The King Slayer Part 21

"What do I do?"

"Just read me the names of the plants," he says. "And I'll tell you their indications."

I flip it open to the first page. "Hawthorn."

"Crataegus laevigata." He pulls himself up onto the counter across from me. "Parts used: leaves, flowers, fruit. Improves shortness of breath, fatigue, and chest pain. No known precautions."

I turn the page. "Skullcap."

"Scutellaria lateriflora. Leaves, stems, flowers. Used to relieve anxiety, insomnia, nervous tension." A muscle in his jaw clenches. "Known precautions: May cause drowsiness, and when combined with germander; may cause toxicity."

"Goldenrod."

On we go. Page after page, herb after flower, plant after root. Eventually, John's posture begins to droop, his eyes begin to close. His voice grows softer, deep and hypnotic.

I flip the page one more time, and what I see makes me smile.

"Jasmine."

His eyes fly open. They find mine and they hold them, so full of longing my breath catches in my throat.

"Parsonsia capsularis. Parts used: petals and stems. As a tincture for abrasions, a compress for headaches and fevers."

He slides off the counter then. Steps in front of me. Takes a strand of my hair, coils it around his finger, tucks it behind my ear.

"Precautions: May cause rapid heartbeat, shallow breathing, nervous stomach."

Being this close to him I finally see-really see-what the stigma has done to him: the toll the fight against it has taken. The sleepless nights in the redness of his eyes. The worry in the dark shadows beneath them. His face, shaven though not carefully, a quick swipe with a razor to say it's done but not with much care. His shirt, too clean and too unwrinkled to be of his doing.

In that moment he lets his guard down: He places his hands on the counter on either side of me, leans forward, rests his head on my shoulder. He's still, so still, as if he expects me to pull away, to tell him no. I feel the sweep of his lashes on my cheeks as he closes his eyes, the weight of his chest as he takes a breath and lets it out, a slow, long exhalation.

There are different kinds of strength, I know this now. The kind that wields swords and slays monsters but there's another kind, too; one that comes in quiet but in the end is stronger and harder and more powerful: the kind that comes from inside. For all the time I've needed him, I never understood the extent to which he needed me, too.

I slip a hand into his hair, thread my fingers around his curls. Lean forward, brush my lips against his, soft. I linger there a moment, my lips on his, but he doesn't kiss me back. He's gone still, and I know he's thinking if he moves, breathes, speaks, anything, this spell will be broken and I will be gone.

But I keep going.

I'm pressed against him now, and I can feel his heart hammering beneath his shirt, the tension in his arms as he grips the edge of the counter. My lips move back to his, then away again, feather-light, across his cheek to his ear, then down his neck. I flick my eyes to his just for a moment, just long enough to see them close.

"You don't know what you're doing." His voice is a whisper, a breath against my skin. Not an admonishment: a warning.

I allow myself a smile, just a small one, my lips curving into the warm, spicy skin on his neck, kissing it once, twice, before slowly trailing my way back to his ear only to whisper: "Yes, I do."

He yanks me toward him then, one hand in my hair, the other gripping my waist before sliding me off the counter and onto his hips. I let out a little gasp of surprise and then his lips are finally, fiercely, on mine. I'm breathless, but he's not through. He kisses me again, still. My feet slip to the floor; we stumble away from the counter.

It's him who pushes me against the door; it's me who pulls him through. It's him who yanks off my coat; it's me who takes off his. It's him who slips off my tunic; it's me who unfastens one b.u.t.ton on his shirt, then another, before sliding it off his shoulders. It's him who pushes me into the room with the small bed in the corner, me who pulls him on top of it, wrinkling the smooth, carefully made sheets.

When the only thing left between us is a question, he pulls away from me, as far as I'll let him, enough to look me in the eye and say without saying it: Are you sure?

It's not enough to say yes. It's not enough to answer not with words but with a kiss. I do both of them but I do something else, too: I say it. After feeling it for so long, I finally find the courage to say it.

"I love you."

He twitches the blanket over us both, then he kisses me.

And the walls come down.

I WAKE TO THE FEEL of John's hands in my hair, running the ends of it through his fingers. I crack open an eye to find him watching me, his eyes half closed and half asleep, but the smile on his face wide-awake.

"What time is it?"

He rolls to his back, lifts his head up, and glances out the window by the door. "I'd say around seven or so."

"Oh." I think a moment. "That's later than I thought. We'll have to come up with some excuse why we were gone all day. Maybe we can say we ate in town."

John rolls over to face me, his grin now a smirk. "Seven in the morning."

I let out a gasp; he starts laughing.

"I'm in so much trouble," I groan.

"You are," he agrees. "You'll be washing dishes for a week."

"Just so you know, I'm blaming it all on you."

"You can blame me for whatever you want, any time you want." He grins again. "Even so, I suppose we should get back. My father will be frantic." He pauses, considering. "Although if he's figured out you're with me, frantic probably isn't the right word."

We collect our things and step from the back door of the apothecary, John locking it behind him, then thread through the alley into the cobblestoned main street. It's gray and early still, the air cool and calm. It was quiet yesterday, too, but today it feels almost abandoned. The doors to all the shops are closed tight, the windows shuttered, no one to be seen at all.

"Do you think something happened?" I whisper. No one is around, but it seems important to whisper.

"I don't know." He releases my hand, moves down the street. Tries the door for the cobbler, lifting the shoe-shaped bra.s.s knocker and letting it fall once, twice. Next he tries the bakery, the fishmonger, the bookseller, then the tavern, aptly named the Shaven Crown. Knocks on their locked doors, waits for them to be opened.

They don't.

"I don't like this," I say. But there's nothing not to like. No sounds of an attack, no screaming, or smoke, or horses whinnying. No stomping of boots or clashing of swords. No copper-scented wind, the smell of fresh blood hanging in the air.

"Let's go." John is by my side again. "If something's happened, someone at Rochester will know."

We make our way past the apothecary again and the rest of the empty storefronts. We're nearly to the end when a man appears around a corner, rushing past as if he were being chased.

"Ho!" He throws up a spear, a shoddy-looking thing, the rusty rough-hewn arrow broken from its shaft and lashed onto a k.n.o.bby stick by a piece of leather. His eyes go wide when he sees John, and he lowers his weapon immediately.

"John Raleigh. What're you doing here? And you?" The man looks at me. "Our troops came through here and rounded everyone up last night, took us into Rochester whether we like it or not." By his scowl it's clear he doesn't. "Blackwell's men got in again."

"What happened?" John demands. "Was anyone hurt?"

"Don't know." The man shrugs. "It's chaos. Rumor is people have gone missing, but it's hard to say who just yet. They're doing a head count now."

John and I exchange a rapid glance.

"Best get back," the man continues. "Your father's no doubt worried."

"If they took everyone to Rochester, what are you doing here?" John says.

The man nods toward the cobbler. "Realized I forgot to lock up shop-stupid, really-"

The arrow pierces his eye before he can finish. The man sways on his feet, blood pouring down his face, before slumping to the ground, facedown. Dead.

It all happens in less than a second.

From the corner of my eye I see the archer. Black-cloaked, his hood up so I can't see his face, poised at the corner of the same side street the cobbler came from. He's reloading, and he's aiming right at us. John s.n.a.t.c.hes the pitiful weapon from the man's death grip, takes my hand, and we run.

An arrow chases us; I can hear it whistling through the air. We don't dodge it; instead John grabs me and throws us both to the ground. We fall, hard, onto the cobblestones as the arrow sails by us. John's up before I am, pulling me to my feet again, and we run, again.

More arrows. They fly at us from every direction now: front, behind, from the side. We're surrounded. An arrow grazes John's shoulder; I gasp as he pitches forward, clutches his hand to his arm; it comes away with nothing but a small smear of blood: It's already healed.

We skirt into the alley, back to the apothecary. We reach the back door, the key already in John's hand. He jams it into the lock, flips open the latch, pushes me through.

"We need to hide." I look up, down, around. "Can we get into the attic somehow? Climb onto the roof?"

"We're not hiding." John pulls me into the front of the shop. Pushes me behind the counter, then dashes around the room, opening drawers, turning in circles, muttering to himself. Then he drops to his knees and throws open a cabinet.

There's a crash, then a shower of ochre gla.s.s as a rock flies through the window. They've found us. After a moment John leaps to his feet holding two masks; they look like executioners' masks. He hands me one.

"Put it on."

"John, I don't-"

"Put it on!"

I do. It's tight, with only slits for eyes and nothing for my nose. Just a tiny hole where the mouth is, not enough to speak, just enough to breathe. Barely.

John ducks down, his head disappearing into the cabinet again. When he reemerges, he's holding a small leather pouch. He quickly unties the leather strings and upends it onto the counter. Inside is a white block, only slightly larger than a sugar cube, wrapped in parchment. It's stamped with a red skull and crossbones, this one not drawn in his hand.

"John... what is that?" My voice is m.u.f.fled.

Another crash; another rock sails through the window. The shouts out front grow louder. John turns to me, his face pale under his dark hair.

"It's Ricinius communis. Derived from the castor bean plant. Heard of it?"

I shake my head.

"It's poison. A single breath of it kills instantly. It's not just outlawed in Harrow, it's outlawed everywhere. I keep a bag for patients who are dying and don't want to prolong it, who want a quick end. If anyone knew I had it..." He doesn't finish the sentence; he doesn't need to. If the council had known about this, it wouldn't have meant prison: It would have meant death.

"I'm going to use it on them," he continues. Even his lips are pale now. "I'm going to blow it into the air, they're going to breathe it, and they're going to die."

I feel sick. All the time he's spent to gain control over the stigma will now be undone in a single breath. I step forward, place my hand on his.

"Let me do it."

"No. It needs to be me." His voice is quiet but sure.

I nod.

"Keep that mask on, you hear me?" His words come fast. "You're okay to breathe through it, but don't take it off until I tell you to. Don't touch anything, either. Don't do anything until I tell you to. Got it?"

I nod again.

He slips on his gloves: thick, heavy black canvas. Yanks the mask over his own face, pulling it tight around his nose and mouth. Plucks a long gla.s.s pipette off the counter. One end broad, the other narrow, like a trumpet. He unwraps the block of poison from the parchment, pinching and crumbling it between his fingertips before shoving it into the widest end of the pipe. He presses his thumb against the other end, creating a vacuum to hold the powder inside.

There's an enormous crashing noise. The front window has shattered, shards hanging by the frame, yellow and glinting like cats' eyes in the weak morning sun.

John points to the corner of the room, to the left of the door.

"Get down. Wait for them to come in," he says. His voice is m.u.f.fled behind the mask.

Another smash and they're here; they're inside the shop. Two, six, eight of them crawl in through the open window, and they converge on us, all black cloaks and choking roses, their arrows pointing right at us.

"Your armor won't do you any good," one says, taking aim at John's forehead.

"Neither will yours," John says.

And he blows.

Powder fills the air like mist. Finger-shaped white tendrils coil from the pipette, almost predatory, floating their way toward the men. For a second, the air is filled with the sounds of their laughter, but between one breath and the next, that laughter stops.

Their skin turns white; it's as if they've been doused in powder. Eyeb.a.l.l.s turn red, veins dilating wider and wider until they're nothing but crimson. They jerk and shake like puppets until the strings are cut and in unison, all eight men slump to the floor in a b.l.o.o.d.y heap, a catastrophe of a grotesque tragedy.

I'm hauled to my feet. Elbowed, none too gently, over and out the broken window and into the street until we reach the other side. John shakes off his gloves, then spins me around, fumbling with my mask, pulling it off before ripping off his own.

He looks at me closely. "You didn't touch anything?"

I shake my head. "No. Nothing."

John tugs me toward the water pump in front of the fishmonger's. Draws it a couple times until the pipe runs clean, then rinses his hands and face, sucking in mouthfuls of water and spitting it onto the cobblestones.

"Your turn," he says. "Even if you didn't touch anything, it won't hurt to make sure." I reach down and cup my hands beneath the cold stream, rinsing my mouth and splashing water on my face until my cheeks are numb.

I dry my face and hands on the folds of my cloak, then look to him. I fear I'll see hostility in his face again, the violence from the stigma swirling through his veins, wreaking unseen havoc. But instead of aggravation, I see only caution.

"You're all right?" I say.

John glances back at his ruined apothecary, at the shards of yellow gla.s.s littering the cobblestones, the heap of black cloaks visible inside.

"Not quite," he says. "But I will be."

I don't want to ask him, but I do. "What about the bodies?"