The Book of Maladies Boxset

by D. K. Holmberg

  How would they practice enough to understand the augmentations?

  How would she become skilled enough to understand what it was she could do with this gift?

  Maybe there wasn’t anything she could do.

  “This is a dangerous game you’re playing, Samara. If you try to delve too deeply into it, you’re likely going to get harmed. I do not want to see you harmed.”

  “I don’t even know what game it is. You’ve been keeping it from me.”

  “Because I have to.”

  “Why?”

  Marin stared at her, and Sam wasn’t sure she would answer. When she did, she shook her head and sighed softly. “Because I made a promise.”

  “And what was that?”

  “That I would do whatever I had to in order to keep certain people safe. The moment you run off toward the palace—or after the Thelns—there will be no way for me to honor that promise.”

  “Why would I need you to keep me safe?”

  “What if it’s not you I’m keeping safe?”

  Sam glared at her. “That’s no answer.”

  “It’s the only one you will get.” Marin started toward the edge of the roof and glanced back over her shoulder. “Leave Trayson alone as he completes the tasks that I’ve asked of him. It will go better for him—and for you—if you would.”

  Then she jumped, leaving Sam standing alone and uncertain.

  15

  Difficult Discussions

  Alec looked at his notes, trying to think through the words he’d written. Even as he did, he felt a flush of shame for not having shared with Sam what he had done. He needed to tell her that he had gone for testing, but he hadn’t been able to find the time. And if he wasn’t accepted, maybe it wouldn’t even matter.

  “Alec?” Sam asked, pacing the small room.

  Alec looked up and forced a smile. “So, we’ve proven that changing the concentrations of blood in the ink makes a difference.” If he focused on the task at hand, it would be easier for him to remain distracted. It was better that way.

  Sam glared at him. “We’ve proven? Pretty much everything we’ve done has been about what I’m able to prove, or at least it seems that way to me.”

  “I’m the one documenting.”

  Sam turned away from him, continuing to pace. “We could try the augmentations on you.”

  Alec smiled at her irritation. She got that way from time to time, and it always amused him. “You made a big deal about saying you didn’t want to use me. That you were the one who had to receive the augmentations.” And Alec had agreed with that assessment. It made more sense for her to be the one augmented, especially since he could then observe and quickly add to or change it should the need arise, like the last time they’d faced the Thelns.

  Then again, the times when he’d tried an augmentation on himself, they had been significantly less effective than when he augmented Sam. He hadn’t told her that he had tried it on himself. Part of his curiosity about the ratio of his blood to hers was to determine whether he could do anything to assist her, if augmented.

  “Fine. It has to be me. You know, you are bigger than I am, so maybe you should start training.”

  “What kind of training do you think I need?”

  Sam shrugged. “It’s not as if you’re all that street savvy. If you were attacked while in Caster, what would you do?”

  “Probably run.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. There are times when running doesn’t work. I think we need to have you work on fighting so you’ll know how to react if attacked.”

  Alec stared at his page of notes. Underneath the notebook lay the easar paper with notes made in his and Sam’s blood, the blood ink that seemed to be the key to the power of the paper. It was their blood ink that had helped the princess, as well as healing Mrs. Rubbles and Sam, even though they didn’t know it at the time. But now that they understood a bit more, maybe that was the best way for him to use this gift. Maybe being a Scribe was his true calling.

  It had been days since his testing at the university, long enough that he should have heard something by now, anything. And the fact that he hadn’t made him sure that he was unlikely to be accepted. Even if he was accepted at this point, Alec wasn’t sure that he wanted to go. How could he, when Sam relied on him as her partner? How would she react if he disappeared?

  “Alec?” Sam said.

  Alec shook himself, turning his attention back to Sam. She deserved that much. No, she deserved even more than that. She deserved all of his attention, but it was difficult to know what he was supposed to do.

  “Am I boring you?” Sam asked.

  Alec forced a smile. “A little. If only you had more talent with these augmentations.”

  She reached toward him, as if to elbow him, and Alec took a step back. If he had timed it right, his augmentation would fade right about… Now.

  She lunged and missed, falling to her knees.

  The increased speed that he had augmented her with faded, failing quickly.

  Alec reached his hand out and helped her stand again.

  “What was that about?”

  “I’ve been trying to track how long the augmentations last, and I think I finally got it right.”

  She reached beneath the table and grabbed one end of her canal staff, smacking him harder than was necessary with it. “I don’t think you’re nearly as amusing as you do.”

  “But this is what we’ve been trying to do,” Alec said. They were making headway, which meant that his time studying with her was proving successful. That was the reason they were here.

  “Help me understand why my falling is amusing to you,” she said.

  “Because it means that we’re beginning to get a handle on timing. If we understand how long the augmentations can last, we can better determine if—and or when—we need to do something else to add to them.”

  “Only with that ratio,” she said.

  Alec nodded. “Only with that ratio, right. I have to believe there is a correlation between the amount of blood we use from each of us and the duration of the augmentation.”

  “And what happens when we don’t have the right ratio?”

  “That’s why we continue to study and test.”

  “Are we going to talk about what happens when we run out of paper?” Sam asked.

  Alec pulled the remaining sheets out from within the leather binding. Each time they practiced, they used a little bit more of the paper. He had taken to writing in a small script, trying to save as much as possible. The more they experimented, the more lines he had, making it difficult when he wanted to read them. It was the reason he made a separate set of notes, documenting on a fine parchment that he had bought from Mrs. Rubbles, allowing him to keep more meticulous notes about the effect and duration of each trial. So far, between the various notes he made, he had nearly one hundred pages.

  “I know it’s not unlimited, but I think we need to practice so that we understand what we can do with our gifts.”

  “I don’t disagree with that, but when we run out, what are we going to do?”

  Alec ran is thumb along the edge of the pages. The ones on which he kept his notes were slightly larger than the easar paper. “I don’t know. I know we’ve been practicing to understand how to use our abilities, but we haven’t seen any more of the Thelns. Maybe there is another way to use our abilities with this paper.”

  She stood and pressed her hands on the tabletop, leaning forward and meeting his gaze with something of defiance. “If you don’t want to be working together, then you just tell me.”

  “That’s not it and you know it. It’s just that I’ve been starting to think about what I’m meant to do.”

  “You are meant to be my Scribe.”

  “Am I? And is that all I’m meant to do?”

  Sam hesitated and took a seat across from him, leaning toward him. He couldn’t meet her gaze, afraid to tell her.

  “Is this about you wanting to continue bei
ng an apothecary?”

  “It… it just feels that using my abilities in this way takes away from everything I’ve put into learning about helping others. It feels as if I’m sacrificing that knowledge, and maybe… maybe I’m becoming something other than what I could be.”

  Alec had spent time thinking about what he would say to Sam—and how he would say it. In none of the scenarios had he simply blurted it out like that. At the same time, she needed to understand. If she was meant to be anything more than a Kaver, and he anything more than her Scribe, didn’t they both need to understand their own goals and desires?

  “Alec? What are you trying to say?”

  He had to tell her. This was the source of their discord. There could be no secrets between them. The more time he spent getting to know Sam, the more he felt a desire to have total honesty between them. And with Sam, honesty was incredibly important.

  “I was offered a testing at the university.”

  She arched her brow. “You were offered it? What does that mean?”

  “It means that if I passed, I would be allowed entry to the university to study.”

  Sam frowned at him. “The way you’re saying it sounds like you have already done the test. Have you?”

  Alec flushed. “Yes.”

  “That’s where you’ve been? Is that why you’ve been so strange lately?” He nodded, the flush burning in his cheeks. “And do you know whether you’ve been granted entry?” Her words were clipped, and he knew that meant she was frustrated with him.

  “I don’t know when I will hear. My father seems to think that—”

  “Your father knows?”

  Alec nodded. “He knows. He was the one who arranged the invitation.”

  “I see.”

  Alec took a deep breath. “It’s just that… I feel like I’ve lost my purpose. There was a time when I thought that I knew what I was meant to do, and now I’m not sure.”

  “And now being since you met me.”

  Alec shook his head. “That’s not it at all.”

  “Since you started spending time with a lowborn.”

  “It’s not about lowborn and highborn. It’s about doing what I was meant to do. When I work with a patient and try to understand their problems, it feels right. It feels like what I’ve been placed in the world to do.”

  He hadn’t even put that together for himself, but now that he said it, he knew it was right. He knew that was the reason he struggled.

  Sam sat back and licked her lips. Alec could almost imagine the thoughts racing through her mind, hating the fact that he had upset her in this way. He didn’t want to anger her; all he wanted was for her to understand him. The longer he waited, the more it felt as if he was deceiving her—and deceiving himself.

  “What does this mean for us working together?”

  “It doesn’t mean anything. I still want to.”

  “How can we continue working together when you feel this way?” she asked.

  Alec breathed out. “I still want to be your Scribe, but I also want to understand what else I can be. Sam, think about how we can help others with what we can do. When we helped the princess—”

  “Is this about the princess?”

  “No. This is about being an apothecary.” Or more than that, if he were granted access to the university.

  Alec felt as if he was repeating himself. Did she really not understand him? He thought she would be able to come to terms with what he needed to do, but maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe she only wanted to continue getting her augmentations. But that left him as something other than what he was meant to be.

  “I’ve been searching for more paper,” Sam said, crossing her arms over her chest. “And I think there is something taking place at the university.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I don’t? There was an attack inside Bastan’s tavern. I recognized the sigil on one of the attackers.”

  Alec frowned. “By the sigil, you mean the palace sigil.”

  She nodded. “I think they were after the paper. Highborns were the ones who stole it in the first place. If not for them, maybe we wouldn’t have had any attention from the Thelns. And now it seems the palace is after it, too.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. The palace wouldn’t send people to Bastan’s to try to take the paper.”

  “They know what it can do! They knew enough about what it can do to risk stealing it from the Thelns in the first place.” She hadn’t figured out how they had stolen it, and it was one of the many questions Marin left unanswered.

  Alec sat back, staring at his hands. “I don’t know.”

  “I do. And if you go there, and if they discover what you are—and what you can do—they will use you the same way they want to use any lowborn with any talent.”

  “Sam—”

  “I’ve seen it.”

  “I don’t even know if I’m going to be accepted. I don’t know if I would go even if I was. I just wanted you to know how I was feeling.”

  She watched him for a long moment, saying nothing.

  How angry with him was she? And if she was angry, did he have any right to feel angry with her? It seemed as if she didn’t want him to do anything other than work with her, and as if she didn’t want him to be anything other than her Scribe, but was that what he wanted for himself?

  “Let’s get back to practicing,” he suggested, pulling open the book again. If nothing else, he could push those questions to the back of his mind for now, but he wasn’t sure how long he could ignore them, especially if he was to be granted access to the university.

  16

  An Answer

  The night was quiet, and Alec appreciated the solitude, not feeling as uncomfortable moving through the streets of Caster in the darkness. The more time he spent in this section of the city, the more confident he became that he could make something of his time here.

  But was that what he wanted?

  He paused, looking along the street. The buildings here were dirty, stone crumbled from some of them, and others completely demolished and abandoned. In his section, such things would never have remained. There were no abandoned buildings. Anything that fell was rebuilt, much like his father’s apothecary shop had been, the space too valuable to leave unused.

  It had been a few days since he’d seen Sam. He feared she had taken his possible interest in attending the university as a disinterest in her and what they were to accomplish together. Even, possibly, as a disinterest in her. Nothing could be farther from the truth. He needed to try again. She had become too important to him to allow the possibility of him training at the university to drive a wedge between them.

  He turned a corner, and a pair of men appeared in front of him.

  One of the men grinned at him. Alec took a step back, and very nearly ran into someone else.

  “I’m sorry.” He hurriedly looked around, wanting only to find a way to get free from them, but instead, he found himself surrounded.

  He didn’t recognize any of the men. The only people he knew in the section were Sam and Bastan, and he barely knew Bastan at all.

  “It looks like we found someone with too much coin for his own good,” the nearest man said. He was thin and was missing a few teeth, and from the way his eyes were sunken, Alec wondered if he might not have something else going on with him.

  “I don’t have any coin,” Alec quickly said. It wasn’t a lie. He knew better than to travel through Caster with much money. Sam had made that clear, though she had also made it clear that he should learn to defend himself, something that he had not taken the time to do.

  “No coin? How are you going to buy your way safely through Caster?”

  “I’m not trying to get through Caster,” Alec said. “I’m just trying to get—”

  Someone grabbed his arms, and he was pinned up against one of the nearby buildings.

  The leader of the men, the one doing the talking, flicked a knife from his pocket and held the point b
eneath Alec’s chin. Alec tried not to swallow. He tried not to move. Anything he might do could escalate the likelihood of his being injured—or worse. He knew better than to fight, especially when outnumbered. If he was injured here, there would be no way for him to find someone capable of healing him.

  “Not trying to get through Caster? What would someone like you be trying to do, then?”

  “I’m…” Alec tried to think of an answer that would satisfy them, but he wasn’t sure what answer might allow him passage. “I’m an apothecary. I’m here to help someone.”

  The man looked at him, his smile widening. “An apothecary?”

  “I am. Someone needs healing.”

  The man laughed darkly. “In Caster, it’s not unusual for someone to need healing.”

  “No. But Bastan called for me—”

  The men holding him quickly released their grip. Alec staggered forward, suddenly freed from them.

  “We didn’t know you were coming for Bastan.”

  Alec should have thrown out his name first, but would that end up causing him trouble? He didn’t really know Bastan, and what he knew of the man told him he could be dangerous, which meant that even invoking his name might cause trouble, but hopefully the man’s connection to Sam would be enough that it would keep Alec somewhat safe.

  “I am, now I need to be on my way, unless you want to delay me even more?”

  The men shook their heads, and with a signal from the lead man, they all hurried off, disappearing down the street.

  Alec breathed out.

  It was one thing knowing that Caster was more dangerous than other sections of the city, but it was quite another to experience it firsthand. As much as he wanted to remain here and study with Sam, maybe it would be better if he returned to his section. If he did, maybe he could convince Sam to continue their testing of augmentations at the apothecary. There were more things to damage there, but he wouldn’t have to worry about his safety simply wandering the streets.