Lee’s trials

Something in the water

*Thalia*

The archive cart hits the guard with a crash loud enough to wake the dead, which is an unfortunate thought to have while we are running from the royal family's private history.

Lee pulls me through the chaos by the hand.

Scrolls fly across the floor. One of the blue-wax boxes splits open, spilling ledgers over polished wood. An archivist yelps. Nessa ducks beneath the cart as a guard grabs for it. Behind us, Fileas says something sharp in Elvish.

Nobody listens.

We race between shelves. The floating archive lights scatter around our heads, blinking frantically like they have suddenly developed opinions about criminal activity.

"This way," Nessa calls.

She vanishes around a tall case of bound records. Lee follows without hesitation. I do too, though the floor trembles under my boots and I have the growing suspicion that breaking into an archive has been placed on a list of things we will have to explain badly later.

A guard appears from the next aisle.

Lee stops so fast I nearly crash into his back.

The guard lifts his spear. "Your Highness, please."

"Please what?" Lee asks.

"Return to your rooms."

"That seems unlikely."

The guard looks young. Not Pippa-young, but young enough that there is still acne beneath the edge of his jaw and panic behind his eyes. He does not want to be holding a weapon at the prince he probably watched grow up.

"Regent's orders," he says.

"Yes, everyone keeps saying that as if it makes them less ridiculous."

"Lee," I mutter.

"I know."

He does not move.

The guard takes one uncertain step toward us.

I lay my hand against the nearest shelf.

Books smell different from trees. Paper has lost its root-sense. Still, the shelves are carved from living wood, and the tree remembers every seed it has ever been. Beneath the lacquer and dust, sap stirs.

The shelf groans.

The guard jumps back as a thick branch pushes from the side panel, curling slowly across the aisle. It does not strike him. It simply blocks the way, leaves unfolding between the books.

His mouth falls open.

"Sorry," I tell him. "You seem nice."

Lee gives me a quick look. "You say that like it is a problem."

"It makes it harder to trap people in furniture."

Nessa grabs my sleeve. "Move."

We run again.

At the end of the aisle, a narrow door stands half-hidden behind a tapestry of embroidered silver stags. Nessa yanks it open, revealing a steep service stair.

"Down," she says.

"What is down?" Lee asks.

"More stairs."

"Your grandmother really hated convenience."

"My grandmother smuggled pastries through a palace. She had priorities."

The stairwell is dark and cramped. Lee goes first, then me, with Nessa close behind. We descend too quickly, hands skidding over the damp wooden rail. Shouts echo above us. Boots pound across the archive floor.

"Left at the bottom," Nessa says. "Then the old laundry rooms."

"Why are there so many secret passages?" I ask.

"Because royals enjoy pretending servants are invisible."

The answer comes too fast to be accidental.

I glance back at her.

Her face has tightened. She keeps one hand against the wall as we hurry down. Her knuckles are white.

"You can stop helping us," Lee says quietly. "There is still time."

Nessa lets out a breath that sounds almost like a laugh. "No, Your Highness. There really isn't."

We reach the bottom.

The corridor below is low-ceilinged and wet with river damp. Faded tiles line the walls, painted with little green fish and curling reeds. Rows of empty wicker laundry baskets sit beneath a long stone counter. The place smells of soap, mildew, and old steam.

Lee pauses at the first windowless door. "Is there another way to the river landing?"

"Yes. Through the washroom, past the boiler roots, and then through the servants' garden."

"That sounds like a route designed by someone who hates me."

Nessa points at the opposite end of the corridor. "That is because you used to take the easy routes."

"I was a child."

"You were thirteen."

He grins, "Still practically an infant."

"You knew how to order people to bring you sugared nuts."

"I knew how to ask."

Nessa looks at him.

"Usually," he adds.

The corner of her mouth twitches. It is gone before it becomes a smile.

We pass the washroom in silence. Copper tubs line the walls. Steam rises from a deep stone basin where water runs from a carved lion's mouth. The water should be clear, but a dark film clings to the edges of the basin.

I slow.

The roots under the floor shiver.

"Wait."

Lee turns. His eyes go straight to my face.

"What?"

I crouch beside the basin.

The dark residue is almost black. It shines with a faint purple color where the lamplight catches it. I have seen rot in forest pools. I have seen cursed water after magical storms. This is neither. It smells sweet beneath the soap, like overripe plums.

My stomach twists.

I dip two fingers into the water.

Cold pain shoots up my hand.

I pull back with a gasp. Green lines flare beneath my skin from wrist to elbow, then fade.

Lee drops to his knees beside me. "Thalia."

"I'm fine."

"You made the exact face people make before they are very much not fine."

Nessa stares at the basin. "What is it?"

I wipe my fingers on my trousers. The water has left a faint grey stain on my skin.

"Something has been put through the palace roots."

Lee's blue eyes sharpen. "The same thing making Fealor sick?"

"I don't know. But it feels related."

The ugly cold I felt on the staircase returns to my mind. The King collapsing in Lee's arms. The roots recoiling from Edris's healing magic. The ache inside the tree.

"Does this water run to the King's rooms?" I ask Nessa.

"All the palace water runs through the central rootwell. The kitchens, baths, healer's rooms. Everything."

Lee stands too quickly. He sways for a second, catching himself against the wall.

"Fileas moved the records," he says. "He has guards on us. He knew about the compass. And now there is poison in the palace plumbing."

"Maybe," I say.

He looks at me.

"Maybe," I repeat. "We do not know who put it there."

His mouth hardens. "Who else has access to the royal rootwell?"

"Lots of people, probably. Healers. gardeners. kitchen staff."

"Fileas."

"Lee."

"I know what you're going to say."

"Do you?"

His gaze drops to the black-stained basin.

For a moment, the anger leaks away, and I see the fear beneath it. He is trying to solve everything before it can take another person from him. His grandfather is upstairs, barely breathing. His father might be alive in another country. His uncle is closing doors around him one by one.

I stand and take his hand.

"We tell Edris," I say. "But not from here. If Fileas is involved, we cannot leave proof in a room he controls."

Nessa nods quickly. "Lady Edris has a workroom near the river infirmary. She sometimes sleeps there when she is on night duty."

"Can we reach it?" Lee asks.

"Not if the guards have closed the lower halls."

A bell rings above us.

One chime.

Then two more.

Nessa goes pale.

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"It means the outer gates are shut."

Lee looks toward the corridor leading to the river.

"Already?"

"The Regent can seal the city during an emergency," Nessa says. "No boats out. No roads. The forest wards will turn travelers back."

For a moment, nobody moves.

The compass sits against Lee's chest, hidden in his inner pocket. Queens might as well be on the moon now.

Then he says, "The old river landing."

Nessa shakes her head. "The gates will be guarded."

"They will guard the main landing."

"There is only one landing."

Lee looks at the tiled floor, his eyes unfocusing in that way they do when he is searching through memory.

"No," he says. "There used to be a flood channel below the western kitchens. It connects to the river under the outer roots."

Nessa stares at him. "That passage was sealed when you were little."

"By stone, not magic."

"You remember that?"

Lee nods, "I got stuck in it once."

"Why?" I ask.

"I was nine."

"That is not an answer."

"I was trying to rescue a duck."

Nessa closes her eyes briefly. "Of course you were."

I want to ask whether the duck survived. It feels like a question that might save us all from drowning in panic for five seconds. But boots sound above the stairwell door.

Lee squeezes my hand once.

"Can you get us through stone?" he asks.

"Can you get us through a flood channel full of river water?"

"Probably."

I look at him, "That is not an answer."

"I've improved since I was nine."

"Have you?"

"No," Nessa says.

The stairwell door bangs open upstairs.

"Search the lower corridors," someone shouts.

Lee turns toward the far end of the laundry room. "Show me."

Nessa leads us past the boiler roots.

They are not boilers, really. They are enormous red-gold roots that wind through a brick chamber, radiating heat into the palace above. Thick pipes run alongside them, carrying water and steam. The roots pulse slowly, their warmth uneven, as though something is interfering with their natural rhythm.

I touch one as we hurry past.

A jolt of grief hits me so hard I nearly stumble.

Not mine.

The tree's.

It is sick. It has been sick for longer than anyone realizes. Its roots are trying to isolate whatever poison has entered them, closing pathways, starving parts of itself to protect the rest.

My throat tightens.

"Thalia?" Lee says.

"I can move the stone," I tell him. "But I need a minute."

"We don't have one."

"You want the flood channel open or not?"

He stops.

Behind us, the guards' voices draw closer.

Nessa leads us to a low wall at the back of the chamber. It is built from old river stones, each one rounded and dark. Moss creeps between them. A rusted iron ring sits near the floor.

"This was the entrance," she says.

Lee kneels beside it. "I remember this being bigger."

"You were smaller."

"That feels accusatory."

"It is."

I set both palms against the stone.

At first, nothing happens.

Stone does not answer like wood. It is slow and stubborn. It remembers pressure, weight, heat. It remembers the river grinding against it for a hundred years. I reach beneath its silence toward the roots weaving through the mortar.

Please, I think.

The roots are weak. They tremble under my touch.

I push harder.

Green light crawls from my fingertips into the cracks. Moss thickens. Fine roots slip through the mortar, threading around the stones. One by one, they shift.

The first stone drops with a heavy thud.

Then another.

Pain bites through my wrists. My green hair stripes darken nearly black. I keep my hands pressed to the wall.

"Thalia, stop," Lee says.

"Almost there."

The wall cracks down the center.

River water bursts through.

It hits us hard and freezing, knocking me backward. Lee catches me around the waist before I land on the wet floor. Nessa shrieks as water floods across the tiles, carrying loose moss and a furious pale crab that snaps at her boot.

The opening is barely large enough for a person to crawl through. Beyond it, black water churns beneath the roots of Eirawen.

Lee looks from the channel to me.

"You first," he says.

"No."

"Thalia."

"You know this route. You go first and tell us if there is somewhere to breathe."

His face goes tight. "I am not leaving you here."

"We're not having this argument while the palace is filling with guards."

Nessa has already climbed onto the stone counter to avoid the rising water. She looks down at us with the expression of a person reconsidering every decision that led her here.

"Someone has to go," she says.

Lee stares at the opening.

Then he removes his coat.

The sight catches me off guard. Under it, he wears a plain linen shirt, soaked through at one shoulder where water has splashed him. He folds the coat carefully and hands it to Nessa.

"The letter," he says.

"I have it." He looks at me. "You have the compass?"

I touch my jacket pocket.

"Yes."

"Keep it dry."

"I will do my best while swimming through a tunnel."

He gives me a look.

"I know. Bad joke."

His hand comes up to cup my face. His palm is cold from the river spray.

"You stay close to me," he says.

"I planned to."

"If anything happens, you go with Nessa. You get out."

"Lee."

"Promise me."

Boots thunder through the outer chamber.

"Prince Lyrian!" someone shouts.

He looks toward the sound, then back at me.

I hate the fear in his eyes. I hate that he expects every promise to be the last one he gets.

"I promise I won't let you play heroic duck-rescuer alone," I say.

A breath of laughter leaves him.

It does not fix anything. It gives us one second.

Then he kisses me.

It is quick and desperate, more forehead and breath than anything else. His fingers stay at my jaw. When he pulls away, his blue eyes are bright.

"Right, then," he says.

He drops into the flood channel.

The current takes him at once.

For one terrible second, all I see is his hand reaching back through black water.

I grab it.

The river swallows us.