Page 48 of A Kingdom of Monsters

CHEAPSIDE, EVERLAST CITY

“What book?” I demanded.

Ciara scowled at me and slammed a steaming kettle down on the table, making the liquid inside slosh over onto the worn wood. “We’ll get to that, but first drink this.”

I returned her scowl, leaning forward to assess the tea pooling on the table in front of me. “What is it?”

“Don’t worry about that. You all look like you’re going to drop dead at any moment, and this will help.”

The three Everlasts and I were gathered around the ancient round table that stood at the center of Ciara's cottage. The room was dimly lit, with only flickering candles and a single small window allowing for a sliver of moonlight to cross the floor. Every inch of the tight space was utilized, with shelves of herbs and bottles stacked floor to ceiling.

Ciara herself was bustling around the tiny room, muttering to herself under her breath. As the local cunning woman, she was as close to a healer as existed in Cheapside, and the first person I’d thought of when Ambrose brought us to the very road I’d once walked nearly every day, traveling back and forth between the castle and the human settlement. In fact, it was Ciara who I’d originally gone to see on the very morning I found myself in the woods where I met Bael and Scion for the first time.

Ciara was human–at least as far as I knew–but possessed a strong knowledge of magic. For years, she’d always known exactly when I was coming to see her, and unlike everyone else in the village, she never struggled to tell my sister and I apart. Still, just because I knew the healer in my former life and I’d come here for help didn’t mean I was going to drop my guard so quickly.

I glanced across the table, searching out Ambrose’s gaze as I reached for the dripping kettle. His eyes were closed, but as if he felt my questioning stare he opened one eye and nodded once. “It’s just nettle root, love.”

Ciara humphed loudly, placing her hands on her bony hips. “You don’t trust me not to poison you?”

I smiled at her, showing a flash of teeth. “It’s not personal. I hardly trust anyone anymore.”

She humphed again, but looked slightly mollified. “I suppose that’s not the worst way to stay alive. I have no reason to hurt you, though. I didn’t help your mother escape all those years ago just to ruin everything now.”

“That’s true,” Ambrose added.

Ciara turned and refocused her death stare on him instead. “I don’t care for seers,” she grumbled. “You’re always blurting out things that no one needs or wants to know.”

Ambrose raised a skeptical eyebrow at the old woman. “Do you have much to hide?”

“Of course. Don’t go sharing all my secrets now, or I’ll make you sit in the alley out back.”

I cracked a small smile. Part of me wanted to see tiny old Ciara try to force the huge, muscular rebel leader to wait outside like a servant, but perhaps this wasn’t the time.

Finally convinced it wasn’t poisoned, I poured the steaming tea into four mugs and slid them across the table toward the men before turning back to Ciara. “Now what’s this about a book?”

“Impatient, aren’t you?”

I pressed my lips into a flat line, staring her down with every ounce of disdain I’d ever learned by watching the Fae court. It wasn’t difficult. If Ciara realized what we’d been through tonight, surely she wouldn’t have been so willing to make me wait.

“Fine,” Ciara griped, eying my stoney expression. “Drink your tea while I go find it. I’ve had the damn thing so long I don’t know where I put it.”

“Is this really safe?” I asked Ambrose the moment that Ciara was out of the room.

He nodded. “She’s a bit brusque, but the tea really is just nettle root. She’s trying to help.”

I waved him off. “That’s not what I meant.”

I’d meant, was it safe for us to be here at all? And more importantly, what were we meant to do here? Of course I’d been the one to suggest we go to Ciara, but now that we were here I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision.

Once again, I found myself turning to Ambrose. He was the one who had clearly realized something was about to happen before I even set foot on the stage. And he was the one who had insisted we needed to find a healer. He’d also just promised to explain himself when we got inside. It was time to make good on that vow.

“Did you see what was about to happen before I went up on that stage?” I asked.

Ambrose grimaced. “To an extent. Visions are always malleable. There were dozens of ways it could have happened.”

“But did you know this before you suggested the coronation?”

“No,” he said sharply. “I really thought a coronation might work. I suppose now we’ll never know.”

---