Page 34 of Stars May Fall

I straightened my back, reminding myself to stay positive. Before we’d left, I’d asked Lucy to start renovating the ballroom as a surprise for Kasten when we returned. It would be so nice to do something normal for once, like organize a ball and act as hostess, even though it could be stressful. Kasten didn’t enjoy parties, but if we started hosting and celebrating, I wondered if it would help transform Kasomere from a city that revolved around war and survival. And maybe in turn, it would show Kasten that he was more than a killer and a survivor. Though he might resist the idea at first, and our guest list would be small, I suspected he’d humor me. It would be nice to do somethingpositive for Kasomere, something that hadn’t been done before my arrival.

I looked at Kasten’s empty seat at the table and the hollow, aching sensation returned to my chest. He had only been gone a few hours, and I already missed him. The sensation was unfamiliar. I had never missed anyone before, and I hadn’t expected the experience to be so visceral.

I rested my chin in my hands and stared at the machine spinning around so fast it was a blur. I couldn’t believe I was sitting here alone as part of a plan to commit treason. Normally, all I had to worry about was how to distill a plant.

How on earth were we going to get the king off his throne? We could make his involvement with halfsouls public. Shame him until the people demanded his abdication. Wasn’t Annabelle’s betrothed the Lord High Chancellor? I was pretty sure that put him in charge of everything to do with the courts and the law in Adenburg. Maybe he could help us.

I sat up as the door opened and Callum entered. He slowed his gait as he saw me. “Why do you look like a child who has just been caught in the middle of doing something naughty?” He closed the door behind him so we were alone.

I smiled at him, grateful for his humor. “Oh it wasn’t anything that bad. I was just thinking up ways to overthrow the king.”

He chuckled. “Nothing like a bit of treason to help breakfast go down.” He poured himself some apple juice before he settled in a chair and rocked it back. I winced internally every time he did that, just waiting for him to topple over backward and hit his head. He took a sip from his glass. “I just hope Kasten can hold himself together while we get everything in place. Apparently, today is going to be a long one. It's a miracle he can keep that amount of power contained while surrounded by those idiots who will be making jabs at him all day.”

I grimaced and tapped the table with my fingernail. The spinning machine ran out of power, and I removed the long, thin glass tubes from its circumference. The blood had separated out into its component parts, the yellow plasma at the top, red blood cells in the middle, and at the very bottom, a strange greyish black layer that was barely a millimeter thin.

I waved the tube around. “It worked! It worked! Your machine spun them hard enough.”

“Well, of course my invention worked.” Callum squinted at the narrow glass tube. “So you’ve separated your blood out by weight, correct?” He pointed to the dark grey base layer near the wax stopper. “And that’s the heaviest bit. Is that grey stuff meant to be there?”

I shook my head. “That’s the metal in my blood, only it’s concentrated so now we can see it. It’s what they must have used for the haemalcomy to turn me into a halfsoul. It’s still inside me.”

Callum clapped his hands together. “Ha! Interesting. It’s not enough to test, though. What is that, a hundredth of a gram? Even if you spun down all the blood you took, it wouldn’t be enough.”

I studied the tiny layer by tilting the tube in the light. “But we know it’s still inside me, even if I’m not infectious. Maybe my body defeated the infection it was attached to, but the metal was left behind. It must be very inert for my body not to try to attack it too. I feel well.”

Callum frowned at the tube and rocked back in his chair. “I don’t like that it’s still inside you, flowing in your blood, and we can’t get it all out.”

I suppressed a shiver. “If we want to stop whatever the king and Lord Lyrason have planned, we should invent a cure. I know you’ve been trying to save the halfsouls you capture without success, but the need is even more urgent now. We have moreinformation than ever before. It was so hard for you and Kasten to heal me. We don’t want to be in that position again. What if it’s Kasten who’s bitten next time?”

Callum grimaced. “I would rather not eventhinkof the possibility of Kasten as a halfsoul.” He shook his head slowly. “He would be even more grumpy.”

I stared out of the window at the trees shedding their amber leaves. “Lord Lyrason isn’t going to stop now when he’s come so far. Only I suspect he won’t risk setting them loose downtown for us to find and take to the Maegistrium.”

Callum nodded slowly along and waited for me to continue as if I were voicing his own fears.

“But where is he aiming to send them? Lord Lyrason might use the halfsouls on Kollenstar like Kasten suggested, but what if they do that while Kasten is fighting there, not caring that he and his men will be bitten by halfsouls too? Or what if they use it on Kasomere?” I shook my head at the horrible scenes that played out in my mind and placed a hand over my thumping heart. “This could be a weapon that rivals the starstone. One that could steal life from entire cities or countries while the perpetrators live forever. We need a cure to protect ourselves, especially while we don’t know what they are planning.”

Callum leaned forward with his eyebrows raised. His voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “And we need a cure to heal you, if anyone manages to use that metal that’s inside you again.” He leaned back and tapped his lip in thought. “Though I hope we never have to face any of those scenarios, it makes sense for us to be as prepared as possible.” He pointed back to the tube. “I think I could finally do it if I can take a large enough sample of whatever that metal is. Lord Lyrason and Mister Gregane must make it in batches before they attach it to the infectious agent that’s transferred through saliva. Once I have both sides of the kryalcomy poles, I could work out how to disrupt theirconnection. Then, even if somebody is bitten, we can stop their life and good emotions from being sucked out and violence injected. They would only suffer from the symptoms of the infectious agent which lasts a day or two.”

He leaned forward, getting increasingly excited with his train of thought. “It would be hard to disrupt the connection, but Lord Lyrason did it with our detectors. The halfsouls who attacked us outside of Sir Halfield’s house wore collars that meant our detectors could no longer interact with the kryalcomy inside them. They didn’t let off any sound at all. Meena had the foresight to pick up a broken one and pocket it just after you were bitten. I haven’t had the chance to look at it yet, and it might not be safe for somebody who isn't a halfsoul to wear but I suspect it will be purely kryalcomy, rather than haemalcomy. Hopefully, a method I could copy. Between that collar and a big enough sample of the metal from your blood, I’m sure I’ll figure it out.” He frowned. “I’m just frustrated that not only has Gregane discovered Callumalcomy as well as me, he’s discovered how to disrupt it. I’m yet to get that far, but I’m not going to let him outmatch me.”

I patted him on the back, but my mind was already elsewhere, thinking about Gregane. There had to be more I could do. “Lord Lyrason is going to be in the palace all day too, isn’t he? He was brought in on the war meetings for some reason.”

Callum nodded. “I wonder if it was just to unbalance Kasten, but he’s clearly meant to be contributing something.”

I kept tapping my finger. “So he will be away from his home all day.”

Callum narrowed his eyes and landed all four of his chair’s feet on the floor with a thump. “What by all the kingdoms are you planning? I thought you were meant to be the sensible one.”

I shrugged, uncomfortable with my own train of thought. “I just don’t want to sit here feeling useless. Kasten went through so much to save me and put himself in danger. If I’d never gone to see Irabel in Adenburg, this wouldn’t have happened. Kasten wouldn’t have had to reveal the starstone. Now everyone distrusts him and will never leave him alone.”

“They’ve always distrusted him, Sophie. This isn’t your fault.” Callum gnawed on a fingernail, giving me a wary look.

I shook my head slowly, refusing to let Callum’s words sink in. The sensation that we were running out of time built inside me with nervous energy. I stood up, needing to move. “And besides, Lord Lyrason could have halfsouls in his manor right now. He could have dozens of victims in there. We need information, and we need it fast. We need a cure. And we need clear proof of whether the king is involved so that a coup is justified. Lives are at stake. We need to take risks.”

Callum tilted his head with an incredulous expression. “Are you seriously suggesting we break in? Because if you are, either Lord Lyrason will catch me and kill me or Kasten will when he hears what we’ve done. Either way, I’m a dead man.”

I played with a loose string on my cuff. “Well, it’s not breaking in if you'reinvited. If the two ends of the haemalcomy poles are what you require to make a cure, we should get them by any means possible and as quickly as possible. Not to mention we can get information directly from the source.”

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