Naki searched her gaze, then smiled. “Fair enough. Let’s finish the wine and get out of here.”
“I spilled mine …”
“Don’t worry.” Naki leaned down and picked up the goblet. “They’re used to little accidents happening here, though usually when the customers are a bit more inebriated than we are.” She refilled the goblet, then held it out to Lilia and smiled. “To love.”
Lilia smiled back, feeling the buoyant, exhilarating mood return and her earlier discomfort fade.
“To love.”
CHAPTER 8
CONSEQUENCES
The small girl sitting on the edge of the bed was coughing hard, pausing only to take a gasping breath. As Lorkin gave cure-laced sweets and Kalia’s instructions to her mother – a magician who, he knew, was aligned with Kalia’s faction – the girl looked up at him. He saw in her eyes a pity quite different to the sympathy he felt for her. She pities me? Why would she pity me?
The mother nodded, took her daughter’s hand and moved away. He watched as she walked over to Kalia. Though it had happened before, with other patients, he still felt his stomach sink.
Kalia was busy and he didn’t care to watch as the woman checked what he’d told her. He moved on to the next patient, an old woman with dark circles under her eyes and a more concerning, wrenching cough. Now that the chill fever had spread through the city, the Care Room was busy night and day, and Kalia had been forced to involve him in the treating of it. Most Traitors accepted this without question, but now and then someone could not bring themself to trust him – or pretended not to, in order to needle him.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Kalia said loudly. The old woman’s eyes flickered away and then back to Lorkin.
“She means you,” she muttered.
Lorkin nodded. “Thanks.” He straightened and turned to find Kalia striding toward him. One hand was clasped around something, and she brandished it at him. The mother and daughter trailed behind.
“I told you no more than four a day!” she declared. “Do you want to poison this child?”
Lorkin looked down at the girl, who was grinning widely, excited by the scene she was a part of.
“Or course not,” he replied. “Who could ever harm such a pretty child?” The girl’s smile faltered. She liked to be flattered, he guessed, but knew her mother would not like her to respond in a friendly way. Not knowing what to do, she looked up at her mother, then frowned and regarded him suspiciously. “I did wonder why you told me to give her more sweets than the other children,” he added, unable to resist hinting that Kalia might be favouring her friends with more of the limited supply of cures.
“I did not tell you to give her six!” Kalia’s voice rose to a higher note.
“Actually, you did,” a huskier voice replied.
Startled by the new voice, Lorkin turned to look at the old woman, who gazed back at Kalia unflinchingly. He felt a small surge of hope. However, if Kalia was dismayed she was hiding it well. She looked as if she was humbly thinking back on her instructions, but her eyes were dark and calculating.
Whoever the old woman was, she was influential enough that Kalia hadn’t dared to claim she was hard of hearing, or mistaken. Lorkin decided he had to learn the identity of this unexpected ally, as soon as he was free to.
“Perhaps you are right,” Kalia said, smiling. “We have been so busy here. We are all tired. I am sorry,” she said to the old woman, then she whirled around to face the mother and daughter. “I apologise. Here …” She gave them the sweets and prattled away as she herded the pair toward the door.
“She must be tired,” the old woman muttered, “if she thought anybody would believe that little charade.”
“Not everyone is as smart or observant as you are,” Lorkin replied.
The old woman’s eyes brightened as she smiled. “No. If they were, she would never have been elected.”
Lorkin concentrated on checking the old woman’s pulse and temperature, listened to her lungs and examined her throat. He also surreptitiously listened with his magical senses to confirm his assessment. Which was that the old woman was surprisingly healthy apart from the chill fever symptoms. Finally, after giving advice and cures, Lorkin quietly thanked the old woman.
Not long after he’d moved to the next patient, he heard a hum of interest in the room and looked around. All eyes were on the entrance, where a stretcher was floating into the room followed by a magician. The woman was unsuccessfully trying to smother a smile. Looking at the stretcher, Lorkin felt his heart skip.
Evar!
He hadn’t seen his friend in some days. The rumour in the men’s room was that Evar had found himself a lover. They’d laid bets on whether Evar would eventually swagger back into the men’s room and collect his things, or limp in with a broken heart. None of them had wagered that he would reappear unconscious on a stretcher.
Kalia had noticed and hurried over to examine him. Flipping aside the blanket carelessly, she revealed a completely naked Evar to the room. Smothered giggles and gasps came from all around. Lorkin felt a stab of anger as Kalia didn’t bother to re-cover the young man.
“Nothing’s broken,” the smiling magician told Kalia.
“Let me be the judge of that,” Kalia replied. She squeezed and poked, then placed a hand on Evar’s forehead. “Over-drained,” she pronounced. She looked up at the magician. “You?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Not likely. It was Leota.”
“She ought to be more careful.” Kalia sniffed disdainfully, then looked around the room. “He’s not sick, and should not take up a bed. Put him over there, on the floor. He’ll recover in his own time.”
The magician and stretcher moved over to the back of the room where, to Lorkin’s relief, Evar would be hidden behind the rows of beds. The woman was grinning as she strode out, not bothering to pull the blanket back over Evar. Kalia ignored the new patient, and scowled at Lorkin when he started toward his friend.
“Leave him be,” she ordered.
Lorkin bided his time. Eventually Kalia disappeared into the storeroom for more cures. He slipped over to Evar and was surprised to find the young man’s eyes open. Evar smiled ruefully at Lorkin.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Not as bad as it looks.”
Lorkin pulled the blanket up to cover his friend. “What happened?”
“Leota.”
“She used black magic on you?”
“She took me to bed.”
“And?”
“Same thing. Except more fun.” There was a shrug in Evar’s voice. His eyes focused somewhere beyond Lorkin and the ceiling. “It was worth it.”
“To have all your energy drained out?” Lorkin could not hide the disbelief and anger from his voice.
Evar looked at him. “How else am I going to get into a woman’s bed, eh? Look at me. I’m scrawny and a magician. Hardly good breeding material, and nobody trusts male magicians.”
Lorkin sighed and shook his head. “You’re not scrawny – and where I come from, being a magician – and a natural – would make you very desirable breeding material.”
“Yet you left,” Evar pointed out. “And chose to stay here for the rest of your life.”
“Times like these I wonder if I was sold a lie. Equal society indeed. Will this Leota be punished?”
Evar shook his head. Then his eyes lit up. “I moved. I haven’t done that in hours.”