Wayfarer

Finally Remus said, his voice small and quaking, “You have to understand….There is nowhere we can go….This is the only way.”

“The only way to what?” Nicholas demanded. His eyes slid over to Sophia, who was still sitting at the table, her head in her hands. He hissed at her, “Get up, will you?”

“To survive. None of us can survive without Cyrus’s protection, without kin or kindness. There is nowhere we can go that he will not find us, that the Thorns will not try to kill us for betraying them, too. We need him. I need him to trust me again—”

“Sophia,” Nicholas hissed. “We’re leaving.”

“It’s a sign of how much he wants you,” Remus said, trying to straighten his hunched shoulders, “that a runner came even to us to promise a bounty. This is our way back to his good graces.”

“All of those things you said before, about being free, escaping him—why can’t that be true? Why not leave with us now?”

“It will not work, it will not work….” The weakness, that pathetic quality to the old man, had made Nicholas dismiss the threat of him so easily, knowing he could be overpowered with ease. Twice now, he’d been tricked. Hatred scorched his heart. There truly was no end to the villainy travelers possessed. Each was more self-serving than the next.

“So Fitzhugh has gone to bring back the cavalry, has he?”

Damn his eyes. He and Sophia wouldn’t make it back to the passage in the water, but he might be able to find the other one the man had spoken of, if she would just—

Nicholas turned toward her at the sound of the first, retching gasp. Sophia jerked back from the table with a rattling cough, her hands seeming to spasm against the wood.

“What’s the matter?” Nicholas asked her. “Sophia?”

“Can’t—” she gasped out, “can’t feel—legs—”

Nicholas spun toward the man, drawing his sword so quickly, it sang as it sliced the air. “What have you done?”

Remus smiled, backlit by the hearth.

“Did you know,” he began, his voice brittle, “that the clans of the families united under the names of trees because they thought it was a clever way of symbolizing their reach into the future, and their roots winding deep into the past? Ironwood, Jacaranda, Linden…I’ve always thought that the Hemlocks picked their name not for the tree, however, but for the flowering plant.”

“You—” Sophia choked out.

Nicholas stilled, hollowed by his words. The flowering plant. But then, that was…

Holy God.

“That’s right,” Remus said, smiling. “The Hemlocks are poison itself, and they inflict their terror in the same manner as the tea you drank. They identify what it is you desire, lure you in with promises of trust and respect, only to trick you into doing their bidding, into believing their lies about the timeline.”

Sophia turned to Nicholas, her face etched with naked terror. That alone set his blood to boiling. For someone so unacquainted with fear to have that expression—he was sure it would be seared on his memory forever. Both hands were clawing at the muscles of her legs, as if trying to work the feeling back into them by force.

“You won’t be able to return now, will you?” Remus sneered at her. “I’ve put myself beyond your reach, and you matter so little to this world that the timeline has not even shifted to account for your impending death.”

Nicholas came down on the man like a thunderbolt, forcing him up against the hearth, close enough for his tunic to smolder and for the stench of burned hair to pierce the air. Remus’s smile faltered, his eyes flaring.

“You didn’t…”

“Drink your nasty concoction?” Nicholas sneered. “No, I did not, sir.”

Remus slashed wildly with his knife, catching Nicholas across the back of his sword hand and nicking his jaw. He slammed the man against the wall, hard enough this time to knock the breath from his lungs and the knife from his fingers. It clattered to the ground, and Nicholas kicked it into the hearth.

The old man’s face scrunched up mockingly, as if daring Nicholas to push him into the flames as well. Nicholas’s hand knotted in the front of the man’s tunic, giving him a warning shake. “Is there an antidote? Tell me, damn you!”

The bulk of his fury wasn’t even directed at Remus Jacaranda—Nicholas could have punched himself for missing the signals, the clues. Even when he’d noticed the other man stalling, he hadn’t pinned any sort of purpose to it.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Remus said, eyes sliding over to Sophia, who was twisting around on the ground, struggling to rise onto her feet. “You were fools to come here—”

Nicholas smashed the hilt of the sword against the man’s temple, knocking him clear into unconsciousness. He barely managed to keep his grip on him, yanking him forward out of the flames and letting his prone form slam to the ground.

The fool you are, Nicholas thought, if you think for one second that Ironwood will ever show you mercy.

“Nic—Cart—”

He spun back toward Sophia, kneeling beside her. Her hand lashed out; he caught it, giving what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. What did he know about hemlock, other than that it had killed Socrates? “Do you know any sort of antidote?”

Her face was distorted by pain and panic, but she still managed to give him an incredulous look.