Because Nox didn’t succeed in delivering the parasite over to the queen, meaning Zora is still trapped.

And I intend to free her.

Then Nox can turn his back on this place and never look back.

CHAPTER 43

BLAISE

It might have taken anyone else days to rifle through Gunter’s mess of a room. Stacks of books and scrolls and vials are neatly piled throughout the space, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re still piles.

Still, I’m used to messes, having created them my entire life, and I feel quite at home rifling through his. Besides, I know better than to look through the stacks. That’s not where I would hide something important.

It takes me no time at all to dig through the heap of flax next to the spinning wheel.

In the center is a leather journal.

I know before I loosen the strap binding its pages that it’s exactly what I’m looking for.

The journal is not Gunter’s first, which is evident by the way he’s numbered his entries.

I notice immediately that he dates them not by standard years, but by years of captivity.

Not for the first time, I wonder where the queen stole Gunter from. For the first time I wonder if I’ll ever know.

Day 300, Year 27 of Captivity

The queen has taken a boy from his home, snatched him from his parents’ property. I’ve questioned her sanity for years, but my suspicions have been confirmed. She insists on calling him Farin, after her long-deceased son.

This will end poorly for the boy, I’m afraid.

Day 349, Year 27 of Captivity

The queen has attempted to make the boy her apprentice, but she claims he is unteachable, clever as he might be. I’m rather inclined to blame his lack of teachability on the queen’s lack of instructional prowess, having suffered under it myself in former years. The boy himself is quiet, though who can blame him? It’s dark and frightening in the little cell the queen has allotted for my laboratory, and the assignments she’s laid upon us are too cruel for a child. It’s true that the prisoners on which we experiment are criminals, most of them murderers, but the boy’s stomach is not formed to handle it. I found him retching in his room today. Still, this is the boy’s future, regrettable as it may be, and I suppose he must learn to accept as much.

Day 2, Year 28 of Captivity

Nox is gone. There’s an aching emptiness in my soul where he once was. He’s a truly clever child. We’d just gotten to where he was beginning to dissect the queen’s impossible recipes on his own. I should be glad he is gone. The boy deserves more than this life, and I understand why he ran, but I must confess, his presence had grown on me. I worry for his safety. The Mystral terrain is not built for a child, even one as clever and resourceful as Nox. He turns twelve today, which I suppose had him missing his family. I will have to tell the cook to find a child from Ermengarde who might enjoy the pastries.

Day 4, Year 28 of Captivity

The queen has recovered Nox. The despicable part of me was glad to have him back, but then she showed him to me. His fingers were blue with frost. The queen’s soldiers found him sleeping in the snow. For a moment, even I thought he was dead. I must confess, the idea rattled me, and even in the briefest moment before I sensed him breathing, it felt as though the floor had come out from underneath me. I’ve stayed with him night and day since, and I believe his fingers can be saved.

Day 6, Year 28 of Captivity

Nox’s fingers have regained their mobility and color. He woke today briefly. It was unfortunate that the queen was there when he did. Nox is the calmest of children, almost unsettlingly so. Like an adult in a child’s body, but today he saw her and lashed out. I believe in his feverish state he thought her to be his mother, and when he opened his eyes to discover otherwise, he clawed the queen in the face. I fear for the boy’s life, though the queen only cleared her throat and blamed his behavior on his fever.

Day 8, Year 28 of Captivity

Watching over Nox has been a quiet business, and if I allow my mind to wander, it torments me with ideas of what the queen might do to punish the boy. So my thoughts have led me along a dark and glorious path, searching for something to distract me from my anxieties, and perhaps divert the queen’s attention away from her wrath as well.

I’ve been considering it for some time. The queen informed me years ago of her belief in the existence of the Rip, but also where she believes it to be. I have ceased asking her where she receives her intel, and why she’s adamant that the original Rip through which the fae entered Alondria is in Rivre, a small village of Charshon.

There can be nothing good in the manner the queen acquired this information, and it sets my senses on edge, but if it’s true, the information could be useful.

There are theories amongst the more eccentric of magisters that the Rip is simply a tear in the Fabric that separates realms. I suppose this is well-established, but the eccentric notion is the belief that where there is a tear in the Fabric, bits of the Fabric itself leak into the surrounding area.

Charshon is known for its fertile soils, being a coastal kingdom. I can’t help but wonder if the flora that grows in the region is infused with remnants of that Magic.

Day 9, Year 28 of Captivity

Nox stirred again tonight, though only due to a nightmare. It took a hot compress to his forehead to calm him, but his fever broke shortly after. It breaks my heart when the boy speaks in his sleep, for he speaks only of his twin sister, whom he always cries out for. In his mind, she is constantly in grave danger.

The queen is still displeased with the boy for running away. She refers to him as “the boy” rather than her son’s name.

My mind churns along in the moments when Nox is still. There’s something about his suffering that reminds me of my mother, how she used to sing lullabies to me when I was ill. How she would drag her spinning wheel into my room, and the gentle churning would soothe me to sleep.

I haven’t spun in years, though I can’t imagine I’ve forgotten.

Thinking of her has me thinking of spinning. And thinking of spinning has me thinking of flax. And thinking of flax has me thinking of Rivre, where I’ve heard it grows in abundance.

I wonder what sort of things flax spun from Rip-saturated soil could do.

Day 11, Year 28 of Captivity

I mentioned my ponderings to the queen today. They are not yet well-formed, and I likely should have waited, but she was discussing Nox as if he were practically dead, and her machinations were inciting my nerves, so I told her. She appeared intrigued, and I hope it will be enough to distract her from her anger. It helped a bit—to speak with her aloud. The theories flowed better that way, spurred by her questions. I think I might have mentioned the possibility of weaving a soul into the Fabric of the realms, though one would have to find a way to bind a soul to the flaxen thread to achieve such a thing. I am not sure it would work, but the idea excited the queen, and that is enough for now.

Day 15, Year 28 of Captivity

The queen has finally succeeded in making me cruel. I have fought it for so long, but I should have known her persistence would win out in the end.

Nox woke, healthy and well, just yesterday, and I thought perhaps our troubles were over, but I was severely deluded.

The queen still wishes to punish him, and she has used me to do it.

She brought me the girl yesterday. She’d sent a messenger to replace me by Nox’s side while she summoned me to her laboratory. I’d been reluctant to leave Nox’s side, but given he was well enough to eat and speak again, I did not bother to argue.

I’m considering that I should have argued, though what good it would have done, I do not know.

When I entered the laboratory, she had the girl chained up on the table. She was writhing and screaming, and I believe my stomach hollowed out.

There was no time to ask the queen what she had done, no time to comfort the girl.

The queen told me she had found the perfect subject for my experiments. The girl was screaming so ardently, gnashing her teeth at the queen, I could hardly process what the queen was referring to.

But then I saw the spinning wheel in the corner, and a sack stamped with Rivre across it, and I knew.

In my panic, I told the queen that I hadn’t discovered a way to bind a sentient mind to the Fabric. It was true, but she would hear none of it.