Lu stiffened. The voice speaking in Argridian came from two places at once: from behind the crates and barrels, farther into the room; and from her nightmares. Milo.
Panic’s numbness became a shield as, step by gentle step, Lu rounded the crates, the matted tail of her braid brushing her neck.
Milo, along with half a dozen Argridians, stood on the far side of the room over three more cots filled with either sleeping or unconscious patients. Raiders, Lu guessed, and she let a part of herself relax that she didn’t know them. One had blond hair; another wore a crocodile-skin vest. Raiders from the Mecht syndicate.
The Mecht syndicate’s Head, Ingvar Pilkvist, had stockpiled magic plants for Elazar’s experiments. Were the boxes around her from his stores? Lu couldn’t be in Backswamp, though—this building was too solid, unlike the dilapidated, swamp-worn structures there, and the light through the window was too pure.
“Increase the dosage,” Milo repeated, impatient. He was polished to gleaming, black hair neatly tied back, blue military uniform pressed into straight lines. A perfect facade, the way the lush magenta leaves of the Digestive Death plant contrasted with its deadly poison. “Menesia is one of the only plants that is permanent on its own. Something will unlock eventually.”
Confusion was a welcome counter to Lu’s fear. Menesia—the memory-erasing plant?
Vex had spoken of Menesia when they had spilled their souls to each other in the Rapid Meander’s pilothouse. Remembering him, his outstretched hand toward her—Lu reeled, willing herself to focus on what he had said. That Elazar gave some of his victims Menesia to make them forget he had people experiment on them in his as yet failed quest for permanent magic.
Small doses of Menesia could wipe recent memories. Larger doses, and the taker could lose a year; enough, and they could forget how to eat, how to speak.
Lu stayed behind a stack of crates, her breathing shallow. Milo was right—Menesia was, more or less, permanent, in that takers did not regain their memory over time. These people were discussing Elazar’s magic experiments.
“Similar tests have not produced the desired results,” said a priest in long brown robes. “We could combine Menesia with other plants to see if it imparts permanence to other magics.”
“Prepare it,” Milo snapped. “With double the Menesia dosage. Force the permanence.”
Another Argridian rose from the bedside of an unconscious raider. “I know my daughter,” he said. “If Adeluna figured out the cure for Shaking Sickness, and that cure is tied to permanent magic, then it is about precision, not quantity.”
Lu’s frail, beaten body couldn’t fight the rage and sorrow that crashed into her.
Tom was here.
Tom and Kari had first sent Lu out to spy for the revolutionaries when she was ten years old. A child could go unnoticed, so she had obeyed to help her parents save her home.
When Tom started teaching her how to fight, it had been “for her own protection.” She had killed two men in self-defense. But once, Tom asked her to follow him into the jungle and pull a trigger on “an enemy. You’re so good, Lulu-bean. You’re doing so well.”
But while on Elazar’s ship, Milo had admitted that Tom was his informant. Tom had been on the inside of most of the revolutionaries’ plans during the war, and after they won—thanks to Kari’s tactical prowess, moves Tom hadn’t known about—he had been a trusted member of the Council. Lu had done terrible things at his request, secrets stolen and lives taken.
And it had all been for the enemy.
Lu swallowed her tight knot of agony. She had loved her father. She did love him. And in the five years since the war, Tom had been on Grace Loray with Kari and Lu, working to do good things for this island. He couldn’t be loyal to Argrid.
Was it too much to hope that he was a double agent?
Milo glared at Tom now, arms folded across the glinting medals on his jacket. The other Argridians—priests and monxes, some defensors—fell silent, conceding to this tension.
“How do you know, Andreu?” Milo snapped. “You may have the king convinced that you were unaware your daughter healed herself of Shaking Sickness, but I’m not fooled.”
Yes, Lu told herself. See? Tom didn’t turn me over to Elazar after the war—
Tom gave a narrow squint. “Are you calling our Eminence King a fool?”
Milo hesitated. The other Argridians gave shocked looks.
But Lu hooked onto something else. “Your Eminence King?”
The priests’ robes wafted as they spun. The defensors’ hands flew to pistols. But Lu didn’t flinch, too focused on her father.
Tom smiled, a blush increasing the warmth of his skin’s Argridian redness. “Adeluna.”
“The Eminence King will want her to start working, Andreu,” Milo said, words twisted in a sickening pleasure. “Prove her worth.”
His implication was heavy. I’ll incentivize her.
Lu couldn’t breathe. But Tom didn’t look at Milo, didn’t move his eyes away from Lu.
“Give us a moment, would you?” he said. “Let me speak to her alone.”
A defensor scoffed. “Not without protection, sir.”
“She won’t harm me.”
She wouldn’t have to—because it was a lie. His allegiance to Argrid. It was a lie.
Lu tightened her fingers around the tongs, the metal biting into her palm.
A moment longer, and the priests relented, brown robes shushing on the floor as they left. The defensors went next. Last, Milo.
“I’ll inform the Eminence King that she is awake,” he said, his eyes sliding from Tom to Lu. His sickening grin lost its amusement, darkening with anger. Lu bit her tongue to stop from cowering under the realization that she was at this man’s mercy. Again.
But he left. A door opened, then shut with a click, and she was alone with Tom.
Tom spoke before she could. “You shouldn’t be up yet, sweetheart,” he said in Grace Lorayan. Hearing that language from him confirmed her hope—he was loyal to this island. He was loyal to her. “You healed in minutes, but the internal damage was difficult to determine. The king let the prince save you, though we weren’t sure of the extent his potion would—”
Ben’s healing potion? Lu gawked. She didn’t even feel sore. Ben’s potion was powerful, and that was more terrifying than encouraging.
“Ben.” Lu anchored. “He’s here?”
Tom bobbed his head toward the floor. “Imprisoned. He agreed to make his healing tonic to save you, but he refuses to work on permanent magic.”
Lu cast her eyes to the closed door, barely visible over the crates. “What is the plan?” she asked in a low whisper. “Is Kari waiting to help us get out? You’ve coordinated it with her, all this time, haven’t you? How does Elazar not suspect?”
Wonder crept into her tone, that her father had upheld such a miraculous dual life.
The scarlet on Tom’s cheeks deepened. He sighed. “Lulu-bean. Let me explain.”
The fragile remains of Lu’s foundation started to crack. “You’re loyal to Grace Loray,” she stated. Begged.
“My desires have never changed,” Tom said. It wasn’t confirmation. It wasn’t anything but pain, and Lu couldn’t breathe. “I want unity. Which is what you want too, and your mother. I was a spy long before I met Kari—she was a mission that . . . changed for me. I knew she wouldn’t see the alignment in our goals. Yes, I misled you both. But I am still your father.”