Page 20 of Blood Red Woes

Once he stands before me again, I ask him, “Well? How’s that better look doing for you?”

“I believe you are blight-free, which poses the question: how? How were you able to walk through a shadowstorm and survive?”He brings a hand to his chin, tapping it gently.

“I don’t know,” I say. And right then, my stomach growls. It growls and it hurts so much I nearly double over. It’s been so long since I ate. My stomach feels like it’s caving in on itself. “You don’t have any food I can have, do you?”

His scrutinizing gaze is replaced by an awkward sort of clumsiness as he quickly says, “Of course. I’m so sorry. I should’ve asked if there was anything you wanted. Let me see what I have.” He pulls out a chair from the nearby table. “Sit.”

I sit at the table and watch as Frederick paces back and forth. He disappears into a back room and emerges with a cup of water for me—which I take and gulp down before realizing I should maybe take my time. Within another few minutes, I have a refill of water along with a stone plate with a slab of dried meat, an apple, and some kind of greens on it.

Not going to lie, that meat smells good.

I go for the meat first and take a bite. It’s rough like jerky, but damn, is it smoked to perfection. “Holy shit,” I mutter with my mouth full, “this is great. What is this?”

“Lamb,” Frederick answers as he takes the seat opposite mine.

I nearly choke on my mouthful. Never had lamb before, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. Lamb or not, I don’t care. I’m going to eat it anyway and enjoy every single bite.

Frederick watches me eat like I’m a lab rat and he’s testing me. Again, I’m too hungry to care. “You said you aren’t from around here. The last time Laconia welcomed people from another land, we went to war with them, so you must forgive the conclave’s distrust.”

I bite into the apple, mostly to stop myself from wolfing down the lamb jerky so fast. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, but I’m not from there, either. The place I’m from… is different. There’s no magic or dragons. We have electricity and indoor plumbing—”

That gets him interested. He leans over the table, an intense look on his face. “You’re saying you’re not from across the sea?”

“Uh, nope. I’m from America, the United States of. Land of the so-called free and all that shit, where they think it’s okay to saddle eighteen-year-olds with a whole bunch of debt they’ll never be able to repay…”

Frederick watches me with a mystified expression, as if each and every word I say he doesn’t understand but wants to.

“Sorry. Let’s just say it’s complicated back home. I’m not from here and I don’t want to stay here. I just want to find a way back,” I tell him. “And I have no clue where to start.”

Frederick says, “My father was a researcher. He wanted to understand the woes and where they came from. Before that, he was interested in other things nature can’t explain, like the empresses’ powers. He did some work on portals. I’ve never heard of a portal bringing in someone from another world, but I have heard of them opening up quick doors between regions.”

A portal? Duh. So all I need to get home is a portal. A really strong portal.

“Who can open portals?”Please don’t say the empresses.

“The empresses—”Damn it.“—have many powers of their own, but portal-weaving is different. It requires, from my understanding, taking the threads of time and reality itself andbending them to your will. I’ve never seen one, but I have read all of my father’s remaining research on the subject. I know more about them than anyone else in Laconia.”

“Except your dad. Where is he?”

Frederick frowns. “He’s dead. He left the walls of the city years ago to travel to Acadia on behalf of Empress Krotas. He took a lot of his research with him. I was too young to accompany him. I had to stay here with my mother.”

Shit. So the only guy that might’ve known how I can get out of here is dead? Great. Just my luck.

I don’t say that, though. I instead ask about his mom. “Is your mom gone, too?”

Frederick nods once. “A shadowstorm got her. Used to be the land around the city was safe, but eventually the storms pushed their way up, and the farmlands outside the city became unusable. Before the conclave forbade it, guards used to accompany farmers to their fields and stand watch while they harvested and planted new seeds. A shadowstorm came. She got everyone else to safety, but she wasn’t fast enough.”

“Shit,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. That happened about ten years ago now. At least I was old enough to take care of myself. I might not have my mother’s fighting strength, but I like to think I have my father’s mind. I might be able to help you, Rey.”

My heart skips a beat. I shouldn’t get excited. He might not be able to help. Still, it would be amazing if this guy could help me get back home.

“But I was hoping to ask a favor of you,” he goes on, and my excitement dies.

Of course he wants something. He had me broken out of jail and is now feeding me. It should’ve been obvious from the start this is a quid pro quo situation. No quo without a quid, or however that works.

“When my father left for Acadia, he took a lot of his research with him. Research on the woes and on shadowstorms. I want it back, as much of it as possible. Maybe there’s a way to counteract the storms or the blight, and if not… the more we understand of it, the better suited we are to prepare against it.”

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