Poisoned: The Book of Maladies Read online

  Alec was right. She was too weak. He was too weak. To be effective, both Kaver and Scribe had to have the necessary strength to make the augmentation work. With healing, it required a specific touch, from both of them.

  Would she lose Tray before she even had a chance to explain what had happened? Would she lose her brother and never have the opportunity to tell him what he meant to her? What did it matter that Marin had lied to her? What did it matter that he was not her brother by blood? He was still her brother.

  “What are you doing?”

  She looked up to see Alec watching Beckah. She was kneeling over something—easar paper, Sam realized.

  “I thought it was worth a try,” Beckah said.

  “It requires a specific ability,” Alec explained. “You need both Scribe and Kaver.”

  Sam had a hard time focusing. She really was tired. “Tray is at least half Kaver,” she said.

  “You’re not helping,” Alec chided.

  “Let her try,” Sam said.

  “What are the odds that she might be a Scribe?”

  “Probably the same odds that you were a Scribe when I stumbled into your apothecary,” Sam said. They hadn’t discovered what made a pairing of Scribe and Kaver, but she suspected it was little more than chance. It certainly had only been chance that she had stumbled into Alec’s apothecary shop. Had she ended up anywhere else, she wouldn’t have gotten the help she needed. She wouldn’t have survived the poison from the Theln’s arrow.

  “Are you going to help, or are you going to continue to give me a hard time,” Beckah said to Alec. “Or are you worried that I’ll be better at this than you?”

  Sam smiled in spite of herself. “Does she always give you a hard time like that?” Sam asked.

  Alec groaned. “Sometimes worse,” he said.

  “Good.”

  Alec sighed. “Fine. Let’s prove that this doesn’t work. What you need to do is write down the symptoms and how you intend to treat it.”

  “How I intend to treat it? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Pretend that you have access to all of the university resources. Pretend that you have access to everything that my father has in his apothecary shop. Use that and write it down.”

  Beckah glanced up at him, almost a look of disbelief on her face. “Maybe this was a mistake,” Beckah said.

  “No. I think it’s worth trying.”

  Sam could tell from the way he said it that Alec didn’t expect it to work, but he was willing to attempt it. That meant something to her.

  Beckah turned her attention back to the page and started writing.

  Sam couldn’t see what she was doing, and maybe that was for the best. If she could see her documentation, she might compare it too much to what Alec did, and there was no benefit in that.

  “Good. That’s good,” Alec said.

  “Do you think this might work?” Beckah began, and Sam noted the scratching of her pen across the page.

  Curiosity got the best of her, and she looked up, turning to watch Beckah as she wrote. From her angle, crouched as she was on the ground, she couldn’t read the words on the easar paper.

  “That could work,” Alec said. “You might try adding a comment about how to heal his wounds.”

  “I didn’t see any wounds, other than the one on his head.”

  “There are likely internal wounds,” Alec said.

  Beckah nodded and turned her attention back to the page, the pen scratching along the surface.

  And then she stopped.

  Sam looked over and saw Beckah leaning back on her heels. “Oh.”

  She started to wobble and then leaned backward.

  Alec was there and caught her before she could fall. He watched Beckah for a moment, his face twisted in an expression of confusion. “Beckah?”

  “I… I feel… exhausted.”

  Alec watched her for a moment before looking over to Sam. “How? How could this work?”

  Sam flicked her gaze crawled around to the back of the desk, where Tray lay unmoving. He was part Kaver, which would explain that, but it wouldn’t explain why Beckah would be able to serve as Scribe to him. “Do you think it could have anything to do with the fact that you’re at the university?”

  “I was your Scribe long before I went to the university,” Alec said.

  “But you’d resisted going.” Sam wasn’t sure what she was getting at, only that there seemed to be a connection between the university and Scribes. There had to be, didn’t there?

  The princess had access to the university, as well, and the kind of access she had indicated that she had more than a passing familiarity with it.

  “What if there’s something about those who succeed at the university?” Sam asked.

  “Why would that matter?”

  She shrugged. “I can’t say that I understand, only that it would be the only other connection. I mean, even the princess had some connection to the university.”

  “What of Marin’s Scribe?” Alec asked.

  Sam thought for a moment before catching her breath. Marin hadn’t said anything about a Scribe, but if she had been at the university, there had to be a reason. Was she searching for a Scribe—or was she searching for her Scribe?

  “We need to meet with one of your masters.”

  “What will that do?” Alec asked.

  “We have questions. I think it’s time that we have answers.”

  33

  The Next Step

  After waiting for nearly an hour, Sam’s strength began to return. Once it started, it built quickly. She breathed out a sigh, wanting nothing more than to run to the university with Alec, but she had to wait. Tray still hadn’t fully recovered.

  It still amazed her that Alec’s friend was able to connect to Tray, Scribe to Kaver. There had to be some answer, some connection, that made it so the two of them could work together, but if so, wouldn’t Marin have known?

  Maybe it only required the right potential. Sam and Alec meeting had certainly been chance, no different than this. Could that be all there was? Chance?

  She sat in Bastan’s tavern, quietly nursing a mug of hot tea. She didn’t want anything stronger, not wanting the ale to cloud her mind, not when there was so much still to do.

  “He’s awake,” Alec said. He stood in the doorway of Bastan’s office, his face drawn, and his eyes looking tired.

  “How is he?”

  “Recovering. He doesn’t know what happened, other than that when he brought you here, he was attacked. He didn’t get to see who attacked him.”

  “Bastan?” Is that why he’d not returned? What was his connection to the man they’d tried to save?

  “You’ll have to ask him.”

  “You haven’t told him about how he was healed, have you?” Sam asked. That had been their agreement. They didn’t want to reveal the truth until they knew how Tray would react.

  “I haven’t told him. He deserves to know. If he has this potential, he deserves a chance to work with it and discover what it means. Think about what would have happened had you never learned what it meant for you to be a Kaver.”

  She didn’t like the idea of keeping it from Tray, but until she knew, until she could be certain that he hadn’t completely abandoned their connection, she wasn’t comfortable with telling him. “When it’s the right time, I will share it with him.”

  Alec took her hands and squeezed. “I’ll wait out here.” He held her gaze a moment before looking past her, toward Beckah sitting in the back of the tavern alone.

  Sam had preferred that she remain that way, but she suspected Alec would go over to her. And she couldn’t be jealous—she shouldn’t—but she was. She couldn’t answer why, though.

  Sam sighed and stood, heading for Bastan’s office. Sam had picked up the statues and put them back where they belonged, to the best of her recollection, but she left the paintings leaning against the walls of the office. She could only imagine Bastan’s reaction when he returned. If
he returned, she reminded herself.

  “Tray?” She paused at the door, looking at her brother as he sat propped against the wall behind Bastan’s desk. He had changed so much in the last few months; his eyes wiser, his body thicker, more muscular, but those weren’t the most noticeable changes. There was something else that she couldn’t quite put a finger on, but it was just as important.

  “Sam. What happened here?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. There was an attack. I was hoping you would be able to tell me about that.”

  Tray surveyed the office. “When I got here, Bastan was gone. There were three of them, but they moved too quickly. They knocked me out, and apparently, left me for dead.”

  “Why did they leave you?” Sam asked, taking a few steps into the room.

  Tray shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably because I was useless to them.”

  “Why did they leave me?”

  He met her gaze and then shrugged. “I didn’t let them see you.”

  “How?” When he didn’t answer, she sighed. “Please, Tray. How?”

  “I covered you.” He met her eyes for a long moment. “You’ve protected me my entire life. It was time I returned the favor. What are you going to do?” Tray asked.

  Sam walked over to Bastan’s desk and leaned against it. “I have to find out what Marin’s up to.”

  “I was only to watch shipments in and out of the university. Nothing more than that.” He hesitated. “So… she’s my mother?” There was a bit of defiance in his tone, but she could also hear his confusion. He looked a bit lost.

  Sam clasped her hands together and looked into her brother’s eyes, wishing she didn’t have to answer this. “If what I’ve been told is true, she is.”

  “What does that make us?” The question was laced with more than it seemed. It was the question she’d been asking for the last few months, ever since learning about Tray and what Marin had done.

  “It makes us brother and sister. It doesn’t change anything, Tray. Every memory I have is of you as my brother. Everything I’ve ever done has been to keep you safe.”

  “I’ve told you that you don’t need to do that anymore.”

  “And yet it doesn’t change me feeling that way,” Sam said. “In my mind, and my heart, you’re still my little brother. You’re still the little boy who chased me through the city, mad that he couldn’t use the canal staff like I could, or couldn’t climb up the sides of buildings the way I could.”

  “I don’t need a canal staff anymore. And I have no difficulty climbing up buildings.”

  Sam stared at him and didn’t know quite how to respond. What was the right answer for Tray? What would help him? “That still doesn’t change anything for me. I hope it doesn’t for you, either.”

  Tray watched her, unblinking, then let out a frustrated sigh. “Why would she do this to us?”

  Sam shook her head. “I really don’t know.”

  “If it was about hurting you, she could have done that anytime over the last ten years.”

  It was the same thought Sam had. It had to be about something more than simply hurting her. There had to be some reason Marin wanted Sam close to Tray, and some reason she neededs Tray to be important to her. She didn’t quite know what it was—not yet—but she was determined to find out.

  “Why were you at the university?” Sam asked.

  “I wasn’t there,” he said, then looked away. “Not until later.”

  “You were there, Tray. Alec saw you. You came into the master’s room. You were there the same time I was.” Sam’s heart started to pound. “She sent you, didn’t she? She wanted you to go in and get him, and she was surprised when I came out with him.”

  “Sam—”

  “No. I’ve known you well enough—and long enough—to know when you’re not telling me the truth.”

  Tray leaned his head forward, resting it on his hands. “She sent me. She said it was important so that she could help you.”

  “Help me?”

  Tray shrugged. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. I’m still not sure what to believe.”

  “You can believe me,” Sam said. “You can believe that I have no hidden agenda. My goal is an obvious one. I want to find out why Marin did this to us, and I want to connect the dots with what’s been happening. In the end, all of that is to ensure that you and I can be what we’ve always been, brother and sister.”

  “Even if we’re not actually related?”

  “We are related. Everything we’ve done over the years has made us that way. It doesn’t matter what Marin—or Elaine—or anyone says.”

  Tray breathed out heavily, looking up to meet her eyes. “I don’t know what she wanted the man for. All I know is that he was important. She thought he was some sort of expert, and she needed his help.”

  “Why his help?”

  “I don’t know. She’s been studying the canals.”

  “The canals?” Sam repeated. “Why would Marin care about the canals?”

  “Like I said. I don’t know anything more than what I’ve told you.”

  Sam pushed off the desk and crouched down in front of Tray. She had the sudden awareness of how much larger he was than she, and how much more he was like the Thelns than he ever had been before. But he was something else. He was equally as much like her, having that part of him that was Kaver. That was the side that she needed to appeal to.

  He smelled different than he had before. There was something almost sharp about it. It was a strange odor that she never would have associated with Tray in the past. It was almost medicinal and reminded her of the smells in Alec’s apothecary shop.

  She sniffed him again. “What has she had you doing?”

  Tray shook his head. “Don’t make me tell you.”

  “What if she intends to hurt me? Is that what you want?” Sam asked. She jabbed him in the chest as she did. Would he react dangerously? She never would have questioned it before, but she began to wonder how much she really knew about Tray. So much had changed between them over the last few months, and she’d spent so little time with him, certainly not enough to know how he might respond.

  “She doesn’t intend to hurt you,” Tray said.

  “You still think that even after you saw her attack me?”

  “I…”

  “She’s letting dangerous people into the city, Tray. Possibly the same people who attacked you.” And maybe that was why Bastan had disappeared. “I need to find her before others get hurt.”

  “I think I might be able to find her,” Tray said. He started hesitantly and wrung his hands together as he continued. “I’m not sure if she’ll even be there, but I overheard her earlier when she was talking about the canal around the palace.”

  “Why the palace? With the guards there, it’s too well protected. She wouldn’t even be able to get close enough to do anything.”

  “I don’t know. Ever since you saved the princess, Marin has been angry about something. She blames the royal family.”

  “But you don’t know why she’s angry? What does she blame the royal family for?”

  “If I knew, I would’ve told you. The fact is, I have no idea. There are quite a few people in the city who don’t care for the royal family, Sam. You know that as well as I do. When you grow up in Caster, you see plenty of people whose lives would’ve been better had they not been lowborn.”

  Sam rocked back on her heels, wishing she could deny what Tray said, but she couldn’t. He spoke the truth, and before she had known what she was, she had no real affinity for the royal family. The only reason she’d agreed to help the princess was because she’d hoped it would somehow help her get Tray out of prison, otherwise she would have left her to waste away.

  “Come with me. We’re going to see what Marin is up to.”

  “I’m not going to do anything that harms her,” Tray said.

  “I haven’t asked you to.”

  “I want you to be prepared. If it comes to it, I’m no
t going to hurt her. She’s been kind to me.”

  “Even after what might have happened?” Sam said.

  “I have only your word for it. It might not even be true.”

  “It is true. I learned it from”—Tray watched her, a strange expression on his face. How could she tell him what needed to be said?—“my mother. She’s still alive. And she’s like me—a Kaver.”

  Tray stared, dumbfounded. “Your mother? A Kaver?”

  They had no time for this right now. Sam needed answers. “Yes. I can tell you more later, but right now, I need you to take me to Marin.”

  “But what if she’s not telling you the truth? How can you trust her after she abandoned you?”

  She shook her head. She wouldn’t argue with Tray about this. It wouldn’t do any good if she did. Besides, she didn’t need him to harm Marin, she only needed to convince him to go with her so that she could find Marin and figure out what exactly the woman was after.

  “I won’t ask you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.”

  Tray watched her, the darkness behind his eyes difficult to read, before he finally nodded. “When are we going?”

  “As soon as you’ve recovered enough.”

  34

  Appeal to the Masters

  Alec reached the university with Beckah hurrying behind him. He barely paused at the bridge leading to that section of the city and hurried over. Neither of them had spoken in the race toward the university, but there would be time for that later. Alec needed to help Beckah understand what it meant that she had Scribe ability, but first, he had to get some answers, and neither of them knew where those answers would come from.

  They needed to reach the masters. After that, they needed to get to Sam and Tray before they risked themselves by facing Marin near the palace.

  Why had he agreed to come without Sam?

  He shouldn’t have. With each step, he felt a growing certainty that she needed him now more than ever before, but he needed to come here, and they both needed answers, otherwise they would continue to flounder in the dark.