“Did you have a nice discussion with our host?” Leon asks.
“Yes,” I say, still filling my plate. “Most enlightening.”
“Be careful, princess,” he says.
“A little late for that, don’t you think?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the time’s passed to warn me about trusting the promises of strange men,” I say, raising an eyebrow at him as I walk away from the table. He catches my elbow before I can sit down, lowering his head to murmur in my ear.
“Notthatstrange. You knew me well enough to moan my name last night.”
I feel myself blush as I yank my arm away, searching his face. Is he out to humiliate me? But no…I see the heat burning in his eyes now. This is about me talking to Corrin. But why would that bother him? He heard me shut the man down.
I smile, understanding dawning on me, and when he steps back, confused by my reaction, I glide away to a seat to enjoy my food in silence.
He wasn’t bringing the barn up to embarrass me.
Leon is jealous.
Chapter23
Morgana
“Thisis where we’ll find the healer?”
I haven’t seen many healer shops in my time, but I can’t imagine a dryad livinghere. The building is gray with grime, and the windows are covered in black curtains. There’s a pile of broken wooden boxes stacked against one wall, and above it, graffiti has been scrawled with a black substance.
“Ruin maker?” I read.“What does that mean?” I ask Alastor. He squints at it.
“No idea.”
One more mystery to add to the list. The biggest one weighing on my mind is what kind of dryad would work in a city like Hallowbane. I’d expect human healers here, sure, since every city needs someone handy with herbs and a scalpel. But Etusca used to tell me about her dryad homeland—how beautiful it was, how pure and unspoiled, particularly the deeply magical forest known as the Miravow that feeds the souls and the healing powers of every dryad. Hallowbane…well, it’s about as far from pure and unspoiled as you can get. I can just imagine what Etusca’s reaction to this place would be. Horror, most likely.
My mind goes to her now. Did she go home yet? Is she back in the Miravow, healthy and well at last now that she no longer needs to look after me?
And am I about to find out that all the years and all the work she put into caring for me were all a lie?
Leon tells most of the unit to stay outside, but he beckons me into the shop along with Hyllus and Alastor. Even with his glamour on, Hyllus is big, and I suspect Leon knows he’ll be suitably intimidating to anyone who might be reluctant to help us. Dryad healers all take an oath to never knowingly harm anyone, but that doesn’t mean they’re required to be helpful.
A bell dings forlornly as we enter the shop, and a mildewy smell hits my nose. It’s dark inside with only a few candles and a dirty skylight illuminating the gloom. Shelves hang behind a counter, boxes and bottles stacked on them. The labels are written in Agathyrian, and I’m trying to read some of them when a hunched figure shuffles out of a back room.
“How can I help?” the dryad croaks, his voice brittle as dry bone. As we get closer, I try to hide my stare, but the sight of him fills me with deep sorrow. He’s almost completely colorless, the green of his skin leached from him, his gaunt face pale as a ghost. What little hair he has is just as pale, the straggly tendrils hanging limply around his ears. This must be what happens to a dryad who stays too long away from the Miravow—but why? Why subject himself to such a life?
Unless he can’t go back.
There’s only one reason I know of that a dryad can be exiled from Agathyre: if they break their vow and knowingly harm another. Then they’re given a fate worse than death—eternal separation from the enchanted forest that gives them their vitality.
“I hear you’re the healer to come to with unconventional cases,” Leon says as the dryad eases himself behind the counter, supporting himself with thin, knotted fingers.
“That depends on the price you’re offering—and who’s paying,” says the healer, eyeing us calculatingly.
“We’re people who need a certain amount of discretion…but we’re more than willing to be generous,” Leon says. He places a large bag onto the counter which the healer pulls toward him, looking inside. Whatever he sees convinces him because he nods and closes the bag again.
“In this city, I’d be out of business very quickly if I couldn’t keep things to myself,” he says.
Leon seems satisfied and gestures for me to come forward.
