Page 81 of The Prince and the Ice King

“My plan was to sneak into his private chambers and steal his clothes, let him go without for a few nights, see if he even raised a fuss, and then return them with little pink hearts stitched into every doublet.” Shayla smiled, only for the expression to quickly fade. “What I didn’t expect was to find a portrait of a little girl, a half elf with long dark hair.”

Reardon thought back to when he had burst into Liam’s room, and while he hadn’t been paying much attention to the décor, he did think herecalled a portrait.

“He found me standing there like an idiot, and while he was as angry as you can imagine, he did eventually tell me who she was. If you want to find out, you’ll have to ask him yourself.”

Liam returned with a flurry and fresh crackle of lightning, a metallic taste resurging on the back of Reardon’s tongue. He straightened and went back to his stirring. Luckily, he’d been nearly done anyway and hadn’t ruined the batch.

“What are you all quiet for?” Liam barked.

“Doesn’t the mood always drop when I say I’m leaving?” Shayla blew him a kiss.

“You are?” Only because Reardon had been here for many days did he recognize the shift in Liam’s tone as disappointment. “Dinner, then?”

“If I think you’ve earned it,” she said and winked before leaving—though Reardon wasn’t sure if it was for Liam or him.

“Looking good.” Liam eyed their progress as he set out the extra ingredients. It still amazed Reardon how lightning in the shape of a man could hold or touch anything without scorching it, but he knew it took intense concentration. “You two,” Liam said to Barclay and Caitlin, “we’ll need more containers before long. Grab a few boxes from the cellar. There’s hardly anything in the stores up here anymore.

“Andyou,” he ordered Reardon, “finish that healing draught and get over here to help me. I assume you can assist with non-magical transmutation.”

Transmutation was one of Reardon’s favorite parts of alchemy. Fire and water were opposites, air and earth, wood and metal, but lightning was the most complicated, because its opposite was like a void, pulling everything into it if left uncontrolled.

Transmutation could also turn a poison into an antidote—and vice versa.

Reardon understood why magic had been outlawed back home and alchemy heavily regulated, because both could cause much damage if dealt with foolishly. Still, he knew that fear was not the answer, and he didn’t feel any as he followed Liam’s instructions to add just a simple few ingredients, and then applied a little heat with a candle to the bottom of each new vial to cause a reaction.

All the vials changed in some form, some even began to swirl like a pit of endless darkness with a multitude of stars, but none caused the reaction they needed to indicate an untraceable poison.

They were closer, but they didn’t yet have an answer.

“Have you ever tried transmuting yourselves?” Reardon asked as the idea struck him.

“After two hundred years? Of course. It doesn’t do anything. Protection draughts for others is as good as it gets. At least until yousave us.” Liam’s tone was mocking, but like with Branwen, Reardon knew that there was more to the wily wizard.

“My apologies again,” he began carefully, keeping his back turned as he tidied, “for the other night, storming into your room the way I did. I hadn’t realized, but I do think you and Shayla suit one another.”

“So glad you approve,” Liam answered snidely.

“I wondered, though… who was the little girl in the painting on your wall? There aren’t any children in the castle.”

If not for Liam’s crackles of lightning, the room would have been dead silent, until Liam said, “Shayla’s been talking, hasn’t she?”

“I really did see—”

“Keep your meddling to the king.”

“May I at least ask who she was?” Reardon peered over his shoulder.

“You are insufferable, you know that?”

“Many have said so.”

“Who do you think she was?” Liam demanded like a floating, angry storm.

“Your daughter?”

“Who deserved better.”

“And her mother?”

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