I felt bile rise in my throat. “Why did they cut up the talking animals?”
“They are still sedated, but I think Shira knows. She almost ruined everything. She was supposed to draw the guards out and run, but as soon as they came out, she tried to kill them all herself. She took a dart, and a bear got her out of there.”
“Were you seen?”
Idris explained the parchment and Locasta showing up at the last minute. Oprix and Idris didn’t think they were seen. Idris thought Locasta and her soldiers hadn’t fully teleported in as they were teleporting out, so all Locasta would have seen was a mass of blur. The soldiers shot in that general direction and got Galen on the way out.
I needed to see Galen, and no one had said anything about Daxar.
“Is Daxar okay?”
“Daxar is fine. Daxar wanted to wait for you and was worried sick, but Zusim needed help with Glinda, and Glinda knows Daxar best out of everyone here.”
“You said they messed with her mind? How? It’s pretty hard to do that to a Sentinel. We are trained against that kind of thing.”
Oprix just shrugged. “She’s sedated, so we don’t know if it worked, but they dressed her in a sack, and it looked like they made her live in her own filth. I don’t think she was allowed to bathe the entire time they kept her prisoner. Zusim wanted help bathing her, and Glinda always spoke highly of Daxar to him. Zusim thought Daxar would be the only one Glinda would be comfortable with helping with that.”
I nodded. “Take me to Galen. You two need attention too.”
The scene that awaited me when Oprix and Idris led me to the room everyone was being treated in was pretty horrific. The two Gillikin the Fisher King had been draining looked older than Locasta, and they were emaciated. It was like their bodies were drying up as their magic left them. I knew they practiced bad magic, but they didn’t deserve this. Locasta kept the black market going to catch natural magic users doing bad magic to make a show of arresting them for the Gillikin so she could be a hero, then she served them up on a platter to the Fisher King.
The animals, I couldn’t explain what had been done to them. It was brutal and horrific. Someone had shaved off most of their fur and cut into their bodies. My mother taught me to do this on dead animals to learn, but it was never a talking animal and never a living animal. It was like someone was trying to learn something about the talking animals while they were still alive, and they didn’t care how much pain they caused them.
There was a table set up with supplies. Some of them were for poultices I knew, and some could be for a poultice. There was a bottle of Quadling Whiskey on the table, so I grabbed that and a needle and thread to tend to Idris. I just needed to check on Galen first.
I found Galen on a bed with a team of rats tending to him. Someone had already gotten the arrow out, and he had this goofy, peaceful look on his face as he slept like they had already given him a tonic for the pain. The rats were spreading a poultice on his shoulder and tending to superficial cuts.
“How is he?”
One of the rats stood up on Galen’s chest and wriggled her whiskers at me. “He’d be dead if he weren’t in the Forest of Gugu. There is a poison Locasta favors when someone needs to die because it’s a painful death, and she thinks there is no antidote. We have the remedy for most poisons in this forest. We gave it to Galen as soon as we saw the black forming when we got the arrow out. He will sleep for two days and be in a lot of pain when he wakes, but he will live.”
“They showed up with poisoned arrows? That’s fighting dirty,” I snapped.
“Be angry about it later, little Sentinel. Your other mate needs attention. He refused to be treated until you were home safe. You need to tend to his wounds before they get infected.”
I kissed Galen gently on the forehead and tugged Idris to an empty sofa. Should I have insisted Galen stay home like we did Ozma? I treated him like a Sentinel because he looked like one, but everything he knew, he learned on his own. His mother and father didn’t teach him a single thing. Galen carried a staff, so I just assumed he could fight with one. The Fisher King wouldn’t have taught him to fight back.
I started cleaning Idris’ cuts and running through the events of today through my head. This could have gone very differently. We really could have lost people. Especially if Locasta had her army fight with poisoned weapons. Idris and Oprix could always read me like a book. Idris was chugging whiskey and gritting his teeth as I started stitching up his cuts.
It was Oprix who tried to make me feel better. “He held his own, Frankie. He can handle himself in a fight. He seems self-taught, but he has good moves. Making him stay home would have insulted him.”
“I should have been there. I should have put the hex bag in the guard’s pocket sooner and just come straight to the jail.”
“This was a no-win situation, Frankie. You would have put Dorothy at risk if you came to the jail, and you promised Ozma you would keep her safe. We knew what we were getting into when we signed up to go to that jail. The future of the South was at risk, and no one deserves what they were doing to people in that jail.”
“From what I remember about the Gillikin people, they’ve never been bad people. Locasta has them totally fooled. You should have seen them with the soldier that was escorting Dorothy around. They respected him and were friendly to him. They really think Locasta and those soldiers are protecting them from bad magic. I don’t know how she got the soldiers to go along with that jail.”
“I do,” Idris said as he put the whiskey bottle down. “We tried to question a man at the jail. All the soldiers are told the people at the jail are traitors to Oz. Don’t ask me how that justifies what they do to the prisoners there.”
“What all did the man say?” I asked, moving to another cut.
“Nothing. He was willing to die for his cause, and he did. Kazax was trying to find out if he spoke in code to Locasta over parchment. Either he did, or Galen took too long to respond, and she decided to show up herself.”
“And you’re sure she didn’t see you? They hit Galen with an arrow.”
Oprix just shrugged. “I can’t be certain they didn’t see anything, but we threw all threw the powder right when we could see them through the smoke. Gugu’s powder works pretty quickly. You know how long it takes for that purple smoke to clear. I think they just shot an arrow towards the front door, hoping to hit someone, and it happened to hit Galen.”
“Were there any clues at the jail?”
“Glinda’s cell must have been specially built for her. There were two empty cells just like it right next to it. I thought those might be intended for you and Saffron. I want to kill him, Frankie,” Oprix growled. “You didn’t see Zusim’s face when he found Glinda. She was filthy and strapped to the bed. She looked like they were feeding her just what was necessary to keep the baby alive. I don’t want to come rescue you and find you like that.”
I cut the thread on the last cut I was stitching and finished it off. I kissed both Oprix and Idris.
“I don’t want to rescue either of you looking like that either. Did anyone say when the prisoners will wake up?”
“Just before Galen passed out, he handed me a vial. He grabbed the potion they are using to keep everyone sedated. He doesn’t think it’s a normal sleeping potion. Galen stole a few powders and potions when he was going through the jail. He came to long enough to tell the rats to have someone go through his rucksack. He’s a good guy, Francesca. He really was an asset at the jail.”
I knew what I wanted to do, but everyone had to be okay with it, included Galen. I had no idea when we would be going home, but the rats said Galen would need to sleep for two days to recover.
“Would both of you be okay if I asked Galen to move into our bedroom with us? I’ve got no idea if he’ll even be okay with that. He’s still getting used to me touching him.”
Oprix started giggling. “I’m okay with it, but I thought he was going to wet his trousers when you just up and s
at in his lap.”
Idris took another swig of whiskey. Maybe it was the whiskey going to his head, or maybe he really was okay with this.
“Galen is my boy now. We fought in battle together, and he proved worthy. I don’t mind sharing a bed with him.”
I kissed Idris’ forehead. “You can be so weird sometimes. I need to get a poultice on these cuts and something for Oprix’s eye. Then we need to find Gugu and get those potions Galen stole. It may answer some questions on how to help some of the people we rescued.”
I wanted answers, and I wanted to help everyone Locasta and the Fisher King terrorized, but Idris and Oprix both refused treatment until I was back, so I had to help them first.
Chapter 28
Daxar
I
f I had a bow with me at the jail, I would have tried to have fired it at Locasta like her men fired at us and got Galen. I was with Zusim when he found Glinda. I never thought I’d see such a formidable woman reduced to that. They didn’t even unchain her from that bed to use a chamber pot, and she was lying in her own waste. Glinda never did anything without looking immaculate. This was done intentionally.
Glinda still hadn’t lifted her geas, so I couldn’t remember if she told me she was pregnant and had other children before. I would have agreed to being headmaster at Emerald City Academy even if she hadn’t. Glinda was a kind and fair ruler of the South. Her behavior since the school was formed was unlike her. The Glinda I worked with in the South would never have kept magical alarms from young people going on a mission, and she would never have just dumped me in the North to spy.
I thought I understood her actions, but when she was ready, we were going to have to have one of our talks over tea. Back in the South, we always had tea together and would just chat about anything and everything. We needed to do that again. No pretenses, just get everything out in the open. I knew what I thought, but I needed to hear some things directly from her.
Zusim seemed to think I was the only one Glinda would feel comfortable with helping him clean her up. I knew she wouldn’t, but the only reason I agreed was that I knew she would feel better if she woke up clean. The Forest of Gugu seemed to have everything—poison antidotes, magic we didn’t know about, and some medicinal remedies we didn’t have, but they didn’t have clothes in this forest. We couldn’t put Glinda in real clothes.
Ozma wanted to help. I knew she felt useless, sitting the entire rescue out. She took the sack they dressed Glinda in to a stream and washed it for her. Zusim did most of the work. He was tender when he washed her hair and cleaned her body. I was mainly just there to help hold her up.
Once Glinda was clean, Zusim laid her on a bed of leaves in a makeshift tent and wouldn’t leave her side. I left to see if I could help and to find Francesca. Dorothy came in to find Ozma to let us know they were back. I wanted to make sure Francesca wasn’t harmed. There wasn’t a scratch on Dorothy, but I needed to talk to Francesca.
I checked on Galen first. It was the right thing to do. This mission could have ended with a fatality on our end if it weren’t for Galen and his insights on Locasta and the Fisher King. Gugu and his people helped, and we wouldn’t have even come to this forest if it weren’t for Zusim, but it was Galen who had gotten injured the most out of all of us. I’d gotten some nicks and a busted lip, but nothing that required treatment. I needed to be helping where I could.
Galen was sleeping, and he didn’t look good. His normally ruddy skin was pale, and he was sweating buckets. The rats assured me that was the poison working its way out of his system and he just needed to sleep. The arrow had passed clean through and not done any major damage, but he would be in pain when he woke up.
Idris couldn’t seem to keep a shirt on. None of the Flying Monkeys could now that I was around more of them. If they were not in their monkey form, the males were in trousers, and that was it. Their feet were bare. Idris and the rest of the Flying Monkeys didn’t have much in the way of protection from the swords the guards carried. Idris was covered in blood when we got back, but he wouldn’t let anyone touch him until Francesca was back.
I found all of them in Gugu’s throne room in a meeting. They all looked up when I came in.
“How is Glinda?” Francesca asked.
“Clean, but still sleeping. We didn’t have any clothes to put her in, so we had to put her back into that sack.”
“We’re trying to figure out these potions and powders Galen snagged on his way out. It may help heal some of these people,” Francesca said. “This right here is a standard sleep potion, but something has been added to it, giving it a red tint. It almost looks like blood, but I can’t think of any creature that has blood that would augment a sleeping potion.”
I did. I was nearly killed by several of them, and they were native to the North. Don’t ask me how Locasta managed to get blood from one of them because it seemed like it would just piss them off, and they would eat you faster.
“I know exactly what kind of blood it is. Think about it. What creature is native to the North and has the ability to sleep for one hundred years? Don’t ask me how she got it, but I’d be willing to lay odds the blood in those potions is dragon’s blood.”
Francesca nodded. “My mother taught me about dragon’s blood in potions, but said it was almost impossible to get. Scales, hair, and bone can also be used. Dragon’s blood is supposed to make a potion stronger and last longer. There’s nothing to counteract it. You just have to let it run its course. We can’t wake them faster.”
Maybe that was a blessing. Give them time to sleep in a more comfortable environment and wake up on their own to friendly faces. Most of them were either going to wake up with physical pain or mental scars or probably both. We didn’t know if some of the injuries had been done while the people we rescued were awake.
Gugu cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s best if you teleported your injured back home so they can wake up in their own beds. I’m sure Glinda will be traumatized when she wakes up based on her state when Zusim carried her back. She doesn’t need to wake up on the forest floor in a strange place. Perhaps she needs to wake up at home surrounded by her children, so she knows they are safe.”
I knew that was exactly what Glinda needed, and Galen would probably prefer recovering in his bed too. But what about Gugu’s people? Weren’t they worried about retaliation?
“Are you sure you want us to leave?” Idris asked. “We don’t know how much Locasta saw before we disappeared. We don’t know if she saw there were talking animals with us. She could start bringing more talking animals into the jail to torture to find out who was responsible for the breakout.”
“I think you need to handle your business, and we need to handle ours. I will send you with a mirror that we can communicate if we need to work together again. We are grateful you helped free our people from that jail, but no one can make a move against Locasta while all of Oz loves her. We can’t attack the North until Locasta plays her hand, and we have more people on our side. Not all of the animals here can fight, and you don’t have the numbers to go against her army. If you tried, the rest of the North would revolt against you and probably the rest of Oz as well. The boy that can speak to the dead cannot do anything until he recovers. So, I suggest we part ways until we can make our move.”
“You don’t think Locasta will attack you?” Francesca asked.
Gugu just laughed. “Locasta and her men would be caught in traps as soon as they set foot in my forest. If they try to turn the rest of the North against the talking animals, we will get to them and give them refuge here. We can handle things here. I suggest you go home and heal.”
“Before we leave, is there anything I can do for your wounded?” Francesca asked.
“Shira told me in private why all the animals have been cut into. They think the magic that makes us speak lies inside us somewhere, and it’s able to be cut out. They are trying to figure out which part to cut out to access it. If what Galen says is true, then the Fisher King
even wants the magic that makes the animals talk, but he can’t access it with his ring. He wants to steal it by dissecting us.”
No wonder Shira broke rank and didn’t run like she was supposed to. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she had gone through in that jail. She saw red when she got back to the jail, and she just wanted to hurt the people who had hurt her.
Francesca let out this little growl. “You want us to leave knowing she’s doing that?”
“Locasta cannot just grab people for her jail without a story for the Gillikin and a story for her soldiers. I think she is handpicking them, and she has to have time to craft a story, so she stays a hero in the North. It will take time for her to pick new targets. Let me worry about that. My spies in the North can try talking to the animals there and get them to leave before they end up in that jail.”
“What about the people the Fisher King is stealing magic from? The ones we rescued are close to death. Locasta would probably have new targets in mind and a story. My job is to punish people using magic for evil purposes, but not like that. I wouldn’t wish what was done to those people on anyone.”
Gugu just chuffed. “A lesson you will need to learn, little Sentinel, is that you can’t save everyone. Focus on who you can save and save as many as possible, but there will be losses. Let me protect the talking animals. You do what you’re meant to do and protect Oz—which means striking when you have a better chance of winning. If you act now, you and everyone you love will die.”
I knew Gugu spoke the truth, and deep down, Francesca did too. Saffron had been sitting there examining potions and not saying a single word. She had her nose in a jar of powder and was rubbing it between her fingers.
“Gugu is right, Frankie. We can’t attack Locasta until we either have the numbers or Locasta makes her move. I think this powder is dragon’s bone. My mother taught me about ingredients from dragons too. She told me I would probably never get my hands on any ingredients, but ground dragon’s bone mixed with sandalwood and lavender would reverse any potion. Smell this. This is how we wake everyone up.”
Francesca, The Great and Terrible: A Reverse Harem Academy Romance Page 17