Chapter Nine (Part 2)

I gave her a deadpan look and she shrugged innocently. Of course they did.

I closed my eyes and rubbed them furiously, taking the pause to think.

Okay. So, I had no idea what was poisoning Idris, whether it was myself or something else. I had no idea if he was being manipulated by someone else, or if he truly had become the god of hatred and obsession. I also had no idea what his current health status was. So really, if we got him out of Esen and trapped him somewhere, it would be killing two birds with one stone. I could not only keep him out of danger from an outside force, I could also take the chance to test whether or not he was really the new god.

How? No clue. But surely I could think of some way to do so, even if I had to get on my knees and beg the universe for help.

“Tell me the plan,” I said firmly. Looking satisfied, Bela sat next to me on the bed and told me everything she and the others had come up with. And I had to admit, while it was definitely dangerous and I could see why Gabriel didn’t want them to do it, it was still a pretty damned good plan. Maybe these little sprouts had some potential after all.

Bela finally left with the promise that I would convince the others to help with the plan. Well, ‘convince’ was probably a strong word. I was going to tell them I was going to do it whether they wanted to or not, and if they joined, great, if not, whatever. Not my problem.

Once I was alone again, I started thinking seriously about what other kinds of poison could be harming Idris if it wasn’t me. I shouldn’t dare to hope, but I couldn’t help it. Everything in me wanted this to just be a simple cure that would allow us to go back to the way we were before.

Our relationship wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot, but who said it had to be? And who defined what a ‘perfect’ relationship was anyway? I’d give anything to be able to argue with Idris about permanently moving into his palace at this point, because at least when we argued about that, he tried to listen to me, and respected my stance even if he didn’t fully agree with it. Hell, I’d eat that dry fucking salad he made me once if only to have the joy of roasting him about it and watching him try to hide a smile at my temper tantrum.

So, I hoped. I rifled through my bookshelf, looking for the one and only journal I’d ever kept, as opposed to Idris’s dozens of them. This journal wasn’t a place to write my innermost thoughts, but a log of all the plants, animals, and otherwise living within the venomous forest that I’d encountered.

It was a thick journal, the writing larger at the beginning and smaller as I got to the end and had to fit more in less space. At the time I started the journal, paper and ink were much more expensive, and I had few opportunities to sneak to paradise to buy more. This was after I killed Calix as well, so I didn’t have someone on the outside that I could ask to bring me things.

The journal didn’t have every single creature logged within it. Not only was that impossible simply because of how vast the forest was, but also because I cut out mentions of all the least lethal creatures, saving the space for more dangerous beasts. It felt more practical on the off-chance that I somehow died or became incapacitated and Peace or Wisdom needed a guide for the forest.

Knowing that I was going to be too anxious to sleep tonight anyway, I stayed up in bed scouring the journal for any poisons that might create the symptoms Idris was displaying. By the time the sun rose, I had singled out a couple that might have been hardy enough to survive the merge and could quite possible be mixed to cause Idris’s condition, but the person who created the poison would have to be extremely knowledgeable in poisons as a whole and sneaky in administering them.

And unfortunately, if someone was giving him a cocktail of poisons, it was difficult to say exactly what all the side effects would be. Not even I could know that without testing it on someone myself.

 And of course, knowing that only stressed me out even more because all of the side effects I could think of were…well, they weren’t pretty.

I got out of bed at dawn and stretched, ambling over to the window so I could peer out over the trees. I used to find it calming, watching over the forest that appeared peaceful from above even if it was chaos below. There were echoes of that calm, but I couldn’t truly enjoy it, something within me wound so tight I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be able to untangle it.

As I was looking idly out the window, not focusing on anything in particular, I caught sight of something in the distance and froze.

…How could I forget? Gods, how could I be so fucking stupid??

In the distance was the hint of blue stone, the tease of an arched roof. Idris’s palace.

He could see. He could see my bedroom window from his. Gods, he’d told me before that he would wake up sometimes over the years and see that my light was still on late at night.

Fuck!

I was about to race out and gather everyone to get the hell out of dodge, when I caught a few flashes of white and blue through the tree cover. I didn’t stick around to check what it was, because my intuition told me that it was almost definitely Idris’s guards ambushing my palace. He’d probably only waited until dawn to send them out so they would have light to see by, and so that the light of torches out in the forest wouldn’t prematurely catch our attention.

Peace and Wisdom’s rooms were the closest to mine. I stopped at each one, flinging the doors open and telling them we had to leave immediately. Peace and Samir were both startled awake by me, but Wisdom was already up, giving me a solemn stare that said she could feel something was wrong already. I sent them out to wake up Gabriel, Ren, and the trainees, then went to get Ana up myself.

She was also still asleep when I burst in, and immediately went to shout at me, but one look at my face must have told her everything she needed to know, because she got out of bed without a word and followed me into the hallway.

“Damn. Already?” is all she said.

I nodded. “It’s because I’m an idiot,” I said. “Don’t ask.”

“Oh, I’m definitely going to ask. But it can wait until we’re out of here,” she muttered.

Once everyone was gathered in the hallway, sleepy and in various states of disarray – except for Bela for some reason, who had at some point touched up her makeup and redone her hair – I led them downstairs.

“Um, how are we getting out of here, exactly?” Gabriel asked, eyeing every door and window we passed like a dog with an anxiety disorder, waiting for someone to bust in.

“You’ll see,” I said, and I could tell he didn’t like that answer very much, but I didn’t have time to mess with him.

I took everyone down to the basement, where the silver pool of water remained. Despite the merge and despite the fact that one could now freely teleport throughout the former venomous forest, the pool hadn’t disappeared with everything else, and thank the gods for that, because it was the only way we were getting out of here. 

I found it extremely boring whenever Idris gushed about ambush tactics and war strategies, but I retained enough to know that he wasn’t going to give anyone a chance to escape. I just had to hope that he’d forgotten about the silver pool, and didn’t have anyone waiting to snatch us in the meadow where it let out. Or if he did, that we would be able to overpower them.

The basement was circular, lined with torches that automatically lit up once we entered, reflecting off the still pool like a mirror.

“Everyone jump in. It’ll let out at the meadow. Don’t ask questions,” I said sternly, seeing Gabriel open his mouth. He snapped his jaw shut and stepped forward, taking a deep breath and plunging into the pool.

The three trainees went after him, and I could only hope that if there was an ambush waiting in the meadow, they could hold it off until we were all through.

Samir, Ren, and Peace went next, then Ana, and then finally it was just Wisdom and I. I gestured for Wisdom to go first, but she planted her feet and glared at me.

“Absolutely not. I’m not taking the chance that they bust in here right before you jump in. That would be just your luck. Go. I’ll be right behind you.”

I wanted to argue, but at that moment, I heard the sound of feet pounding the floor upstairs and knew we were out of time. So I grabbed Wisdom in my arms, ignoring her gasp, and we fell in together.

It wasn’t really the best idea for two people to go through the portal at a time, if only because the squeeze of it was tight enough with one person, let alone two. The water closed over our heads like solid ice, and then we were mired in darkness, unsure what we would find on the other side.