The Perilous Sea (The Elemental Trilogy #2)

The flow of sand was rather sluggish, but she could hear it rising against the side of the tent. Titus applied a stream of anti-intrusion spells, all of which were aggressive, some to the level of viciousness.

“You don’t actually expect us to be found under sand, do you?” she asked, alarmed.

“I worry about sand wyverns.”

“But the Sahara doesn’t have dragons.”

“The deserts of central Asia do. If I were Atlantis, I would send for sand wyverns the moment I realized I needed to be looking for fugitives in a desert. They specialize in sniffing out prey that are hidden under layers of sand—or even rock. And they can burrow at terrifying speeds—so even if you were at full capacity, your ability to get us underground would be useless against them.”

“That is assuming Atlantis would go through that sort of trouble for us.”

He sighed. “I have a feeling they would. I have a very unpleasant feeling that we—or at least you—might actually be important.”

This unnerved her. “I don’t want to be important.”

“I have kept track of the armored chariots in pursuit, since each has a unique identification number. That first night itself, I counted twenty-three different ones. Now if we assume that the blood circle forms the center of a coordinate plane, and all the armored chariots I saw were searching one quadrant, that means almost a hundred armored chariots were out looking for us, very possibly more.” He looked at her. “Now you tell me whether we are important or not.”

“Fortune shield me,” she murmured.

“Exactly.”

Sand had covered the entire tent. It was now still and dark inside. He called for mage light and handed her a waterskin. “Drink. You are out in the elements as much as I am.”

It was as she took her first swallow that she realized she was almost asleep again. She closed her eyes. “So what are we going to do?”

“You sleep,” he said, his voice seeming to reach her from far away. “I will take care of everything.”





CHAPTER 16


England

THE PHYSICIAN WAS A QUACK, of course, but he was a distinguished-looking quack who spouted enough likely sounding balderdash to convince Mrs. Dawlish that Wintervale would wake up rejuvenated—and soon.

Mrs. Hancock, on the other hand, was not fooled. After the physician left, she cornered Titus in his room. “Your Highness, with all due respect, that man was a charlatan if I ever saw one.”

“But the nurse who came with him is an Exile, and very much qualified in the medical arts,” Titus lied fluently.

Mrs. Hancock frowned, possibly in an attempt to recall the nondescript nurse. “And what was her opinion?”

“Same as what the quack told you, that Wintervale’s life is not in danger and that when he wakes up, within a few days, he should be fine.”

Mrs. Hancock adjusted the perfectly starched cuffs of her blouse. “That is what panacea does, repairing the body while it sleeps. But what I am interested in, Your Highness, is the root cause of Wintervale’s condition.”

“That the nurse was not able to determine.”

“And you?” Her gaze was penetrating. “You do not know of it either?”

Titus propped his feet up on his desk, knowing well such disrespect to furniture annoyed Mrs. Hancock. “This is what happened on Sunday. Wintervale arrived at Sutherland’s uncle’s house somewhere between half past two and quarter to three. He looked clammy and said he would not mind a nap. He napped for a while, then took some plain toast, which caused him to vomit. Naturally, I suspected poisoning by Atlantis, so I gave him two antidotes.”

Mrs. Hancock raised a brow. “Naturally you suspected poisoning by Atlantis, Your Highness?”

“Given the suspicious manner of Baron Wintervale’s death, of course.”

“Atlantis had nothing to do with Baron Wintervale’s death.”

“No, no, of course Atlantis would not seek to strike at a leader of the January Uprising who was still young enough and ambitious enough to have a second go at rebellion someday.”

Mrs. Hancock was silent for a moment. “I see Your Highness’s mind is made up. Please continue with your account.”

“The antidotes made Wintervale’s vomiting worse, so I gave him a different remedy, which unfortunately contains bee venom as an ingredient, and Wintervale, unbeknownst to me, is highly allergic to bee venom. At that point he went into a seizure and I had no choice but to administer panacea.”

Titus had deliberately painted a picture of incompetence. Much better to give the impression that his physicking had made Wintervale devastatingly ill than to let Mrs. Hancock suspect that something was truly the matter with Wintervale.

And if she were to question Kashkari, the latter would probably tell her that Titus denied giving Wintervale anything with bee venom, but then it was not as if the Master of the Domain would admit such a stupid mistake on his part to a nonmage nobody.

“I would advise that Your Highness not practice medicine on the boys of this house in the future,” Mrs. Hancock said wryly.