Page 84 of Lake of Sorrow

“He wasn’t.” As Kaylina removed the honeycomb from her pack, she spotted a newspaper article clipped out and lying on the counter. “Did you put that there?”

“Not me.”

“It had to be the Virts.” Kaylina picked it up. It was the article about the beast that they’d already read. Had Mitzy left it for her as a message?

She growled, tempted to use it to start a fire, but she folded it and put it in her pocket instead. If she chanced upon more druidic beehives, she could wrap the comb in the paper instead of having to tear pages out of the ranger handbook.

That done, she located a pot to make her fertilizer. This time, she would heat it so the honey dissolved properly. “Bribery Attempt Number Two coming up.”

The back of her hand itched. She frowned at it, then knelt to start a fire in the hearth.

“Maybe you should call it a gift.” Frayvar looked toward the walls and the ceiling, as if the castle—the plant—might be listening. Maybe it was. “Or an offering.”

“I’m not particular about what we call it. I just want it to lift the curse.”

“You think the honey from the preserve will do more than Grandpa’s honey? They were both made from bees foraging on altered plants, right?” Frayvar looked wistfully in the direction of the mountains. “I would have liked to see the valley you described.”

“We can visit the preserve again when there aren’t axe-toting Kar’ruk lurking around every tree.” Not wanting him to worry more about the castle than he already did, Kaylina didn’t mention the Kar’ruk that Vlerion had killed in the catacombs, fifty yards from their root cellar.

“And with sturdy rangers beside us?”

“Possibly.”

Once the fire was burning, Kaylina hung the pot of water to boil. Her hand itched again, then warmed. The desire to go upstairs and see the plant swept over her.

She didn’t think it came fully from her, which made her wonder if it had been entirely her will that had prompted her to return to the castle. Was there a reason she kept prioritizing this over solving her own problem? What if the brand could control her on some level?

“Not at all creepy,” she murmured.

Frayvar yawned loudly. “Are we sleeping here tonight? Or maybe I should ask if we’re sleeping tonight.”

“I do miss it.”

His yawn made Kaylina do the same. Tears sprang to her eyes, and three more yawns followed the first.

“We’ll have to find somewhere safe to do it,” she added. “Not in the castle. It’s a risk even starting a fire here. Vlerion mentioned spies, more than the one person we saw. It’s only that so few people are willing to come in here that I’m not more worried. Also, we could, if we had to, escape into the catacombs.”

“Maybe one of the passageways down there leads to the poison-maker’s home.” Frayvar looked at her, but he didn’t repeat his desire to prioritize that mission.

Kaylina sighed. She couldn’t blame him for wanting the charges removed and again wondered if an outside influence—she glanced at the brand—might be the reason she kept putting it off. It might just be that she didn’t see how finding the maker of the poison would lead to Jana admitting she’d been responsible and that Kaylina was innocent. The poisoner might be a good friend of hers or at least value her as a client. Why would he rat her out to the authorities to protect a newcomer from the far end of the kingdom?

The water boiled, and Kaylina removed the pot to stir in honey. Realizing she hadn’t answered her brother’s question about whether it was superior, she gave him a piece of the comb to taste.

“It’s even better than Grandpa’s,” Kaylina said. “You’ve got the chef’s palate, but tell me I’m wrong.”

Frayvar swept a finger through the comb and touched it to his tongue, then let it linger for a thoughtful moment while she finished making the fertilizer.

“It is good,” he said. “It’s got a zing to it.”

“That’s probably the magic.”

He snorted but didn’t deny the possibility. “I wonder if it conveys any health benefits. Remember when Aplar Dunefar did those scientific experiments on Grandpa’s honey?”

“I remember him cadging a lot of free samples under the premise that he was studying it.”

“He published his findings in some university journals,” Frayvar said, indignation in his tone. “There were charts and columns of data.”

“Oh, well if there were charts, I’m sure it was legitimate.”