They were nearing the last of the merchants’ stalls when Mina felt something strike the backs of her ankles. She halted, and she could practically hear the collective gasp of breath. When she turned around, she saw a young boy scurry behind his mother’s legs, peeking guiltily up at Mina. Small rocks littered the ground by her feet—he must have thrown them at her. For now, it was only the children who struck out at her, but she knew she couldn’t count on that forever.
“Come on, Mina, stop lingering.”
“Just a minute, Hana,” Mina said, loud enough for people to hear. They were all pretending to go about their business, but their movements were slow and unfocused. “Since we’re here, we might as well do some shopping.”
The backs of her ankles still stung from where the small stones had hit her. If she hurried away now, it would only prove that violence would deter her, that they could scare her away. The scale of fear was still tipped in her favor: they were more scared of her than she was of them.
She walked to the nearest stall and picked an object at random: a plain silver bracelet. “How much?” Mina demanded of the merchant. If he had been local, he might have waived the fee to get rid of her quickly. But Mina could see from the cool olive of his skin and the drab colors he wore that he was from the North, too concerned with his own business to worry himself with gossip about the magician and his daughter, and so he named his price. Mina handed some coins over to him and placed the bracelet around her wrist, a reminder that she would not be chased off.
“I’m ready to go home now,” Mina said, turning again to Hana. She pitched her voice a little louder: “I’m ready to see my father.”
*
Her bravado faded once she reached home. Mina knocked on the door of her father’s study, taking a deep breath. After receiving no response, she peeked inside, but the room appeared empty. “Father?” she called softly.
Did he not even want to see her, after being gone for so long? True, she wasn’t particularly eager to see him again, but some part of her always stubbornly expected him to reach out to his daughter, the way she imagined most fathers did, even though he never gave her any reason to believe that he would.
Mina’s hands balled into fists at her sides. Her eyes went to a door at the back of the room, almost hidden by the surrounding bookshelves—the door to her father’s laboratory, the inner room where he did most of his work. Mina had been here in her father’s study before—it was ordinary, if a little chaotic, with books scattered everywhere—but it was merely a presentable facade meant to distract from the hidden door leading to that secret adjoining room. She’d only been in the laboratory once in her life. Those memories were foggy, though, and her head pounded whenever she tried to remember.
She listened for the sound of her father approaching, and when she didn’t hear anything, she crossed the study to that unassuming door. It was unlocked; she slipped inside.
The laboratory was dim and narrow, and along the walls were shelves full of vials and jars. She read a few of the scrawled labels: some were simply potions for sleep or health, but others announced themselves as deadly poisons. They had oddly fanciful names, like Whisper of Death or Burning Needle, and she knew from the proud penmanship that they were Gregory’s inventions. He brewed death here, in a myriad of creative ways, just to pass the time.
She walked past a long wooden table where a lamp burned low. There was a dark black stain in one spot, but otherwise the table was covered in open books with strange symbols and drawings. She knew how to read, but most of the books were written in unfamiliar languages, so she ignored the books and focused again on the shelves.
Mina’s eyes kept flickering to the contents of the jars, and she grew more unsettled each time. In many of the jars were misshapen lumps of … flesh? Bone? Feathers? She wasn’t sure what they were until she saw an actual miniature replica of a human being in one of the jars. It floated in cloudy liquid, like a tiny wax doll, except she was sure it wasn’t made of wax.
At the back of the room was a single jar resting on a small table. There was something inside the jar, and when Mina saw it clearly, she drew back at once. Unlike the strange fleshy things in the other jars, the contents of this one hadn’t been preserved. She peered at the rotten lump of meat in the jar, thankful there was no smell coming from it. What purpose did this withered, shriveled piece of flesh serve for her father? Another failed experiment? An ingredient for one of his poisonous concoctions? The sight of it filled her with an inexplicable sense of dread.
“Repulsive, isn’t it?”
Mina whirled around at the sound of her father’s voice. He leaned against the doorway, his arms folded over his chest. But he wasn’t the same as he had been when he’d left two months ago. His dark hair had lightened to gray, and there were more lines on his now-gaunt face. He looked to have aged at least twenty years while he’d been away.
“What happened to you?” Mina said, forgetting for a moment that he had caught her trespassing.
He walked over to the table, ignoring her question completely. “Do you know where I’ve been these past months?”
Mina was still tense, waiting for him to scold or berate her for invading his inner study. “Off on a useless search for another magician, I assume,” she said.
He fumbled with the books on his table, tossing some on the floor, while stacking others in a pile. “Wrong,” he said. “I was at Whitespring.”
Mina couldn’t hide her curiosity. “At the castle? With the king and queen?”
“With King Nicholas, yes. Queen Emilia, however, is dead.” He looked up and watched for her reaction, but Mina gave none. Why should she care if the queen was dead? What happened in the North was of little concern to her.
Gregory chuckled to himself and leaned heavily against the table. “I don’t know why I expected you to care. You should care, though, because her death has changed both of our lives forever.”
Again, he waited for a reaction, for her to ask him what he meant. Mina knew he was baiting her, so she refused to answer at all. He’d tell her whatever he wanted to in the end, with or without her prompting.
“She died in childbirth,” he continued, “but she left behind, in her stead, a daughter as beautiful as she was.”
“I didn’t know she was carrying a child,” Mina said placidly.
“News travels slowly, I suppose. But she had … complications. The child was killing her from the inside out. The king called for me in secret to see if I could save her and the child through magic, since medicine had failed. He’d heard what I could do, he said. He’d heard whispers that I had power over life and death.” Gregory’s eyes glittered in the dim light, his voice solemn with pride, but then he glanced away, and Mina saw his hands gripping the side of the table. “I was too late to save the queen,” he forced out, “but I did manage to save the child, using unconventional means. That’s why you find me so … changed. The process was draining.”