The Reluctant Queen (The Queens of Renthia #2)(125)

Arin wanted to tell him to stop trying to change her. In a way, Garnah was right: he was focusing on the wrong problem-his mother-instead of the right one: the poison. Yes, people outside were screaming, probably dying. Like Josei had died. But that only made their task more important, not less. For those who hadn't yet lost the loves of their lives. "Tell me what to do," Arin said to Garnah.

"Bleed more," Garnah said. Before Arin could react, she pressed a blade to Arin's arm and then caught the drops of blood on a slide. "All right, begin a new batch. Start with the red lichen. . . ."

Muttering to himself, Hamon applied a bandage to Arin's cut while she mixed the ingredients and ignored the sting of her arm. He kept glancing at the window.

"Hamon, if you're not going to focus, you might as well go to her," Garnah said.

"I'll go when I have the antidote to give her," Hamon said.

The palace shook again, but this time Arin was braced for it. The chandelier swung side to side, and a fiery log rolled out of the fireplace. Flames leapt onto the carpet. Hamon stomped the flames out and shoved the log into the fire. He tossed a bucket of sand over the fire. It died. Quickly, he sealed the fireplace. He then checked the locks on the windows and pulled the curtains.

From the corridor outside the room, Arin heard screaming.

That was close. Much too close.

The enemy spirits couldn't have reached the palace tree already. She'd been told they were held at the city border. They shouldn't have reached the palace at all. She worried about Daleina. "Hamon . . ." Arin began.

"Something's wrong," Hamon said. "I'm going to her."

He crossed to the door and pulled it open.

A spirit flew at him, claws out, teeth aimed at his neck. Arin screamed. Garnah lunged forward, grabbing one of the vials. Arin caught her arm. "No, you'll hurt Hamon!"

Hamon kicked at the spirit, but it bore down on him. And then a massive gray shape launched itself through the door and slammed into the spirit. It knocked the spirit against the wall, and Arin saw it was a wolf-Bayn!

The spirit fled.

Baring his bloody teeth, the wolf turned to look at Hamon and then he grabbed the healer's robe in his teeth and tugged. "Daleina?" Hamon said.

"Go," Arin told him.

"Go to her," Garnah said, a sigh in her voice. 

He ran out of the room with the wolf at his side.

Garnah barred the door behind him. "Perhaps we can get some work done now." She crossed toward Arin, and the window shattered open. An air spirit howled as it flew inside, and before Arin could even scream, Garnah threw the vial she was holding into its face.

It screamed and clawed at its face, then it fled.

"And now we can get some work done."

"What was that?" She'd never seen a spirit flee like that-a charm could repel them, but the spirit had acted like-

Garnah rapped on the table. "Focus, my apprentice. We have a task to do."

Side by side, they bent over the workbench. Arin measured and mixed. Garnah peered through the microscope. They tested. They failed.

And then . . . And then . . . they did not fail.

Garnah looked up from the microscope. "Arin? Use your young eyes and tell me if you see what I see."

She looked, and her breath caught in her throat. "I see what you see." Her heart was pounding fast. She wiped her hands on her skirt and tried to keep herself calm. "Will this work?"

"We won't know until we try it," Garnah said.

"But if she-"

"We don't need to try it on the queen." Garnah nodded toward the locked door. "But there are others in the palace, much closer by."

Arin wanted to believe that Garnah wasn't suggesting what she thought she was. "There's no one out there except Daleina who has this illness."

"Well, no one yet, but . . ." She gestured at the door that led to the hallway. "We should be able to find a spare guard or a caretaker or someone."

Arin shook her head so hard that it made her dizzy. "No."

"It needs to be tested. Working under a microscope is not the same as working in a human body. You must know that. You taste your cakes, right? You don't simply hope your flavor combinations will taste right simply because you've followed the recipe right. All we do is infect a guard and then heal him-he'll never know the difference."

"Absolutely not. Daleina wouldn't want this."

"Your sister wants to live," Garnah said. "Also, she doesn't need to know."

Outside the window, she heard a mighty crash. She ran to the window and peeled the curtain back. Jumping back, she clapped her hands over her mouth to stop a scream. Spirits! Everywhere! And people . . . Trees were falling. Massive trees, tilted against one another, and the gardens below had been ripped apart. Arin began to shake. She'd seen this before . . . when the old queen had died, when Josei had died, when everything was nearly destroyed, but now, here, in the palace . . .