Page 42 of The King's Man 4

But I do. I yell back, “You’re all afraid. You’re afraid you aren’t good enough. Afraid there will be others that surpass you with less.”

The words feel like Quin’s, sharp edged and unyielding. But they feel good in my mouth. Because it’s the truth.

The hall erupts into outraged shouts.

The Skeldar continues to haul me alongside him.

We leave the hall with warning shouts at our backs: not to think we can be healers; that we’ll only cause death if we try.“Sooner or later you’ll see.”

My stomach roils, and I glance at the Skeldar’s hold. The sun is strong outside, shining on red and golden trees along thecanal and glinting brightly off the shock of blonde before me. “They’ll be the ones who should wait and see,” the Skeldar says. And, without another word let alone explanation, he lets go and leaves.

I leave too, an ickiness to my step. Born inferior? Should accept our place?

I rub my temples and make my way down stone steps to the canal. Nestled between bobbing boats sits Quin’s borrowed dinghy. The bright sun from before is blocked by the stone wall casting a cool shadow over half of the water, and it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to both the shadows and the glare.

I step into the boat and it bobs sharply, pushing water around the other boats. A flash of fluttering fabric catches my eye a few vessels down. I look over to wood and spilled blood, and a crumpled figure lying face down in the boat.

I leap from dinghy to dinghy to get to him, pulse racing. The man is moaning and blood seeps from his skull. I throw my hands on impulse—nothing but air wakes over my hands, and the drop in my stomach feels like losing my magic all over again.

I choke back a curse, ripping at my cloak and pressing the fabric against the man’s wound to staunch the bleeding. “Hold on, hold on,” I say, mind racing how to treat him.

Quin’s words from days before echo faintly in the back of my mind: “You can save without magic.” But he’s wrong. I can’t. I’m not enough anymore.

Get him to Thinking Hall. To the vitalians.

But moving him, even lifting my hand off his head, will kill him.

I yell out for help, my voice deep and urgent, but no one responds. A gash this deep, bleeding out this fast— “Hold on, hold on,” I demand.

But I’m trembling now. I’m stuck here. Useless. No equipment, no one to help.

The victim’s hand twitches, sparks briefly and fizzles. He has magic; maybe I can get him to heal himself. “Listen,” I murmur. “Channel it to your head to stop the blood—”

I lose my voice.

Under me, the man has gone limp.

With my free hand I grab for his wrist, feel for his pulse. Then feel harder for it. It must be there. Has to be.

It’s not.

I sink away from the body, hands shaking, covered in blood that seeped through the fabric of my cloak and my gloves.Sooner or later you’ll see.

No magic, no healing.

If a vitalian had been here, this man would have lived.

Ishut my eyes, soaking in the cruel reality, and almost lose the contents of my stomach when I open them and spot a wooden mask in the bottom of the boat.

No-no-no-no.

I gently turn his face and fight the urge to scramble back in panic.

Vitalian Dimos. Someone bashed the back of the man’s head and left him to die. I frantically search the boats and the shadows around me. Could the culprit be close? Watching?

Eyes stinging and fear in my stomach, I take off my cloak and rest it over Vitalian Dimos’s body. I wash the blood off my gloved hands in the canal and return to Quin’s dinghy. Hurriedly, wet fingers slippery on the oars, I row towards the constabulary. With clumsy feet I make my way to the road and hover in the shadows across from the gates. On a public noticeboard beside them is my picture, with a group of constables in thick conversation.

I swallow and spy to the left a familiar crest on the doors of a passing carriage. Prince Nicostratus. He’s been called in formally, for an apology and to remove his house arrest.

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