“How did you even know about the potions?”
She glances away, toward the window. “Your friend is really worried about you. And after your bizarre episode yesterday, I was curious.” She shrugs. “Wondering about you beats dwelling on my own problems.”
Valoria.
“I’ll pay you.” I hate the whine in my voice, but a feeling like hundreds of tiny insects crawling around in my stomach means it’s past time for my next fix. “You can have anything of mine you want. My uniforms. My party gowns. My sword. My sapphire pin. Just bring my potions back.”
“Not a chance.” Meredy perches on the bed, leaving the path to the door wide open.
But there’s no point even trying to sprint to freedom. I can’t drag the whole bed with me. As I glare at the open door, Valoria breezes into the room, looking completely unsurprised by my livid stare.
“Good morning!” she says cheerfully, pushing her glasses up her nose and kicking the door shut. Turning back, she offers me a hesitant smile I don’t return. “How are you feeling? It’s a good thing your potion makes you sleep so soundly, or I’d never have gotten those shackles on without you knowing. Are they too tight? I designed them with your comfort in mind . . .”
I press my lips together to hold in a groan. “Of course this was your idea.”
The princess shakes her head. “Meredy’s. But I wish I’d thought of it days ago.”
I can’t believe this is happening. I’d pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming, but I can’t move my hands. And with each passing moment, what little patience I have is fading.
“Valoria. Take these off right now,” I demand through gritted teeth. “I have no chance of finding your mother if I’m locked up.” When she doesn’t show any sign of relenting, I lower my voice to a hushed calm. “Fine. You win. I’ll never touch a drop of that potion again. But Jax and Simeon need my help tracking down the missing Dead and a very dangerous man who’s already tried to feed at least one person to a Shade.” A man who’s apparently quite good at hiding, if yesterday’s search is any indication.
“Jax and Simeon know what we’re doing here. And we have their support.” Valoria leans closer, frowning down her nose at me. “They don’t want you going back to the Deadlands, or anywhere else, until you have a clear head and aren’t a few potions away from death.”
I try to ball my hands into fists, but of course I can’t. Instead, I give Valoria my widest, most pleading eyes. Of my two captors, she’s the one I’m sure has a heart. The one I know how to wound with words. “Please, Highness. There’s no time for this now!”
“Oh, but there is, Master Necromancer.” Valoria squares her shoulders and stands taller, looking every bit like the leader I know she could be. I just wish she wasn’t directing her fiercest stare at me, forcing me to glower back. “Do you have any idea what this is doing to us—your friends? You’ll be more of a danger than a help to Jax and Simeon if you keep drinking that potion. Grenwyr needs you.” Her gaze and voice soften as she adds, “I need you. The real you, not the one who’s been spending half her time in an imaginary world of monsters.”
Meredy’s words are so quiet, I almost miss them. “There are enough real monsters in Karthia to keep you busy, if you’d just look around.”
I exchange a glance with her, wondering if she’s thinking of yesterday’s rogue necromancers. She smiles wanly, and a flickering image of Evander hits me like a knife in the gut. I turn my back on her, focusing all my attention on the princess.
“Meredy obviously wants to see me suffer.” The shaking in my hands spreads to my knees, but I’d rather fight to keep standing than sit on the bed beside her. “That much I understand. But, Valoria, why are you doing this to me?”
“You brought me out of my tower. You helped me realize I have a voice, however small, that deserves to be heard.” The princess puts her arms around me, hugging my rigid back and filling me with unexpected warmth. “And now I want to lead you out of the darkness.”
“What if the darkness is where I belong?” I fight to keep my voice steady as I think of all the times I walked the palace halls with Evander, when my biggest worry was how to convince him we should move there. “What if I spend every potion-free day wishing I’d died in the Deadlands with him? What if the pain of being alone is too much?”
An image of Master Cymbre’s face as she pulled me from the flames in a faraway field flashes to mind, knotting my stomach with guilt.
“You won’t wish that.” Valoria squeezes my shoulder. “Because you won’t be alone. You’ll have me, and we’ll fight the pain and the darkness together.”
I open my mouth to ask her how I can fight anything with my hands chained, but my knees buckle and I sway. Frowning, Valoria steadies me, then pushes me gently down onto the bed. Resigned to my fate, I sink onto my unmade sheets.
When I wake up some time later, Meredy is gone. For a while, as the sun makes its ascent in a clear blue sky, I watch Valoria as she sits by my feet, scribbling in a leather-bound notebook of yellowed parchment.
“What are you working on?” I manage to ask. Beads of sweat collect on my forehead, but when Valoria pours me a glass of water, I’m too nauseated to drink.
Valoria makes a soft disapproving sound, but she doesn’t force the issue. Instead, she holds up her notebook. “This is my air balloon.” She taps the drawing at the center of the spread pages, a giant loopy thing with strings coming out of the bottom and what looks like a large basket dangling from the strings. “Fire should make the balloon rise, but I’ve got to figure out how to contain the flames so they won’t burn the people sitting in the basket. A flying balloon could be a new way to travel.”
I lick sweat from my lips and surprise myself by laughing. The image of several Dead looking on in awe and fear as Valoria ascends into the sky in a flaming balloon is just too much. “Where do you come up with these things? What is it your Sight shows you that inspires you to want to, well, fly?”
Valoria’s cheeks turn rosy pink. “They’re not all my ideas. I found the air balloon and several other designs for flying machines in a book. There’s a section of the palace library that used to hold books from before Eldest Grandfather’s second reign began, books full of all sorts of ideas people started but never got a chance to finish.” She tries to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose, though they’re already in place. “He thinks all those books were burned, but I saved as many as I could in my tower. When I read them, I see ways to improve the designs. There’s just the matter of getting a chance to try . . .”
I smile, leaning back against my pillows and wondering what Evander would think of a flying balloon. He’d probably volunteer to be Valoria’s first victim—er, passenger. I bet he’d consider it an exciting way to see what lies beyond Karthia’s borders.