Page 14 of The Mage's Rake
“Now I feel just grand,” he said sarcastically. “Am I to watch what my lovers do to me while I sleep? How is a tom to get any shuteye?”
“Or perhaps you behave a bit more circumspectly in the days to come,” I said primly.
Ignoring his muttering, I focused on the tea cup and teapot nearby. Using a combination of spells and herbs, I managed to analyze the ingredients of the tea. Red mallorn leaf from the south… and something more insidious—a combination of perallin, shadowmoss, and moonblossom. The shadowmoss in particular caught my eye. I hummed to myself as I shifted the focus of my white, glowing analysis sigil which slowly rotated above the silver platter now holding several spoons of the tainted tea.
“What?” asked Hugh.
“What?”
“You said, ‘Hm.’”
“Oh. Yes, well, there is a clue, I think, in the potion itself. The shadowmoss is of substandard quality. We can safely iron out everyone we spoke with in the city after all. Even Mowen.”
“Really?” Hugh frowned. “I feel like that is as much bad news as it is good.”
“Yes, well, there it is. I’m sure you don’t care about the details—“ Hugh shrugged and nodded in abashed agreement. ”—but in short, the shadowmoss is not pure. It was mixed with a southern variant. This points to an alchemist with poor stock or uncertainaccess to stock. The undermarket, perhaps. You know, the black market.”
“There are a few places we could look at on the outskirts of the city,” Hugh suggested slowly. “Outside the walls of Rimefrost, there’s the Lower Rime, and I’m certain I’ve heard of—er, well interacted with—a variety of, well, you know…”
“Hugh!” My tail fluffed out in shock. “You went looking for some dark potions and bought them off some third-rate potions maker…!”
Hugh flushed.
“You should at least attempt to come to me first.” I folded my arms and glared at him. “I can brew just about anything. And I’m the soul of discretion. If you are having issues—“
“Not my issues,” Hugh said hastily, “but I shall bear it in mind… in the future.”
I shot him a warning glare and then focused on cleaning up after my experiments. Once I had ensured everything was cleared and stored neatly away, I prepared to leave the castle with Hugh once more. Hugh, however, was called away to discuss some matters with the guards and then had to give King Landis a short report on our investigations into the assassin’s poison. By the time he was finished, I was more than ready to depart.
Under gray skies promising more snow, we rode out on horseback. Hugh was in high spirits. Whatever he might truly be thinking was buried deeply, and I felt as though I could not ask. Instead, I allowed our conversation to meander. I shared the recent advances I had made with my fertility potion and how my first trial subject was doing. Hugh gave me an update on Landis’s Wintermas celebrations. Apparently, both Landis and Corrin wished to make their first Wintermas together very special. That meant a lot of feasting and parties, which I knew Hugh would enjoy even if I did not.
As we talked, we made our way down the main street. This area, I was familiar with, but taking a left, Hugh took me to the eastern gate of Rimefrost and down the slight incline to the shantytown that pressed up against the city’s great stone walls. This area was called the Lower Rime, according to Hugh. A place where migrant workers and refugees lived, where they eked out their living doing odd jobs and hard labor.
I stared in curiosity at the ramshackle houses and shivered. The walls and roofs of the wood shanties were thin and poorly made, barely providing any warmth or protection against the north-easterlies that came blustering in. If I lived in one of these, I imagined I’d die within a few days. I fell silent, feeling as though all cheer that might have remained within was sucked out of me instantly. Even Hugh fell silent and grim as his great black charger picked its way past potholes, shifting gravel, and refuse.
“Why…”
Why is it like this?
Before I could ask, I heard someone calling out.
“Oi! Oi, there! You lot! Yes, you!”
Their voice was rough with anger and filled with desperate urgency. A hand appeared to reach out of nowhere and grab my boot. I glanced down, eyes wide, at a short, spare catkin who had clutched the heel of my boot. His hands were roughened and reddened, uncovered despite the inclement weather. In his other arm, he held a cowering kit, who suddenly coughed—a deep wracking cough that shook its frail frame.
“I knows you,” said the catkin, glaring up me. “Not a quack like the lot o’ them, but you bloody Tower lot, you!”
“What do you want with me?” I ask, gripping my reins tightly.
Already Hugh was turning about, glaring at the tom as though he was about to plant his sword in the catkin’s chest. Part of me was glad to see Hugh behave so protectively. It was nice toknow that Hugh had my back. Another part of me, however, was horrified by the sound of the kit’s coughing. The kit was very, very ill. Judging by the wild look in the older tom’s eyes, he knew that as well.
“My kit’s taken ill. His mother and sister’s already gone,” the tom said and then spat close by my horse’s hoofs. “And what are the wellborn about to do about my little Tomlyn? Nuthin’, I reckon. Nuthin’ unless I yell real hard. Even then, what is your gennulcat knight friend to do—beat me for the impertinence? Might as well murder my little kit as well and spare him the misery of his suffering.”
Most kits survived the ague, but without proper housing and food, they would need more help than most. I knew what elixir would solve the problem. I had all of the ingredients. I was practically making it in my head as we spoke.
“The Elixir of Maximum Healing is what he needs,” I said softly, gaze fastened on the thin brown wool that covered the little boy kit’s shoulders.
“Alan, allow me to—“
