Page 35 of The King's Man 4

Vitalian Dimos is watching us, and I hook his gaze. “You’ll help me with the antidote.” His face pinches on the cusp of refusal, and I add, “Once we’ve got it, once everyone who’s been poisoned regains their health, you’ll naturally be acquitted—and admired.”

He grunts. “You’ll let me take the lead. Non-linea like you...”

The words cut deep. Non-linea. Not even par-linea anymore.

I swallow down a rising lump and nod, and once we’ve returned to the apothecary, I work under Vitalian Dimos’s orders.

Quin leaves to see his brother while I’m flipping through Grandfather’s books, searching for anything on venoms. I scroll every page carefully, not to overlook anything in the densely written pages. There’s plenty of information on all the variations of bees there are, where they’re found, and how venomous each is. But snakes... where were such indexes for them?

Maybe one of the other books?

Quin returns before I’ve finished the second tome, with no invitation to show. One look at his troubled frown has my stomach instantly knotting.

“We have to let that decoct,” Vitalian Dimos says, following up with a yawn. “Best use the time to sleep.” He stumbles into the adjacent room, finds the bed, and falls onto it.

Quin slouches in a corner armchair, his gaze lingering on the simmering potions and the book in my hands.

“He won’t see you?” I snap the book shut.

“He said constables should visit during working hours.”

My stomach twists guiltily, and I grab the cloak I’d flung over the armchair and whirl it on.

“Cael, leave it.”

“It was enough you stole me away from his manor. Stop making decisions for me. Nicostratus is important.”

He opens his mouth to speak and shuts it firmly. I’m already leaving as he nods.

Petros is awash with relief at his first sight of me. There’s something different about him tonight; it takes me a few moments to figure it out. “You’re not wearing your wyvern button.”

He looks down at his shoulder, where it should be pinned. “Ah... it must’ve fallen off. I’ll fix it later. More pressing is the prince.”

He leads me swiftly through the myriad torch-flickering hallways towards the prince’s chambers. Each door that creaks open gives way to more and more disorder. Knocked over chairs, strewn fabrics, abandoned goblets, emptied jugs of wine.

In the distance comes a hollow, drunken laugh against the sound of someone playing the flute. It doesn’t take a constable to know what’s been happening here.

I look pointedly at Petros, and he grimaces. “He’s been like this since you left.”

“Like this.”

“We do things we regret when we’re desperate.”

Heart jammed with heaviness, I dismiss Petros outside Nicostratus’s chambers, and wait for him to leave before I knock.

“Who is it?” comes a snarl.

I take a steading breath and open the heavy door. The room is lit with pockets of candles on shelves and on a corner desk, and a musician stands in the middle of the room playing sadmelodies on the flute. Across from her, the prince is sprawled on a velveted chair, pouring crimson liquid from a jug into a silver goblet. His dark dishevelled hair momentarily curtains me from his view, but when he sets the jug down and casts his gaze my way, his body freezes.

Wine sloshes onto his white shirt as he pushes out of the chair. He dismisses the musician, who bows and rushes past me.

“You’vecome back.”

My chest plummets.

Nicostratus stares at me and falls back into the chair with a wretched expression. He laughs again, no humour in his eyes, and tips the rest of the wine down his throat in three gulps. He casts the goblet across the room and it rolls to my feet.

I pick it up and set it on the table beside him.

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