Rain batters the night-darkened windows around us, thunder resonating through the lodging house’s walls as lightning flashes through the sky. I break the wax dragon seal with my thumbnail, unfold the parchment and read.
Astonished, I draw in a hard breath. “My brothers,” I tell Tierney. “They’re being released.”
Tierney’s mouth turns up in a calculating smile. Her eyes dart to the Ironflower dress on her lap. “You made good use of this dress, then, didn’t you?”
The missive is written by one of Lukas’s subordinates in a formal hand—a lieutenant named Thierren. I feel a pang of disquiet, uncomfortably aware of the conflict raging between Lukas and me, which is glaringly apparent in his use of someone else to write this note.
I read on.
“The apprentice that Rafe punched,” I tell Tierney as I read, “he’s dropped the charges against both of my brothers.” I meet her gaze as a full realization of Lukas’s hand in this washes over me. “In return, the apprentice is being promoted from apprentice to the position of second lieutenant under Lukas Grey’s command.”
“Well, that’s done then,” Tierney says, her voice resolute. “The rest is up to us.”
* * *
Tierney and I empty our sacks of Ironflower threads out on to the apothecary worktable, the pile of tangled string wreathed in a soft, sapphire glow in the dim lab.
“You’ve locked the doors and windows?” I ask.
Tierney absently nods as she writes down notes with a look of intense concentration, papers filled with her mathematical calculations strewn about the table. Shadows cling to the walls around us, the evening’s dark digging in, the apothecary workroom chilly and deserted.
A scuffed, leather-bound Apothecary text is open before Tierney. Her pen makes a rapid scritch scritch as she finishes jotting down the boiling points of the components of our complicated fabrication.
Satisfied with her list, Tierney gets up and expeditiously begins setting up the glass reflux apparatus. She nods to me, and I place a funnel in the opening of a distillation flask and pour in the River Maple ash I’ve prepared. Tierney holds her palm over the opening and flows water from her palm into the container’s bulbous interior, filling it. The wood ash swirls around the water in a messy spiral before settling. Then we push the balls of glowing Ironflower thread into the container’s opening.
Tierney presses a long, glass condenser into the distillation flask’s crystalline mouth and stabilizes the tube with metal clamps. Then she wraps her hand around the condenser and flows water through it.
I slide a large oil lamp beneath the container’s base, then look to Tierney. “Light it,” she says.
I strike a flint and ignite the flame.
Tierney holds her palm out toward the mixture and brings it to a rapid yet smooth and rolling boil. Wavering sapphire lines of Ironflower essence leach out of the threads and into the water, curling through it in an intricate dance. Soon, the water takes on a faintly blue glow.
Tierney and I wait as the blue glow intensifies and grows incandescent, washing us in its sapphire light.
“It’s ready,” Tierney says once the threads and wood ash have settled into a black mass at the base of the glass container. She raises her hands to the flask and creates a cooling cloud that swirls around it.
After a few moments, I disassemble the reflux apparatus and filter out the ash and threads. Tierney readies the distillation glassware, and I carefully pour the glowing blue liquid into a new distillation retort. With practiced grace, Tierney waves her hand over the receiving flask and creates another cooling cloud to hover around it.
I set a flame under the retort, then place my hands around the warming flask, coaxing my earth lines to life. Slim, black branches flow through me, winding toward my hands. “Ready,” I tell her.
She lays her own hands on top of mine, and I feel my power flowing out of me in a controlled force, branches twining toward the flask, fire sizzling through them.
Steam shoots through the distillery, the glass rattling as we pull our hands away. For a slim second, I fear the glass will crack or perhaps explode. Tierney pushes one hand towards the flask and the rattling stops, the steam coalescing into a smooth stream.
Liquid starts to accumulate in the bottom of the receiving flask—a vivid, phosphorescent blue, deep as twilight.
I breathe in the steam’s Ironflower scent. “I can smell the essence purifying.” An image of blue Ironflowers unfurls in the back of my mind.
Tierney smiles at me. “It’s working, then.”
I give her a returning look brimming with dark resolve.
She grins, a wicked gleam lights her eyes. “We’re going to poison them all.”
* * *
Commander Vin sweeps into the kitchen, disguised in a heavy cloak. She throws back her hood, scanning the room intently. “Is the kitchen secure?” she asks Fernyllia.
Fernyllia nods grimly from where she sits at the table beside me, Tierney on my other side.
“All the doors and windows are locked,” Fernyllia says. “And I have a watch out.”
Commander Vin gives a curt nod and sits down at the table between Jules and Lucretia Quillen, just across from me. Yvan stands behind them, leaning back against the kitchen counter, Iris and Bleddyn by his side.
I struggle not to look at him, to not be so overwhelmingly aware of his presence. I can sense Yvan’s fire loosened from its constraints, questing toward me, but I staunchly hold my own fire back and push down the fierce ache in my chest.
“Tell me this plan of yours,” Commander Vin says to Tierney and me.
We exchange a swift look, and Commander Vin motions impatiently with her hand. “Speak,” she orders sharply. “We’ve little time. We’re only days away from the full moon, and possibly all-out war.”
“We’ve crafted a poison,” Tierney tells her, the words dark on her tongue.
Commander Vin draws back a fraction. “For a diversion?”
“To poison them all,” I say, forcing an even tone. “The entire Gardnerian force. And most of the University.”
The commander is quiet for a long moment, her eyes flashing condemnation. “You’d kill everyone in Verpax, would you?” She levels her gaze at Fernyllia. “This is the plan you’d have me hear?”
“Hear them out,” Fernyllia says patiently, her flour-dusted hands clasped and resting on the wooden table before her.
Tierney leans over, fishes a large jar out of her travel sack, and sets it firmly on the table in front of us. The powder inside glows a vibrant, Ironflower blue.
“Not to kill,” Tierney states adamantly. “To temporarily render unconscious. For an entire night—and fairly incapacitated throughout the next day. With a full recovery.”
I motion toward the glowing blue jar. “There’s enough here to poison all the food in all the kitchens in the entire University city. And the soldiers draw almost all of their food from these kitchens. It will give you six solid hours to get the Lupines out of here.”
“That’s quite enough time to get through the Caledonian pass in the Spine,” Fernyllia puts in, a calculating glint in her eyes.
Tierney sits back, her tenacious gaze steady on the commander.
Kam Vin shakes her head dismissively. “The Gardnerians have spells to detect poison, just as we do. All the food is tested. Always.”
“We’ve forced elemental magic into Ironflower essence and combined it with the poison,” Tierney explains. “So, now it can suppress magic. There isn’t a single spell that can detect it, wand-or rune-based.”
Jules picks up the jar thoughtfully. He looks to me, his lips curling into an impressed smile. “It seems you’ve found your calligraphy, Elloren Gardner.”
I let out a resigned sigh and nod. “I have.”
“It’s as we’ve said.” His tone is amused, but his
eyes are serious. “If one can’t be powerful, it pays to be clever.”
Commander Vin is staring at the jar, nodding, and I can see the wheels of her mind turning. She looks to Tierney and me. “You’ve stipulations?”
I take a deep bolstering breath. “You need to take my brothers to Noi lands along with all the Lupines.”
“A Level Five Mage and a tracker,” she says, cutting me off impatiently. “Fine. We can make good use of them.”
“You need to bring every last kitchen worker who wishes to leave, as well,” Tierney says, her tone brooking no argument. “And their families, too—including Fern, Iris, Bleddyn and her mother, plus Olilly and her sister.”
Bleddyn’s mouth falls open, and Iris’s face takes on a look of stunned confusion.
“You ask too much,” Commander Vin says coldly.
“No,” Tierney shoots back. “We ask for little. We are delivering the Lupines to your military and keeping them out of Gardnerian hands. War is coming, and you know it. An army of Lupines could sway the tide in either direction.”
Commander Vin is utterly still as she scrutinizes Tierney. “Go on,” she prods.
“Tierney’s entire adopted Gardnerian family needs to go with you,” I put forth. “And a young mariner named Gareth Keeler should be docked at Saltisle Harbor—you need to find him and bring him with you, as well.”
I take a deep breath, a sudden swell of emotion overtaking me, and I stiffen my whole self against it. “Yvan Guriel and his mother need to be brought east, too.”
I can feel Yvan’s fire blast toward me from across the room, chaotic and overpowering. I can’t look at him. I just can’t.
“All of the people on Fernyllia’s list need to be evacuated,” Tierney insists. Fernyllia runs down her long list, and Commander Vin nods in agreement.
“And Fernyllia, too,” Bleddyn says emphatically, looking at the kitchen mistress. “You forgot to put yourself on this list.”
Fernyllia pauses and grows very still, and Bleddyn’s voice tightens with alarm. “Fernyllia. Why are you not on this list?”
I jerk my head toward Fernyllia, all of us looking at her in surprise. She’s quiet for a long moment, but her expression has gone stone hard. “I will be the poisoner.”
Shock races through me as Bleddyn shakes her head vehemently, outrage lighting in her eyes. “No! Absolutely not. Fernyllia, you can’t.” She lapses into what sounds like aggressive pleading in Uriskal, her hand slashing the air, as if defending Fernyllia’s life in this very moment. Iris starts to cry, her tears rapidly devolving into great, heaving sobs.
“Bleddyn Arterra and Iris Morgaine,” Fernyllia says, her voice low and hardened. “Stop.”
Bleddyn quiets, her face a tortured grimace, the cords of her neck tensing. Iris turns her head away, her eyes shut tight as she continues to cry.
“I am an old thing,” Fernyllia says, her voice softer this time, but solid and unmovable. “Bad knees. Bad back. Bad health. I could not make this journey to Noi lands. But all of you can. And you can bring my granddaughter east, where she can have a good life. There is no life for her here. If you love me, you will stop your grieving, and you will bring my Fern to safety.”
Bleddyn is nodding resolutely now, tears streaking down her face. Iris is crying into her hand.
I make no move to wipe away the tears that roll down my own face. “Don’t do this,” I implore Fernyllia. I look to Commander Vin. “Surely there must be another way. There has to be a way for her to go, too. A way we haven’t thought of.”
Fernyllia puts her calloused hand on mine. Her eyes rest gently on me with maternal sadness. “Child, you don’t know what you’re dealing with. You need to trust me. I’ve been fighting this fight much longer than all of you.”
I shake my head, crying, and Fernyllia puts her arm around me. “This is what I want,” she says, her voice more insistent now. “Do you understand?”
I nod, overcome with sorrow.
“What of the Icarals?” Lucretia asks, forcing our attention back to the rushed planning. “Now that Verpacia has fallen, it’s dangerous for them to be here.”
“They’ve already left,” Tierney tells her. “With Wynter’s brother, Cael. He owns a piece of ancestral land in Alfsigroth, and he’s taking them there.”
Everyone leaving. Everyone soon to be gone—eventually only Aislinn and Uncle Edwin left behind in Gardneria with me. My chest tightens with grief at the idea of so much loss.
“And what of you?” Commander Vin asks me.
I look up to find her eyes tight on me. “I need to stay behind to care for my uncle,” I tell her, roughly wiping away my tears. “I’ve no magic or skills past medicinal, and my aunt has made it clear she won’t care for him forever. My family can’t leave him all alone, and my brothers will be in too much danger if they remain here. So...it makes sense for me to be the one to stay.”
The commander sets her implacable gaze on Tierney. “And you?”
Tierney meets her intimidating stare without flinching. “I’m staying for now. There’s a chance that the Amaz will be able to remove my glamour, and after it’s gone, I’ve a water route I can use to escape east.”
“The Gardnerians are planning to spike every body of water in the Western Realm with iron,” Commander Vin puts in flatly.
“They can try,” Tierney counters, eyes flashing. “The forest has rerouted some of the water.”
Commander Vin considers this, a shrewd gleam edging her gaze. She sits up, military straight, and faces the two of us. “Elloren Gardner and Tierney Calix,” she says gravely, “I give you my word. If you supply us with this poison, I will bring your people to Noi lands.”
Bleddyn lets out an overwhelmed gasp. Yvan’s fire reaches for me again, an intentional flare this time, but I can’t look at him.
Instead, I stare down at the table and swallow back the tears.
* * *
I stand with my brothers in the hallway of the North Tower. Rafe seems like he’s aged several years since I’ve last seen him, a hard line of tension etched between his brows. “We’ll come back for you,” he insists, his voice determined. “We’ll find you.”
I nod, trying to be strong as I turn to my younger brother. Trystan’s dressed as he usually is—in his perfectly pressed military apprentice uniform, somber and important-looking, his wand sheathed at his side.
“You’ve gotten so tall,” I tell him with a tremulous smile. I reach up to grasp his shoulder.
Trystan’s eyes close tight, and he shakes his head, as if fighting desperately for control. The image of the powerful Gardnerian Mage dissolves into my little brother—the skinny boy I used to carve wooden animal toys for.
Trystan’s lips are trembling, tears welling in his eyes. I pull him into an embrace as my own tears fall, and Rafe’s arms come up around us both as we all say goodbye.
* * *
Yvan’s eyes blaze with emotion as we face each other in the circular barn, a single lantern casting the deserted space in a flickering glow.
I can feel his fire power radiating off him in guttering flashes of heat.
The pages ripped from The Book of the Ancients are now long weathered and worn beneath our feet. But The Book has won. There will be no dancing on its pages.
“I don’t want to leave you,” Yvan says, his voice rough with passion.
My words are tight when they come, my grief tamped down. “You can’t stay. You and your mother have to get to safety.”
Ferocity overtakes him. “We’re putting off the inevitable, Elloren. At some point, we’re going to have to fight them.”
“We can’t fight them here. It’s over, Yvan. The Western Realm has fallen.”
The edges of his eyes ignite, like the times he’s pulled in fire. Yvan looks around desperately, as if searching for a way out, a way to fight back.
His eyes light on the battered leather covering of The Book of the Ancients near his feet, about a third of the holy book’s pages still clinging to the inside. His expression hardening into savagery, he grabs up The Book and closes his fist around the thick leather.
I jolt back as The Book catches fire, the flames quickly spreading to the edge of his sleeve.
“Yvan!”
As if abruptly broken from a spell, Yvan blinks hard and looks to his burning sleeve, then at me, a flash of agony on his face. He closes his eyes and breathes deep. The flames slowly pull into him and disappear, and when he opens his eyes again, they glow a fervid gold.
He’s so excruciatingly beautiful, he takes my breath away. I try to memorize every aspect of his face so I can hold it deep inside my heart. Forever.
“When are you poisoning them?” he asks, the fire in his eyes surging.
I reach up to wipe away a tear. “Fernyllia’s doing it tonight. Tierney and I are going to eat some of the poisoned food, as well.” When he opens his mouth to protest, I add, “We have to. Or else the Gardnerians might suspect our involvement.”
I hold his heated gaze, and the silence between us deepens, filling with unsated longing.
“Your mother’s on her way,” I remind him, an ache gathering in my throat. “You need to get her out of here. There’s no more time.”
He nods stiffly, his eyes blurred with tears. When he speaks, his voice is ragged. “Goodbye, Elloren.”
For a split second, we pause, our eyes locked, and then he comes to me. I fall into the warmth of him as he wraps his arms and fire tight around me, kisses my hair and murmurs ardent Lasair that I don’t understand and don’t need to.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
POISONED
When the next day comes, I feel as if I’m underwater and can’t surface.
I hear voices, but it’s like they’re on a distant shore—muffled and strange and far away. My body is numb, and my mouth feels like it’s been stuffed up by cotton. Listening to the unintelligible voices around me, I groggily wonder if this is how we first sounded to Marina.
The Iron Flower Page 45