Poisoned: The Book of Maladies

by D. K. Holmberg

  She met his gaze and silently tried to hint for him to have Beckah leave. Sam didn’t want to have this conversation in front of her. Maybe she should pull out her canal staff and smack it over the woman’s forehead.

  She was irrational, but that was only because she felt more and more like a drifter, as if she had no place of belonging. She no longer really belonged in Caster. Tray no longer wanted her, and Bastan would use her, but that was not her home, regardless of what he might claim. And she wasn’t a highborn. She did not belong in the palace, in spite of the fact that Elaine—and the princess—and welcomed her, offering to train her, and setting her up with a person who could help her master her canal staff. She had nowhere, and no one.

  For a time, she’d thought the two of them would be something, but Alec looked comfortable in this room, the university fitting him in a way that nothing seemed to fit her.

  After everything was done, where would her home be?

  Maybe the answers would come from Marin. If she could force her to talk to her, to tell her what had happened, and to share why she’d hidden Sam’s memories from her, maybe she would finally learn where her true home was supposed to be.

  Alec watched her, but so did Beckah.

  “I ran into Tray out in the Yalling section.”

  “What? How did you find him? How is he?”

  “It’s a long story that I can tell later. I asked him to send a message to Marin to find me at Bastan’s tavern.”

  “Oh, Sam. Are you sure that was the right thing to do?”

  “The right thing? I don’t know what the right thing is. All I know is that I want answers, and Marin has them. And if we can keep…. them… out of the city, then it will be worth it.”

  She knew she sounded hurt, and hated that she did, especially with Alec. No, especially around this other woman.

  Sam could see the way Beckah watched him, the interested expression that she had, the distrust that she showed for Sam. This was a woman clearly enamored with Alec. It was a feeling that Sam understood.

  “And you told Bastan of your request to Tray? He’s okay that you made his tavern your meeting place?”

  “Well, everything has a price with Bastan, right? Hence, I am here with his message.”

  “What kind of message?”

  Sam glanced at Beckah. Alec followed the direction of her gaze.

  “You can talk in front of Beckah.”

  “Alec—”

  Alec shook his head. “Beckah is a friend. I trust her.”

  Sam bit back her retort. She didn’t want to make Alec feel any worse. Hadn’t Sam forced him into situations that had made him uncomfortable? Hadn’t she exposed him to people that were less than reputable, making him interact with people like Bastan, and for that matter, Marin?

  “Bastan sent me with a message that said you might be able to answer.”

  “So, what is it?”

  Sam shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense. He said that he needed me to find the man who is dead but not dead.” And somehow, Bastan thought that had something to do with the merchants—and Marin. He hadn’t explained why. “He seemed to think that you would know what that means and seems to think that you can help.”

  Alec looked at Beckah. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “It does seem a little peculiar,” she said.

  “We haven’t heard anything one way or the other. I don’t know if the thistle root made a difference.”

  “I think we would’ve heard something if it had.”

  “Maybe not. If the masters were afraid of it getting out that they had misdiagnosed…”

  “But they hadn’t misdiagnosed it. It just might have been too late.”

  “We don’t even know if the foxglove poisoning was the right diagnosis. We are trusting that it was, only because Master Carl claimed it was.”

  “You took the foxglove,” Beckah said. “You were in the hospital for over twelve hours because of it.”

  Sam stepped forward. “I don’t have any idea what the two of you are talking about. But clearly, you understand Bastan’s message?”

  Alec turned to her. “I think I understand what he’s getting at but am not sure that it’s possible to find the person he wants us to find.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s either dead and incinerated, or he lived and has left the university.”

  27

  Search for Answers

  Alec glanced at Sam as they made their way through the university. He shouldn’t be uncomfortable around her—he knew that he shouldn’t—but that didn’t change the fact that he was. There was something about having both Beckah and Sam present in the same place that left him unsettled. Alec had never been in a situation where he had two women where he was competing for their attention.

  That wasn’t quite right—it was the women who were competing for his attention.

  He felt conflicted. He loved spending time with Sam, and loved the fact that the two of them had the shared bond of both Kaver and Scribe, something that he had never expected to experience, but was that all that was between them? He liked to think they shared more of a connection than that, but in the last few months, that was really all that had bound them together.

  Then there was Beckah. The connection between them was different, built on a shared interest in healing and study. She challenged him in ways that he had never been challenged before, and that was very appealing. But he felt a bit guilty that he wanted to share those experiences with Beckah.

  They reached the stairs leading down into the morgue. Would this man even still be there? Alec didn’t think it likely. He would have been incinerated.

  “Why do you think Bastan wants this man?” Alec asked.

  Sam looked over and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s Bastan. He could want him simply because the man owes him money.”

  That didn’t seem quite right, not to Alec. There was something more to it—though he didn’t know what it could be. Did it have to do with the fact that Master Carl had been involved? There was something about the master that made Alec uncomfortable.

  “I’m not even sure where to find him,” Alec said.

  “How do you know about him?” Sam asked. She seemed to make a point of ignoring Beckah, who walked only a few paces behind Alec.

  For his part, Alec tried not to spend too much time looking at either of them. At other times in the university, Beckah might have slipped her hand into his, something that Alec would have otherwise enjoyed, much as he enjoyed the vibrant way that Beckah had about her. With Sam being here, as well, Alec didn’t want Beckah to take his hand, mostly because he still wasn’t sure how he felt about either of them.

  “One of the masters brought a man to us to study. He had been given something called foxglove. It’s a treatment that slows the heart and gives a person the appearance of being dead.”

  “Appearance?” This time, Sam did look from Alec to Beckah.

  Alec nodded. “Only the appearance. This man wasn’t dead, at least not that we knew.”

  “Alec was the one who recognized that something wasn’t quite right,” Beckah said.

  Sam again glanced from Alec to Beckah. “Is that right? Well, I’m not surprised. Alec always has had a way with healing. The very first time I met him, he made a point of saving my life.”

  “Oh?” Beckah said. “How long ago did you meet Alec?”

  “I’ve known Alec now for months. At least I thought I did.”

  “Stop. You know me,” Alec said.

  Sam only shrugged. “I thought I knew you. But the Alec I knew was interested in healing as a calling.”

  “Are you implying that Alec is no longer interested in healing as a calling?” Beckah said. “Because if that’s the case, I would argue that you don’t know Alec nearly as well as you claim. Alec is not interested in healing for financial gain. In fact, I think he makes some of the masters uncomfortable because he would just as soon offer healing to anyone, regardles
s of ability to pay.

  Sam rounded on Beckah. “You don’t think it should be?”

  “What I think isn’t the issue. That decision isn’t up to me.”

  “If it were, how would you respond?”

  “As I said. That decision isn’t up to me.”

  Sam smiled. “That seems to be an easy way out of answering.”

  Beckah glanced at Alec. He wondered how she would answer. They’d never had a conversation about her thoughts on healing others. Many in the university felt much like the master physickers did, believing that only those with means deserved a chance for healing, which meant only highborns or those with money. Alec didn’t think there were many like him, who felt that healing should be offered to anyone in need, regardless of their capacity to pay. Maybe that was why his father had left the university.

  “I came to the university with particular beliefs, but those have been challenged in my time here.”

  Sam watched her for a moment, almost seeming to wait for her to say something else, but Beckah didn’t take that bait.

  “What if he’s not still here?” Alec asked as they reached the door to the morgue.

  “Still?” Sam asked.

  Sam glanced over at Alec. “You’ve been down here before?” she asked.

  Alec nodded. “When we learned about foxglove. Part of the lesson involved the students taking a sample of it, and when we did, it slowed our hearts, but it affected me more strongly than others.”

  “That’s why you were in the hospital for twelve hours?”

  Alec sighed. “Apparently, that happens from time to time. I came around.”

  “What does that have to do with this man?”

  Alec leaned against one of the cots, and it started to slide across the floor. He swore under his breath and stood up, feeling disrespectful of the dead by swearing in their presence. There was something about this place that called for a more solemn air. He didn’t want to be the person to disrupt that.

  “There was a patient brought to the classroom. He had apparently been dosed with foxglove, which stopped—or seemingly stopped—his heart.”

  “And you thought to help him?” Sam asked.

  Alec smiled sheepishly. “The university doesn’t have the antidote. I figured that my father might.”

  “Why wouldn’t the university have the antidote? You’d think with all of these physickers, and all of this brainpower, that they would have a way to reverse poisons like that, especially if it’s common enough that they can administer it in the classroom.”

  Alec frowned to himself. “I didn’t think about it that way.”

  Sam looked up at him. “You didn’t? You mean, I thought of something the great Alec Stross did not?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t understand why the university wouldn’t have the thistle root, but when I was hospitalized, they didn’t have a supply there, either.”

  “I’m assuming that your apothecary shop did?”

  “It did. We tested it.”

  Sam glanced from Beckah to Alec. “We?”

  “Well, Beckah tested it. She ingested a chunk of the foxglove, followed by a dose of the thistle root that we were able to find in my father’s shop to see if it was enough to counteract the poisonous effects.”

  Sam chewed on the inside of her lip, her attention focused on Beckah. “Did it work?”

  “We’re not entirely sure. It worked on Beckah. I mean she showed the symptoms of having taken the poison, lost consciousness, and awoke. So, we managed to prove that giving the thistle root immediately after taking the foxglove is successful, but what we don’t know is if there is a time limit after which the antidote would be of no effect.”

  “So, you came here, and you gave it to this man,” Sam said.

  “We tried. I used all of the remaining thistle root that my father had. It left us with nothing else. I gave all of it to this man, but…”

  “But?”

  “There wasn’t a response. If it worked, we didn’t stay long enough.”

  “So, we go in. We have nothing to lose,” Sam said.

  “But if he’s not here, I don’t know where else we might look. We know nothing about the man.”

  “There would be one other option, but it would be dangerous,” Beckah said.

  “What option?” Sam asked.

  “It would involve breaking into one of the masters’ quarters and searching for evidence.”

  Alec shot Beckah a hard look. “You can’t be serious. You can’t actually think to break into Master Carl’s room because he might have this man sequestered there.”

  Beckah’s shrugged. “If he’s not in the morgue, and we believe he’s not incinerated, then where else would he be?”

  “We’re getting ahead of ourselves, anyway,” Alec started. “We don’t even know if he’s still here or not.”

  “If he’s not, there’s a log. We can look for a record of somebody with foxglove toxicity, and if there’s not anyone listed, that means that he wasn’t incinerated.”

  “There’s a log? How is it that you know this?”

  Beckah looked past him. “Come on. Let’s see if your man is still here.”

  She pushed past Alec and Sam and shoved the door open. The inside of the morgue was much the same as the last time Alec had been here. There were dozens of metal cots, each containing a body. Sam gasped and covered her mouth as she gagged.

  “The smell,” she said.

  “You get used to it,” Alec said.

  Sam arched a brow at him. “You might get used to it, but do you really want to?”

  “Not really.”

  “This is where they keep the bodies?” Sam asked.

  “This is where some bodies are kept. There are others that never reach here,” Beckah said. She wandered through the morgue, looking at each face as she passed. Alec had a sinking suspicion that they wouldn’t find him. Even if he hadn’t died—and he found that unlikely—there didn’t seem much of a chance that he would still be here. It had been days since they’d attempted giving him the thistle root, and if it had worked, he would have been gone long ago.

  “How often do they take the bodies from here?” Sam asked.

  Beckah had reached the table at the back of the morgue and opened a book that lay on top of it. She flipped through the pages. “It depends. Sometimes, they’ll go nearly a week before taking a body away from here. Other times, when there are too many, they take them down to the incinerator and dispose of them.”

  Alec and Sam stood near the door, not venturing into the sea of cots.

  “There is no record of anyone with foxglove toxicity going to the incinerators,” Beckah said. “Then again, there’s no record of anyone with foxglove toxicity getting out of here, either.” She stared at Alec and shrugged. “Chances are he didn’t make it, and they just didn’t record it correctly.”

  If that was what happened, then they wouldn’t find the man. Bastan wouldn’t get him, which left him wondering whether Bastan would still give Sam the easar paper.

  If Marin returned, and if she tried to attack Sam, Alec wanted her to have all the help she could get, and that meant augmentations, and that meant easar paper.

  “We can try Master Carl’s rooms,” he started.

  Sam shook her head. “I can tell by the tone of your voice that you don’t think that’s likely to work.”

  Alec shrugged. “I don’t know, but I can at least try. I don’t want anything to happen to you, which means we have to find this man.”

  Sam looked past him, focusing her attention on Beckah, and said, “I think you’ve got a new study partner.”

  “That doesn’t mean I want anything to happen to you,” Alec said.

  Sam swallowed, ignoring his searching gaze. “Let’s go find this master and see if there’s anything we can learn.”

  28

  Bastan’s Man

  How much farther?” Sam asked.

  Beckah looked back at her, an odd question in her eyes.
Sam still didn’t like her, but the woman had been helpful. “Not much.”

  “How do you know how to find the masters’ quarters?” Sam asked.

  “Sam. She’s helping,” Alec chided her.

  “She says she’s helping. Alec, how much do you know about her?” she asked, lowering her voice hoping Beckah didn’t hear.

  The slight tension in Beckah’s back made it clear that Sam hadn’t been nearly as quiet as she had intended. Maybe it didn’t matter. If the woman discovered how Sam felt about her, what did that matter?

  “I know that she’s helped me study. I know that she’s helped me when I’ve been injured.”

  “How often are you getting injured at the university?” Sam asked.

  “More often than you would imagine,” he said.

  They reached a doorway at the end of the hall, and Beckah slipped something out of her pocket, quickly opening the door with it.

  Had she just broken into the room or did she have a key? If she used a key, why would Beckah have key access to the master levels?

  Alec didn’t seem to notice—or if he did, he didn’t care. Maybe he’d become too enthralled with Beckah to pay attention to things like that, but she was not.

  “Was it locked?” Sam asked.

  Beckah ignored her and hurried up the stairs.

  “Sam, you need to be nicer to her. She’s trying to help.”

  “Or is she only appearing to try to help?”

  Alec watched her, seeming to debate whether she was being serious. Sam was, at least mostly. She didn’t know anything about Beckah, and she didn’t like the fact that Beckah seemed so familiar with Alec, but Sam didn’t have any tie to him other than him serving as her Scribe—and that had been minimal lately.

  A wide stairway led up, and Beckah continued without pausing. “She seems to know her way around,” Sam said.

  A troubled look finally came to Alec’s face. “So it seems.”

  “Nothing about that bothers you?”

  “Sam—”

  They reached a landing, and Beckah hurried off down the hallway. She stopped at a door at the end of the hall. “This is Master Carl’s room.”