs more than a student,” Kevin said.

  “Which is exactly what she will get,” Bastan said.

  When Kevin hurried from the room, Bastan turned his attention back to Sam. “Are you going to tell me what really happened?”

  Sam sighed. “She’s like me.”

  “I can see that.”

  “No. She’s able to receive augmentations, the same as me. But that wasn’t enough to escape the attack.”

  “I thought your augmentations… One of them was in the city, wasn’t it?”

  Keeping it a secret from Bastan was not anything she wanted to do. It was better for him to know the truth, especially as he had been such a help to her when she’d needed it—most recently when she had nearly died from a fall while trailing the princess.

  “Three, actually.”

  “And where are they now?”

  “I think two are dead,” she began. She nodded toward Elaine. “And the third was much larger than the others. Even with her augmentations, she was no match for him.”

  “Where were they?” Bastan asked. “It must have been near for you to have brought her here.”

  “Marin’s. I was looking to see if there was anything I could discover when I realized they were approaching.”

  “They came after you?”

  “I don’t know if they came after me, or if they came after Elaine, or whether they thought they were finding Marin, or even if they were the ones who attacked the merchant.” She hadn’t had the opportunity to see if the men she’d seen in the street were like the others. “There was another attack, Bastan. In Caster. I saw the bodies down in the street.”

  “Not in my section. There shouldn’t have been.”

  “There was.”

  His brow furrowed, and irritation flashed across his face. “And here I thought my attempt to watch the merchant movements had been effective in preventing more attacks like that.”

  “You did that?”

  “After what you told me the last time.”

  Sam frowned. Could that be why the attack was in Caster this time? That seemed unlikely, but maybe the Thelns had come after Bastan for meddling.

  “You have to be careful.”

  “I’m always careful.”

  “I’m not kidding, Bastan. If the Thelns have returned, and they intend to attack…”

  “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “I’m not.”

  He smiled. “Tell yourself whatever you need.” She glared at him, and he ignored it. “Do you know why the Thelns returned to the city?”

  “I think they constantly attempt to attack the city,” Sam said. “Elaine, and others like her, fend them off.”

  “How many are there like her?”

  “I don’t know. I know only of Elaine.”

  Bastan watched her, his head tilted to the side as he considered her. “Just Elaine?”

  “I understand one of them died outside of the city, if that’s what you’re getting at. I never met her.”

  “Her? Are these people with augmentations always female?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, I’ve only met Elaine.”

  “And Marin.”

  “And Marin,” Sam agreed. “Marin told me nothing about them, other than the fact that I was descended from someone with some abilities. She was no different from anyone else in her attempt to keep that knowledge from me.”

  “Maybe there was not an attempt to keep it from you, but to keep you safe.”

  She shrugged. “I think I’m safer now that I understand a little bit about how to use my abilities, don’t you?”

  “Honestly, Samara, I would prefer if you knew nothing about these abilities. It seems to me that since you’ve learned, you’ve been placed in much more danger than you ever had been before.”

  Sam crossed her arms over her chest. If Bastan were closer to her, she would’ve hit him. She was of half a mind to assemble her canal staff to smack him from the other side of the room. “You put me in more danger than anyone else ever did.”

  Bastan shook his head. “You were in danger, but none that I couldn’t help you with. You were never so far gone—or isolated—that I couldn’t lend a hand if it were needed.”

  “Like you did with Tray?”

  “Had you given me more time, I would’ve gotten Tray free.”

  That wasn’t what he had told her at the time, but she didn’t want to argue with Bastan about that. “Instead, Marin managed to get him free.”

  Bastan grunted. “Unfortunately, she did.”

  “Unfortunately? You would rather have left Tray stuck in that cell, tormented by the guards, in danger of dying?”

  “You were in the prison, however briefly it was. You know the prisoners are treated well. And your brother was never in any danger. My resources were clear enough on that. Had he been in real danger, I would have gone after him myself.” There was an edge to his voice, one that made Sam question why Bastan would act so fiercely on her behalf.

  “If you were going to help Tray, you could have done it long before I had to intervene,” Sam began.

  Elaine moaned. It was the first sound she had made since they had brought her down to this room.

  Sam hurried over to her and took her hand, thinking that Elaine might open her eyes, but the woman only moaned again.

  Bastan approached and stood on the other side of the cot, looking down at Elaine. “She’s quite lovely, albeit smallish.”

  “Smallish? Don’t let her hear you describe her that way,” Sam said.

  “Does she have a temper like you?”

  Sam glowered at him. “I don’t have a temper.”

  “I thought maybe it was a trait of those with your particular ability. I thought maybe you all got angry quickly. Marin certainly has a temper. And yes, Samara, even you have something of a temper.”

  “Careful, Bastan, or you’ll get to see exactly how much of a temper I have.”

  Bastan grinned. “I’ve seen your temper from time to time. Now, if you will excuse me for a moment, I’m going to check on the status of a few items and then will return.”

  Bastan slipped out the door, leaving Sam alone with Elaine.

  She looked around the room and decided that it had to be a different room from the one that Bastan had brought her to when she’d fallen. This was simpler. Walls were boarded up, and there were no decorations here. The cot appeared otherwise unused, and she noted a few crates in the corner but nothing else.

  There were other rooms along the hall, but Bastan had chosen this one, almost as if there were some particular reason behind it. Was there something unique about it? Or was it simply an empty room?

  She turned her attention back to Elaine and watched her mother taking steady breaths. At least she breathed easily. Alec had taught Sam a few things about healing, and she remembered him telling her to first check to ensure the person w
as breathing, then check for a heartbeat, and then begin looking for wounds. Since Elaine still breathed, and she’d been breathing since Sam rescued her from Marin’s property, she had to assume that she also had a heartbeat. Any wounds that she might have were not visible.

  “This would have been easier had you not gotten hurt,” Sam said to Elaine. “No, if I'm honest, this would’ve been easier if you had found me years ago. It would’ve been nice to know where I came from.”

  Sam watched Elaine, thinking that she might open her eyes, or that her breathing patterns might change, but nothing changed for her. Strangely, it was easier for her to talk to Elaine with her unable to answer back. As she stood there, looking down at the woman who was supposed to be her mother, she found that emotions bubbled to the surface that she had not expected.

  Anger was foremost among them.

  Sam had spent the last decade of her life thinking that she was little more than a lowborn, that she deserved nothing from life, that she had to go out and take what she needed if she was to survive. That was the way—and the mindset—of the lowborns. She had never believed that she deserved anything more. And maybe she still didn’t. Maybe she really was nothing but a lowborn, and still needed to go out and take what she was owed.

  It was hard for Sam to believe that Elaine had not known about her, especially considering some of the conversations they’d had since being reunited. Elaine was interested in training her, but that seemed about it. She was more focused on spending her time outside of the city, either fighting the Thelns, or serving the princess in whatever way that she did.

  Why hadn’t she fought that much on Sam’s behalf?

  If she had, what would have been different for her?

  Sam wouldn’t have known Bastan, and she wouldn’t have developed her abilities to sneak around, finding her way into places she really didn’t belong. She never would have gotten to know Marin, though that wouldn’t have been all bad. But, more than anything, she never would have known Tray. Whatever else might have been different, she couldn’t imagine a life without Tray being a part of it.

  She really needed to find him.

  “Why won’t you work with me?” Sam went on, looking at Elaine. She seemed so peaceful as she rested, but did she deserve to be peaceful, did she deserve to have that, when Sam could not?

  “I need to learn how to use my abilities. I deserve to know this.”

  “You are learning.”

  The soft-spoken words startled Sam, and she jumped back a step.

  Elaine didn’t open her eyes, but clearly, she was able to answer and was much more alert than Sam had expected.

  “You abandoned me,” Sam said.

  “I did not abandon you. You were… lost.”

  Lost. Sam didn’t think that she’d been lost. How hard would it have been to find her if Elaine had looked? Marin had known where to find her, which suggested to Sam that Elaine should have been able to discover her as well. Instead, she had seemingly assumed that Sam was dead.

  Maybe she should have stayed dead to Elaine.

  She didn’t really feel that way. She had to admit a certain thrill as she learned the staff with Thoren, and she had to admit an edge of excitement as she realized that her Kaver abilities were not entirely tied to the easar paper. If she didn’t have to rely on the paper, then there had to be other things that she could do, other abilities that she could work, and perhaps she would be able to face the Thelns even without augmentations.

  Yet even Elaine had come at them with an augmentation. The speed she’d used to attack couldn’t have been anything other than an augmentation—could it?

  Unless that was what she had wanted Sam to learn.

  “Did you know they were there?” Sam asked.

  “They entered the city. I lost them.”

  “How did you find them?”

  “Pressure.”

  At first, the comment seemed strange, something that Sam was not meant to understand, but the more she thought about it, the more she thought she understood the pressure that Elaine meant.

  “Their explosions?”

  “Not. Explosion. Their magic.” Elaine still seemed weak, and her words were clearly draining what little energy she had.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You. Shouldn’t. Untrained.”

  Elaine’s face twisted, and it seemed as if something hurt her, and her breathing quickened.

  “What is it?” Sam asked.

  “Stomach,” Elaine grunted.

  Sam took her hands and squeezed them, trying to find a way to soothe Elaine, but feeling inadequate. There was nothing she could do or say that would help put her at ease. She stroked Elaine’s hair, brushing it away from her face, and realized that sweat had beaded on her forehead.

  She was fighting something awful.

  “Did he hit you?” Sam asked.

  “Staff. Hit.”

  Sam thought back to what she’d seen during the fight. When the Theln had grabbed Elaine’s staff, she’d held on, until he ultimately flung her off and she flew against the wall of the building. But had her own staff hit her in the process? The Theln had reached in, moving so quickly that Sam had a hard time tracking it, but it was possible he had done more than simply throw her against the building.

  The Thelns liked poison, didn’t they?

  The first time Sam had confronted them, she’d been chased by a man who was eager to poison her. The Thelns thought their poison universally fatal to Kavers, but why should that be when Scribes could heal them?

  Unless it had something to do with the Book of Maladies.

  “Do you think you could have been poisoned?”

  “Possible,” Elaine agreed.

  Sam paced around the table, wringing her hands. She needed Alec to get here. He had saved Sam when she’d been poisoned, and she thought if anyone could do something to help reverse the effects of a Theln attack, it was Alec.

  “Need to. University.”

  “You’re too sick to go to the university. I brought you to someone who will help.”

  “Who?”

  “A man who has helped me many times,” Sam said. “A man by the name of Bastan.”

  Elaine moaned. Sam smoothed her hair again, brushing it off her forehead. It didn’t seem like the gesture made much of a difference, but she felt the need to do something for her mother.

  She lost track of time. Elaine had stopped speaking, and Sam didn’t feel comfortable yelling at her anymore about the past. Not now, knowing that her mother might have been poisoned and might be dying before her eyes. She didn’t want her angry words to be the last thing her mother ever heard from her.

  After a while, she heard the door open and looked over to see Alec walk in. Relief swept through her, but it faded when she realized he wasn’t alone.

  The woman she’d seen with him before walked in behind him.

  21

  Surgery

  The hospital was as busy as usual today, and Alec kept his hands clasped behind his back as he looked over the line of students in front of him, peering over the cot. They were with Master Eckerd again, and he made a point of speaking quietly, almost as if he didn’t want to reveal too much to the people near him.

  The patient here was fairly young, certainly younger than many of the patients that were often seen at the university and had dark brown hair that reached her shoulders. Her skin was deeply tanned, and he wondered if she spent significant time working outdoors or if she naturally had a darker complexion. There were many people within the city with darker complexions, though most were lowborns, which fit with their tendency to work outdoors. Most of the highborns had pale skin and preferred to maintain that by remaining inside and keeping covered. It was another way to maintain division between the classes.

  “What do you see about this woman?” Master Eckerd asked.

  Alec couldn’t see anything unusual. Her eyes were closed, and she breathed regularly, but she hadn’t moved in the time they been
there. There were many ingestions that could lead to such a coma, and many of the medications used by the university as sedatives would also induce something similar.

  “Has she been administered anything?” The question came from Matthias, who stood across the cot from Alec and shot him an amused glare as he asked the question.

  “An excellent question,” Master Eckerd said. Matthias flashed a satisfied smile at Alec. “But as far as we can tell, she’s not been administered anything.”

  “Nothing from the university?” Alec pressed.

  “There has been no need. She has been motionless since she arrived.”

  Stefan took one of the woman’s hands and raised it to examine her nails, then pulled back her sheet to look up her arms.

  Master Eckerd chuckled. “This is not a self-inflicted injection, either.”

  Stefan shrugged. “I only thought—”

  “You thought that I would have another person who had indulged in solpace juice?”

  Stefan looked down.

  “Master Carl was teaching us about foxglove,” Matthias said.

  Master Eckerd’s gaze narrowed. “He was teaching first-year students about foxglove, was he?”

  No one answered immediately, so Alec nodded.

  “Well then, if you’ve learned about foxglove, see if you think this might be a similar ingestion.”

  Matthias pushed one of the other students—Karen—out of the way. She was short, nearly the same height as Sam, but dressed in much more formal clothing that Sam wouldn’t be caught dead in. She wore a floral-patterned dress that reached to the ground, and a heavy gold locket hung from her neck.

  “He might want to be careful. He’ll upset his girlfriend,” Beckah whispered.

  Alec’s eyes widened. “She’s his—”

  Beckah shook her head. “Not her. Nanci.”

  Nanci was a taller woman, who dressed nearly as formally as Karen, but didn’t wear the same gold chain, or any other sign of the highborns. Alec had rarely spoken to either of the two women.

  Matthias grabbed the patient’s wrist and checked for a pulse. He moved up to her neck, feeling the artery there, before leaning his head down to her chest to listen.