Page 46 of Kingdom of Shadows and Wings

“Oh. That does seem a little bizarre. Reena never did that.”

Nick points at Abel. “See? I told you. Weird.” Then he frowns. “Wait. Who’s Reena?”

“She’s one of my mother’s maids.”

His animation dies. “Right. I sometimes forget how different our upbringings were.”

I shuffle my feet. My childhood was probably more different than most, but he’s talking about the disparity between affluent nobles and commoners. While I don’t know much about Nick’s family or their circumstances, I do understand that some families in our kingdom struggle more than others. I wish King Xenon would do more to help those in need, especially with the failing harvests and subsequent rise in crop prices. He must be inundated with important tasks, but ensuring all Aclaris families and children have homes and enough to eat is important too. Hopefully his focus will shift sometime soon. While I’ve written several letters about the need in our own village, I haven’t heard back yet. I have no idea if they get delivered to the king or simply read by an underling who tosses them in the trash.

Abel interrupts the awkwardness. “Maybe he was role-playing.”

Nick pauses in the act of tying back his hair with a leather cord. “Maybe who was role-playing?”

“Narrton. Acting out a little scenario with his favorite eyril plants. They do seem to have a close relationship.”

Abel wiggles his eyebrows, making Nick scrunch his nose in disgust. “Please never do or say that again. You just took it somewhere dirty.”

Abel shrugs. “Hey, the man spends a lot of time out here in the field. We shouldn’t judge how he gets his jollies. That’d be like judging a sheep farmer for getting a boner for one of his flock.”

Nick and Olive display matching expressions of horror. Nick recovers first. “What the hells, man? Who wouldn’t judge a shepherd for wanting to screw his sheep? You need to reevaluate your life choices.” He plops the helmet on his head, muttering something that sounds a lot likeperverted fuckunder his breath.

Olive holds up her palm. “Yeah, I’m out. I’m going to pretend this conversation never happened.”

Abel leans closer to me. “Gotta love Nick. He’s so easy to wind up.”

Snickering, I balance against Olive for support and set my helmet on the ground to yank my regular boots off. Despite the disturbing topic, warmth blooms inside me like the unfurling petals of a sunlit rosebud. This. This type of camaraderie is exactly what I was missing—what I was longing for—while sequestered at Castle Axton. Now that I’ve experienced it, I’m not sure I can let it go.

“Do your hair first.” Olive pats her auburn curls that she keeps in a low bun. “Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to get eyril oil in your hair.” She reaches for my braid. “Here, let me help.”

After Olive unties my braid, she finger-combs my dark tresses, making quick work of fashioning my hair in a bun similar to her own.

“Thanks. I completely forgot about my hair.”

Once we’ve donned our masks, I follow Olive into the eyril field. Nick and Abel are already there, crouching low to the ground.

“Is the oil not in the stalks?”

Olive shakes her head. “No. The more mature the plant, the taller it grows. But the base of the plants just below the ground contains the oil. When the plants get too full, they start to ooze. Thus the oily substance you see in some places. That’s eyril.”

“If it’s so dangerous, how does anyone ingest it without harming themselves?”

If my ignorance annoys Olive, she doesn’t show it. “Eyril needs to be diluted to a fraction of its original strength. Otherwise, the oil will burn your throat when you swallow it, then dissolve your stomach and the rest of your insides.”

Before I can stop myself, another question rolls off my tongue. “Do we scoop the oil up off the ground?”

“No, that oil’s tainted. We?—”

Abel snorts. “Tell that to the idiots who buy the polluted oil on the black market. When it liquifies their insides or causes them to go insane instead of enhancing their magic, they only have themselves to blame.”

“If the kingdom made safe eyril available to those people, that wouldn’t happen.” Olive shoots him a glare. “Anyway, we have to carefully dig, brush away the dirt, and inject a syringe into the bulbs to extract the oil. Then we put it in vials and give them to Narrton.” She pats a leather pouch at her waist. “I have what we need.”

“Here.” Abel hands me a spade. “Watch how I dig, and then do what I do. We’ll brush away the excess dirt, withdraw the oil, and then fill the vials.”

That sounds simple enough.

“You’d better be careful, though.” Nick winks. “If you pierce the wrong part, eyril will squirt on you.”

I picture Narrton’s angry scar and grip the spade so hard I’m certain my knuckles have whitened under the gloves. Yeah, no thank you. “Got it.”

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