Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 59723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“I have to go,” he says, then pauses. Smiles. “This game tomorrow. Consider it a date. I’ll pick you up.”
With that, he leaps out of the boat as quickly and as quietly as he came.
Drained from the last twenty-four hours, I slouch towards my cell, only to perk up again outside Florentius’s door. How has he fared?
I knock, and Florentius opens, all pristine and perfect. Ignoring his surprise, I duck into his room and flop onto his bed. Hands tucked under my head, I stare at his dark ceiling, then look across to the frogs magically suspended above his desk. “You went to the other island.”
“I tried. I got caught and sent back.”
I look at him, and feel a little more at ease. “You’re all right. At least that.”
“You weren’t in your room last night.”
“Concerned for me?”
He swishes his hands and lowers the frogs to his desk. “A mere observation. There are frogs in that pot for you to practice on.”
I swing into a sitting position and grin at his back. “How about we practice together?”
He grunts, and we spend the next forty minutes practicing side by side. “You’ve natural talent,” he says as we clean up. “Not quite as much as myself.” I snort at his sincere narcissism, and he exhales. “But close.”
“What are you planning to do? When you find your brother.”
Florentius stiffens, then places the vented lid over the pot holding the frogs. “The only way to leave that island is in a coffin.”
“So—”
“So I’ll kill him.”
I yelp. Florentius lifts a small clay jar from his shelf and uncorks it. He rolls a single, black capsulised spell onto the palm of his hand. “In all history, there has only been a handful of these made.”
“What is it?”
“What will kill him and bring him back to life.”
In awe, I reach for the capsule, but Florentius slips it back into the jar.
“A fake death spell?”
“He’ll appear dead for twelve hours.”
“And then?”
“He’ll wake up outside the royal city, in the dumping yard for dead aklos and aklas, read the letter I’ll send off with him, and run. Start his life anew.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll find him. We’ll live together.”
“You couldn’t live under your own name. Your soldad would be useless, you won’t be able to perform anything but simplex spells.”
“I don’t care about my soldad. I’d have saved my brother. The most important life to me.”
This man’s heart. He might have seemed snobbishly elegant, perfectly preened, strictly unsocial . . . but he’s also emotionally intelligent. The love for his brother is priceless.
As he raises his arm to set the jar back on the shelf, I throw my arms around his middle and hug tight. “You have too much talent to sacrifice it all.”
“You’re suffocating me.”
I loosen my hold and pull back. He looks ruffled, but at least this time he’s not running away.
I sigh. “We really need to think all this through. But probably not on an empty stomach.”
“What?”
I pat my belly. “How do you feel about roast chicken?”
There’s so much chicken left over that I have plenty to share with Mikros and Makarios the next day.
“Y-you want to talk about wards?” Makarios squeals.
I nod.
I pull off a chicken leg and tear into the meat. “My grandfather’s theory was, in preparation for a mass outbreak, we could pre-emptively infect people with weakened versions of pestilence to increase their wards against it.”
“Oh God, we’re going to die,” Makarios croaks under his breath.
Mikros clears his throat, patting his shoulder. “We’re rebels, aren’t we Makarios? We can delve into banned topics.”
“Rebels.” A gulp. “Right.”
“Your grandfather tried this?”
And died for it. “On pockets of villagers, in the last plague. His notes are extremely promising. He collected excretions from surviving animal intermediaries that were close to recovery. Pigs, goats, cows. Then he filtered it into people’s blood so they can create shields of defence against stronger variants.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s promising, even if it were proven successful and the whole idea wasn’t banned . . . You’ll never get people willing to infuse themselves with pig saliva.”
“Pus.”
“Forgive me, they’ll be lining up.”
I sigh and rip another bite from my chicken leg. Which, of course, is how Nicostratus finds me. He clears his throat and my head whips to him watching from the doorway, eyes sparkling.
I drop the chicken.
Mikros and Makarios become fascinated spectators, gazes pinging towards Nicostratus—elegant in plum sporting attire from leggings to shirt to the mask dangling around his neck—to me, wiping grease off my chin.
Nicostratus frowns and then looks up, raising a bundle of more plum attire. “Pop these on and we’ll go?”
I change hurriedly, throw on my cloak, and come back out swinging the mask around my finger. “Will this do?”
“You might want to leave the cloak.”
“That’s just until we get there. It’s breezy today.”
Nicostratus is all light laughter and chivalry as he whisks me away from the bewildered stares of Mikros and Makarios. The drakopagon arena is teeming with spectators. In the middle of the stands overlooking the white-fenced, lush green space is the royal box, curtained with almost transparent silk screens; behind the screens is the shadowy, coughing figure of the king.