Cery had told her to keep what she knew to herself, unless she had good reason to reveal it. She would have to pretend not to know anything while around Kallen, and somehow act as if she didn’t suspect him of having selfish motives for failing to help her friends.
“You’re lost in thought today,” Jonna noted. She moved to the table and leaned down to pick up the empty dishes from the morning meal. As she did, Lilia caught a strange but pleasant fragrance.
“Are you wearing perfume, Jonna?” she asked.
Jonna hesitated and looked a little guilty. “Yes.”
“What’s wrong?” Lilia frowned. “You don’t usually wear perfume. Are servants not supposed to?”
“Oh, nobody would be that fussy,” Jonna waved a hand, “but... Sonea doesn’t like this one. It was hers, but after she found out what it was made from she told me to throw it out. I like it and... well you can’t blame the plant for what it is. I don’t wear it when I’ll be around her, of course.”
“Which is why I haven’t noticed it before.” Lilia nodded. “It is lovely. What’s it made from?”
Once again, Jonna looked sheepish. “Roet flowers.”
Surprised, Lilia sniffed the air and tried to find some link between the odour and the smell of roet smoke. “It’s hard to believe the scent comes from the same plant.” Then something else occurred to her. “Where do the perfume makers get roet flowers from?”
Jonna shrugged. “I suppose from the people who grow it for the drug.”
Thinking back to Healing lessons on the sources of the Guild’s cures, Lilia considered what she knew about plants. Flowers usually contained a plant’s seeds. The Guild wanted roet seeds. From what Anyi had said, the plants the Guild had grown were not roet. They’d been tricked. Cery didn’t think any roet grower would dare sell seeds to the Guild – though they weren’t averse to cheating the Guild for what would have been a huge profit by substituting some other plant seed. If Skellin found out they had sold anyone roet seed, they wouldn’t live long.
Cery didn’t think roet was grown in Kyralia at all. He suspected it was cultivated elsewhere, harvested and dried before it was shipped to Imardin. Was the same true of the perfume? Most perfume makers were based in Elyne. Did they need fresh plants, or would dried ones do for making perfume?
Lilia stood up. “I had better go. Don’t want to be late and make Kallen nervous.”
Jonna smiled. “See you tonight.”
As she walked to the Arena, Lilia considered everything she knew and how little she could reveal in order to get answers to her questions. In brief moments of rest during Kallen’s lesson she weighed the risks and benefits.
She did not head to the University as soon as Kallen said they were done. He already had that distant, distracted manner where he didn’t meet her eyes but gazed into the distance when she approached him. As he saw she wasn’t leaving, he frowned and then his lips thinned.
“You can go now,” he told her again.
“I know, but I thought you’d like to know something: word on the street is that the Guild tried to buy roet seeds. Is it true?”
His gaze snapped to hers. His pupils widened.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear from your friends,” he told her.
“But it’s true, isn’t it?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this why you won’t help Cery? Afraid the supply will run out if the supplier is captured?”
Kallen’s eyes flashed with anger and his jaw tightened. “You have no idea how lucky you are,” he told her.
She blinked in surprise then felt a flash of anger. “Lucky?
His eyes widened, then his expression softened. “I apologise. I only meant...” He looked away, grimacing as if in pain. “You are fortunate to avoid being trapped by roet. There are many, many magicians who wish they had your resistance.”
“How many?” she asked, unable to keep the concern from her voice.
He frowned. “I can’t tell you that. But... we are doing something about helping them.”
“By trying to grow it?”
“To take control of the supply at least. To find a cure or breed a less damaging drug if we can.” Kallen sighed. “You are partly right. We may reduce our chances to acquire seeds if Skellin is killed. We can’t risk attempting to catch him. Yet.” He met her gaze levelly and a fierce determination entered his gaze. “I promise once we have what we need we will find and remove Skellin. That may include accepting your friend’s offer, if he is still willing to take the risk.”
Lilia nodded. She considered what he had told her. It made sense, and she could see no hint that he was lying. There was no advantage in holding back from telling him her idea.
“Did you know there’s a new perfume being sold in the city that is made from roet flowers?”
His eyebrows rose and the spark of interest she had expected flared in his eyes. “No.”
“They have to get the flowers from somewhere.” She smiled. “Maybe the Guild should investigate. Anyway, I should be getting to the next class.”
“Yes. Don’t be late...” he said distractedly.
She left him standing there. When she looked back she saw that, as always, his gaze had fixed on the distance again, but this time he wore an expression of startled realisation.
It was almost unbearably stuffy and hot in the cart, and Lorkin had lost count of the times he’d had to grab his nose to stop sneezing. Like the other slaves in the vehicle, he was covered in a grey powder meant to kill off body lice. For the same reason, his hair had been shaved off. His ankles were chained together and to a metal loop in the centre of the cart’s floor.
His back itched and burned where he’d been whipped, and he had to resist the constant urge to Heal the welts. There had been no reason for the punishment other than the driver establishing his superiority, after Ashaki Achati’s slave master had warned that “this one is trouble”. He resisted gazing in horror at his fellow passengers and tried to hide the anger he felt at their fate. They were the rejects of the city’s slaves, too old, damaged, ugly or disobedient to be of use to their former owners. As far as they knew, they were being shipped off to work in a mine in the south of the Steelbelt mountains.
Bartering had been quick and few questions had been asked, to hasten the sale. Apparently some Sachakans believed that a slave who had been born into a household ought to be cared for by that household if he or she had worked hard for their master, or was crippled in their service. Sometimes they followed the mine cart around, calling shame upon owners who sold slaves to it. None of these protestors had pursued the cart today. It had trundled to the edge of the city without attracting any attention.
Now it was rolling slowly out into the countryside. Lorkin closed his eyes and thought back to his escape from the Guild House.
Tayend had come up with the solution to getting Lorkin out without the watchers noticing. They knew it was likely that the watchers had counted how many slaves Achati had brought with him, so he had gone out to the carriage and told one that he was being loaned to the Guild House to help keep an eye on Lorkin, but in truth to spy on the magicians.
Once the slave had been accepted with thanks and sent off to join the rest, Lorkin had donned Achati’s
