Chapter Nine

I couldn't breath. "Poison?"

The innkeeper nodded, disbelieving of his own words, then returned to digging through shelves, shoving bottles and vases and glasses to the floor. They shattered loudly. Was he looking for medicine?

"What kind of poison?" Atlas asked, his face drained of color.

"I don't know," the innkeeper shouted.

"Come on," I pulled Atlas by the arm, my mind racing and my limbs struggling to keep up. I fumbled up to the open door of a room similar to ours and saw a figure hunched over a pot, moaning and hugging themself. Next to them were two others curled up on the ground doing much the same thing. The smell was horrible.

A little boy pushed past us into the room and dropped to a crouch next to one of the victims. I approached him, but he hardly paid me any heed.

"Do you know what the symptoms are?" I asked him softly, my heart thumping against my ribcage. It was worth a shot.

The boy glanced up at me with scared eyes and shook his head. He couldn't have been any older than thirteen.

"Will you let me see them?"

He sniffed, then nodded and scooted a few feet backward to let me through to the woman he was cradling. I stifled a sob and glanced back at Atlas, then I crouched next to the poor woman and whispered that it would be alright, even though I was quite sure of the opposite.

Her skin was red and swollen, her eyes sunken and her hands shaking so hard the rest of her body convulsed. She had dried vomit clinging to her tunic and in her hair, which hung in messy locks around her face.

She didn't even look up at me. I didn't think she was physically capable of it. Her breaths became labored suddenly and the boy thrust forward a bowl as she emptied the contents of her stomach. Atlas groaned from the doorway and I held my breath, pulling the lady's hair away from her face. This was horrible. Was it intentional? How could it be? I didn't think anyone was sadistic enough to cause this much pain to so many people.

So did the poison have a natural cause?

Eventually, I was forced to let my breath go, and instantly a wave of nausea hit me from the putrid smell. I wobbled a little bit in my place next to the woman, then something clicked in my subconscious and I lost my balance, stumbling backward onto the bottom of my nightgown and shaking my head profusely, my hands falling away from the woman.

It couldn't be...

I shot to my feet and ran from the room, brushing past Atlas and racing up the staircase to our room. My bare feet barely touched the steps beneath them before they were onto the next. I hardly noticed when I slammed my shoulder into a corner and pushed off the wall to the door. I couldn't move fast enough.

Lefeli yelped in surprise when I burst in panting, but she quickly recovered and offered help, though with what I didn't know. Evyne had been moved to the bed, where she lay with her hand on her forehead.

"Arsenic," I spat. "Everyone's been poisoned by arsenic and we have to find the source before the situation worsens."

Atlas crashed up against the doorframe, his eyes frantic and his breathing even more so. "Bloody death, Veia, don't run so fast!"

"Don't talk like Evyne," I retorted, spinning past him again. "We have to find out how these people got arsenic poisoning."

"What?" He followed behind me, his voice breathy between gasps.

"Arsenic smells like garlic, and I was up and close enough to know how much that woman smelled of garlic." I crinkled my nose as I crossed the last steps. "I hate your questions. Stop asking them."

He dropped silent as we turned into the main floor and this time, it took me longer to locate the innkeeper. Now he stood near the wall and tugged on his shirt, shuffling from foot to foot and adjusting his collar.

"Mister Innkeeper, where do you get your water?"

The wrinkles on his forehead ran down to his eyes, which showed only horror and fear. He had gone through so much in just one night. Still, he answered, his voice audibly shaking. "From the river near the forest. The whole town uses it..."

Holy fire...

"Thank you, sir." I turned to Atlas and grabbed his shoulders. "If my guess is correct and the arsenic is from the water, there's a good chance every person, animal, and beast in Fairlay is poisoned."

"Then..." he paused, his mouth tight, "what about you and Lefeli? The innkeeper? Everyone who isn't sick?"

I let him go and my arms dropped to my sides. "Could it be an immunity...? Did Evyne drink something last night that the rest of us didn't?"

He paused to think, taking a step back and furrowing his eyebrows. "Evyne and I water down our wine."

"Then that proves it." I addressed the innkeeper again and told him to cut off all water, then we returned to the room where Lefeli remained, nursing an unconscious Evyne.

I lifted a green bottle to Lefeli and ordered her to impose it upon Evyne. By this time, she had awoken.

"Do you want me drunk again?" She cursed at me, staring halfwittedly at the bottle. "Generally speaking, wine isn't great for an upset stomach."

"You, lovely Evyne, are not drunk, you are poisoned. You cannot drink water, so drink the stupid wine." I shoved it into her chest and swiveled to face Atlas with much the same expression. "And was I not supposed to notice how slow you were earlier? I don't run fast, Atlas, and you said you watered down both your wines." Another bottle thrust out to his chest, causing him to trip on his step. "Drink up, little ladies, we've got quite a ride ahead of us."

I stayed awake the rest of the night alone, helping the innkeeper tend to the victims and talking to various healers and pained family members. Apparently, the hotel had gotten the water from a peculiar spot in the river that was to be investigated in the morning, and we would be safe to go after only a few days of healing, but we couldn't afford to wait that long. There were a few conversations that stuck with me into the early morning hours, though, and would likely stick with me for much longer than the sunrise.

Five people had died in one night.

Five people. Five human beings, and not even all of the poison had taken effect. It was quite possible that people would continue to grow weaker and weaker over the next two days. Every time they crossed my mind, my gut twisted and it felt as if I had been the one to water down my drink.

I returned to the room by dawn, just before everyone woke, and watched the colors flood into the sky like watery pigments distorting the blackness of an inkwell. The colors blended and brightened and strengthened until the sky took on a stunning pink hue, but I could not appreciate the sunrise no matter how hard I tried.

Atlas and Lefeli had long since gotten ready and packed up the wagon by the time Evyne stirred, and we helped her into the back of the cart where she could rest again—after Lefeli forced her to drink more, of course.

Once we got out of town, things settled down a bit and I found a chance to study the book again. Lefeli stayed in the back with Evyne and Atlas sat at the far end of the bench holding the reins, so I had significantly more room than the ride yesterday.

With the book splayed on my lap, I stared at the Latin phrases, the backward lettering and the odd feeling in the back of my head when I remembered Lefeli's translations, the mesmerizing loop of the ink on the ivory paper. Everything written so far had made no sense and I just couldn't wrap my head around it all. There were too many options...

We hit a bump in the trail and a bottle slipped out of my bag and rolled, falling to the wood near my feet with a loud clink. I stared at it for a moment, brows furrowed.

Oh.

I realized something as I outstretched my hand slowly, picking up the bottle and holding it up to the sunlight so it cast beams of light across its surroundings.

That's very, very bad.

"Hey, Atlas," I said, replacing the bottle and running a hand through my hair. "We might need to get to Azareba a little sooner than anticipated."

He cast me a sideways glance. "Really? Why's that?"

"Well, at this point I'm pretty sure of it." I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. "The arsenic poisoning was predicted in the cursed book by the first line written last night, and the next line in Lefeli's translation says, 'The sunset ceases travel goers.'"

By this point I had his complete attention, his mouth open and his eyes narrowed. "So in other words," he said slowly, "we're the travelers and something really bad is gonna happen at sunset?"

"Yeah." I stared at the words again, but something else was pulling at me. If the poisoning of a whole inn and the deaths of at least five—five people—were because of the book I currently held in my hands, I had a horrible feeling I could only fathom what else it was capable of. To what end would the curse go to satisfy its lust for misery? The most pressing question played at the edge of my mind as I watched the sun inch across the sky.

What would it do next?