But she was getting better, even if she was sneaking out most nights. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought she was working for Laurel too. Maybe she did have some sense.
All of it would’ve been easier if I could divine.
Least I was useful in other ways. Estrel got a letter one day from Pièrre du Guay, and I loosened one of my rings and let it roll off under her chair. Estrel ducked to pick it up. I twisted so I could read the letter.
“—reply immediately with what your scrying uncovers or you will be—”
Of course. The only part I’d uncovered was the closing and his threats to strip her of her titles if she didn’t comply. What an ass.
Estrel set the ring on top of the letter. “You’re very lucky I don’t care about keeping his secrets.”
“Sorry,” I said. She smiled, but I could feel the heat spreading through my cheeks. I was too tired to work an illusion to cover it now. “Do you like being the royal diviner?”
“It’s certainly a better job than an orphan from the Pinch’s shores could have gotten normally.” She pulled a pen toward her and started making a list of things for us to do tomorrow. “But I am still serving a crown who cares little for me as a person. It has its own unique problems.”
“You’re the most powerful artist in Demeine,” I said. “You could tell them what to do.”
“Emilie.” She laughed softly and ducked her head. “The king is an excellent noonday artist with endless hacks and chevaliers at his disposal, not including the army he commands. I could, maybe, kill two chevaliers, but more would take their places, and by then, I would have worn my body completely down. Your faith in me is refreshing, but I am still only one very human person. To ‘tell them what to do,’ the court and chevaliers would have to be split up and dealt with only a few at a time.”
Ten minutes later, in my room with Coline and Isabelle, my moth fluttering from one to the other before finally landing on my hand, I shut the door.
“I have a problem,” I said. “I need your help.”
Coline shoved a letter into my hands. “We are all about to have a very big problem—Demeine is declaring war.”
Thirteen
Emilie
It took twelve days for us to reach the Pinch. I tried to scry Annette as she had taught me, but the farther we went, the harder it got. The camp in Segance was large, crowded, and constantly moving, despite the uncertainty of what exactly we were supposed to be doing when. The first day, we settled in, me setting up my sleeping roll a few paces away from the small tent Sébastien, Charles, and Rainier were sharing, and Rainier and I organized the supplies that Laurence would need to run the infirmary. That evening, Laurence told us the first attack on Kalthorne, a surprise, would be the next morning at dawn. Charles and Sébastien were to heal Chevalier Waleran du Ferrant, comte de Champ, the mounted fighting artist who would lead the charge. Rainier would be serving as hack to Sébastien. Laurence, with me to help, would be in charge of keeping everyone else alive.
He made us go to sleep right after dusk. I was half asleep when Sébastien crept from the tent and waved to me.
He tossed a woolen blanket to me. “This is for you.”
“Thank you?” I unrolled it—a very lovely, very warm blanket clearly meant as a gift and not some soldier’s supplies—and spread it out across my legs. “Why?”
“It gets colder here at night than you’re probably used to,” he said, looking anywhere but at me. “It would be embarrassing if a physician’s hack froze to death.”
“Of course.” I smiled. “Thank you.”
He nodded and started walking away. “You’re all right. Don’t die.”
I didn’t freeze to death; though, it was a close call. Laurence woke me well before dawn, and I spent my time scrying Annette as I waited for orders. Rainier stopped by once to kiss my cheek and wish me well, and I hugged him for a bit longer than was probably necessary. I had not ever wanted a brother, but I wouldn’t have minded Rainier.
Charles grinned when he stopped by and saw my new blanket. “Sébastien’s nervous habit strikes again.”
“Did he make it?” I asked, standing with Charles’s help. “It’s very nice.”
“He made a very tiny hat this morning. Couldn’t sleep.” Charles offered me his arm, and I took it. “Did he tell you not to—”
A sliver of a shadow crossed between us. I squeezed Charles’s arm, and he gently let me go. Laurence beckoned us both.
“Now,” he said. “Quickly.”
We took up positions along a stretch of land outside one of the Kalthorne settlements. The area had soldiers stationed about it, common ones and maybe a few artists who were in charge of keeping the peace and acting as town guards. The chevaliers, alchemical armor blots of power on the eastern horizon, motioned for us to move, and I followed after Laurence. The silver bangle on my wrist grew hot, an itch burrowing through my skin. I glanced at it.
Nothing.
I gathered the last dregs of the midnight arts, even though it wasn’t much, and focused on Annette—the determined glare of her brown eyes and excitement over having the chance to study. Her voice rolled down the back of my neck as though she were standing behind me.
“Oh, thank the Mistress, you figured it out.”
I startled and nearly yelped. “Annette?”
“It took me all night to find you, but I’m scrying you now.”
Laurence paused, walked backward to me, and pointed to my silver cuff. “Are you scrying someone who’s scrying you?”
“She’s scrying me,” I said. “But yes.”
“Good.” He hummed and tapped the silver cuff wrapped around the entirety of his left ear. It was always impossibly full of magic. I didn’t understand how his ear hadn’t worn away yet. “Two midnight artists are better than one.” He winced. “No, not you. You’re obviously the best of the two,” he said, waving his hands at the air as if he could shoo his midnight artist away. “Follow me exactly, unless your scryer tells you something different.”
“You are scrying me. Badly, but still. I’m scrying the soldiers around you,” Annette said in a tone my mother would have been exceptionally proud of. “I can’t divine the exact seconds you would need to anticipate an attack, but I can at least tell you who’s about to attack you.”
“I am happy with whatever you can offer,” I said. “Is Estrel Charron divining for Laurence?”
“Must be. I don’t know anyone else who can do this.”
Laurence and I hung back as the chevaliers and soldiers attacked. They tore through the guards around the city in a flash, Chevalier du Ferrant only suffering a single slash across his forehead from an arrow. Sébastien healed it with a quick channeling. Laurence stiffened.
“Run,” he and Annette said at once.
He sprinted down the hill to our right, and I took off after him. In the distance, a screech echoed across the land, black alchemical smoke pouring from town, and I felt the gathering of immense power. Blades stored with the noonday arts sparked as they hit each other, shearing off iron and igniting it. Fire flared where the chevaliers had been.
Thornish artists.
Something tore past my left with a whistle. Flames licked at my back.
Laurence healed a soldier’s burned leg as we raced by him, and I channeled enough magic into him to get him moving again. We wove between trees and sheds, Laurence healing the worst of the injuries and me healing the easiest. A Thorne, hiding, nursed a twisted ankle, and I fixed that too.
Ahead of me, Laurence sidestepped left. I did too, and a volley of arrows rained into the area we were running from. Another whistle, another tightening of the magic around me. I could feel the world unsettling, hearts speeding up, veins tearing open, and I dove into the wounds without seeing who they belonged to. Deme, Thorne—none of it mattered if we were all dead. Skin was simple. It
was almost always the same. Scabs bloomed as quickly as I ran.
“Duck.”
Laurence and I ducked at the same time, and another whistle flew overhead. I had never been interested in stories of valiant chevaliers, honorable battles, and the destructive powers of the noonday arts, and had no idea what we were up against. Laurence was untroubled, though. Prescient, he dodged left.
“Right.”
I darted right. Another bead of lead whistled past me, burrowing into the tree we had used for cover. The air shivered, and stored magic burst into the world. The iron sheared from the bead and, still lingering in the air, combusted. The oxygen rushed out of my lungs and into the reaction. Breathing grew heavy.
No, no, no—the mortal body produced plenty of things that decomposed into oxygen. Magic wove through Laurence’s skin, and I copied his arts without thinking, dragging up fresh blood. Blood beaded across the palm of my hand. I cupped it over my mouth.
“Three steps, you’re out. Five steps, stop him.”
One. Two. Three. Air!
Stop who? The world was chaos, and I was not prepared for this. A crossbow bolt caught a Deme soldier in the shoulder. Laurence dove for him, air hardening next to Laurence’s forearm like a shield, and knocked another bolt aside. A chevalier’s apprentice in the cover of a nearby tree took aim with a longbow.
“Stop him.”
I was a physician’s assistant. I was never supposed to hurt anyone.
“Look.”
I glanced down at the cuff and saw a Thornish soldier running away, raising the alarm as they ran, a crossbow in their hand. They were retreating.
The apprentice’s arm tensed. Alchemistry was too slow; I couldn’t put him to sleep, but I was already in his veins and my magic coursed through him. An old scar on the back of his hand ripped open. Blood splattered across his face.
He dropped the bow and shrieked. Laurence whipped his head to me, his hands on the soldier who had taken an arrow, and I channeled more magic into the apprentice. This time, I healed the wound for good. Laurence’s magic overpowered mine, snaking beneath the apprentice’s skin. I turned away from them.
“Safe.”
“Annette,” I whispered. “Tell me where the hurt Thornish soldiers are too.”
She was quiet for a moment. She might have been gone. She might have been worn out. Then, “Broken leg a few paces to your right.”
I found them easily, and they scrambled back. Thank the Lord my mother had insisted I learn Thornish. I healed their leg and turned away. They ran.
Laurence, channeling magic so the branches before him had transformed into a sturdy shield, nodded to me. “Come. We’ve more to do.”
He didn’t mention what I had done to the apprentice or the Thorne fleeing, healed, behind me.
“Fight’s over. Artist dead. Chevaliers capturing people.”
“Is it over?” I asked Laurence softly. It had only begun a little while ago, and the sun was a low crown atop the trees.
Laurence nodded. “Chevalier du Ferrant killed the only artist here, and the soldiers surrendered. Some will try to flee.”
His unspoken let them calmed me.
Until another chevalier’s apprentice tried to stop a Thorne from dragging an injured comrade to safety. Surrendering was supposed to put an end to the fighting and give time for healing. Laurence shouted for the apprentice to hold. They didn’t.
Laurence channeled his magic into the dirt. The power slipped through the threadlike roots of the grass and fungi and shot up into the bodies of the three dozen people around us. They all stilled.
“Check the injured, Emilie,” Laurence said, blood pooling in the mud around his shoes. “Now.”
He was controlling the alchemistry of three dozen people and hardly breaking a sweat. I swallowed and got to work. The paralyzed soldiers creaked like dead trees in cold wind.
The Thorne had a spearhead in his shoulder.
“Leave it in,” I told him, my hand steadying what was left of the shaft. It shook as he shook, and each jitter was a threat. “It’s holding the veins shut.”
“I’m going to let everyone go now,” Laurence shouted, “and you’re all going to help us with the injured because as you may have noticed, I healed you all. There’s no excuse for such behavior in a quick fight.”
It didn’t take long to get the most injured back to the infirmary. Charles, Sébastien, and Rainier met up with us inside the long tent, none of them injured, and Sébastien helped Laurence clean the dirt from his face. Apparently, so the chevaliers said, the town had surrendered the moment their artist died.
“A blessing,” Laurence said, slipping gracefully from his coat despite his shaking hands. “The apprentices already broke our common understandings and kept fighting after. Keep an eye out for them if we’re in another surrender.”
There were only three injured Deme, two injured Thornish civilians, and seven injured Thornish soldiers who Laurence was to heal after the chevaliers were done talking with them.
I was the only hack that could speak Thorne, and the physicians’ apprentices were doing more important work.
“Please don’t move,” I said as gently as I could in Thorne. “Does anything hurt?”
The civilians were understandably uneasy, and one of them, as tall as Laurence and as rough as he was elegant, gestured to the other despite their own blackened eye. I healed the cuts easily enough.
Clot. Inflame. Proliferate. Age.
I didn’t look at the guard looming behind me, but I saw him—a heartbeat and a half step away, a river map of coursing blood, a lightning bug against the backdrop of all the world’s power—and the little cut on his cheek that he had refused to let Charles heal. Scabs and bruises, he had said, were a sign of a winner’s battle. I entered his veins through it.
Small things, imaginary things like itches where nothing was, were easy to cause and easier to explain away. I had learned to stop them in my own skin; starting them in someone else’s was nothing. He scratched at his neck and turned, looking for the insect he thought had bothered him.
“Only seven people here speak Thorne,” I whispered, wiping the blood from their wounds and healing the worst ones. “The chevalier, the tall physician, the redhead and blond in orange coats, and me.”
I wasn’t supposed to fix the soldier’s fractured ankle, but I did.
“Pretend it’s still broken.” I stood, hands dirty and trembling. “Don’t let them know you can run.”
When I went to wash my hands in the infirmary, Sébastien had finished healing one of the Deme soldiers and was wiping his hands with a clean white cloth.
Physicians are noblemen, and a nobleman’s hands are clean.
“Would you like me to refill the basin for you?” I asked.
“My family hasn’t worked with their hands in hundreds of years.” Sébastien shook his head and huffed. “What could possibly be on them?”
He tossed the red cloth to me, the damp blood seeping across my clean skin, and left.
That night, tucked beneath Sébastien’s gift and the silver cuff pressed to my chin as I cried into my hands, Annette’s soft voice rolled over me.
“They all lived. It’ll be all right. So many more lived than would’ve.”
“We shouldn’t be here,” I whispered.
“I know, but you are there and I’m here, and we’re going to save so many more.”
Fourteen
Annette
“Run.”
My fingers had long since gone wrinkly and numb, but I was too deep in my scrying to pull them from the bowl. A country kid from a farm only two days away from Vaser was racing through the forests of Segance, a Thornish artist at his heels, and neither of them were dying today.
Lying was easy when it saved a life.
“Stop. Crouch. Don’t fight. You’ll
lose.”
They didn’t know I couldn’t divine something like that. Laurel had passed along the news that anyone who could scry had me looking out for them. This war might’ve been a distraction to keep Laurel at bay and kill some unwanted Deme citizens, but no one was dying so long as I could stop it. Deme or Thorne.
“It’s safe. Run back to camp and don’t look back.”
I pulled away from the magic finally and sighed. Every night was the same. Our days had become a somber affair, the teachers shifting from how many flowers to buy if the duchesse came calling to how much spark was needed to set off a flour bomb.
It was a distraction, and it was working.
Bisset talked about how to manage lands during wartime depending on location, and it was hard and different at first, but after a while, it was easier. Soldiers got two square meals a day, folks got to take up the job they left—if they left one—and war needed a lot of things to work. Metal workers, farmers, messengers. For now, we’d profit.
And with over a quarter of the people either running away from the fighting or running to it, there was no one left to revolt. They were either conscripted, convinced we needed to take back Segance, or dead. Even Yvonne and I were too busy. No telling where the Laurel who’d been running Bosquet was.
Coline said it was overkill and laughed bitterly as she said it. “They want the people moving against the king dead, the people who might’ve listened to them distracted, and the king to play the role of hero.”
Every day was the same too, but not as rewarding.
It was our job to make sure the king and his chevaliers survived to be heroes. Everyone else was a necessary casualty.
On our third day of war divining together, I yanked myself away from my bowl and pressed my palms into my eyes. “Chevalier du Ferrant’s walking into an ambush. Throat slit. Physician with him gets attacked when he goes to help.” I groaned, sure I’d never get the taste of drowning in my own blood—the chevalier’s blood?—out of my mouth. “I’m getting real tired of red.”
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