“And yet here I am to knock some sense back into that thick skull of yours,” he said. “How very lucky you are.”

“Wayland,” Aphra said. “You’re disturbing Miss Mirabil—may I suggest you do what your magister says?”

“She’s awake?” North asked, kicking off the rest of his blankets. He squatted down beside me, a bright smile on his face.

“Hullo, my beautiful, beautiful darling,” he said. “Feeling better this morning?”

I smiled back weakly. “Not really.”

He chuckled. “It might take a few days. The poison has to leave your body.”

“Poison?”

“Pascal, give them a moment,” Aphra said, nodding her head toward the door. “I’ll need your help to clear the snow off the path.”

The old man clucked his tongue in disapproval, but he went.

“Snow?” I whispered.

“It was quite the storm last night,” North said, brushing a stray curl off my face.

I swallowed hard, catching sight of the loom out of the corner of my eye. “Was it me?”

North brought over the pitcher of water and helped me sit up long enough to drink.

“Was it me?” I asked again, my voice stronger. “Did I cause the storm?”

North’s brow furrowed. “What gave you that absurd idea?”

“The threads,” I explained, but it was useless. North shook his head.

“When you’re feeling up to it, I’ll take you outside,” he said. “I’ll try to get a letter off to Owain to tell him we may be a day late.”

“No,” I said in horror, trying to sit up again. My head throbbed. “I can go now…we can’t get farther behind.”

North shook his head. “It’ll be a day or two before you’re strong enough to travel. I promised you that we’d get there in time, and I have no intention of going back on it.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” I said, trying for a smile. North only looked away.

“I need to tell you something,” he began, his voice tight. “That poison—that was the same poison that killed the king.”

“But how did he…?” My head spun. “You saved me. Why did he have to die if there were wizards there?”

“Because only I know who made the poison,” he said. “And because I’m the only person to have seen him make the antidote. It’s a hedge poison.”

“Dorwan? Are you sure?” North gave a curt nod, but his eyes betrayed his feelings. Had he known this entire time? Was that the real message we were taking to the capital?

“I was with him for a little while, when we were both boys. The only reason I met him was because I was snooping around, looking for information around one of the hedge camps. He showed me…He showed me a lot of these poisons and tricks that he thought I would like,” North said. “He thought we were alike, and that I would appreciate knowing them, I guess. It was a long time ago.”

“And it’s the same poison?” I said.

“It was the perfect plan,” North said. “No one recognized the poison, so they assumed it was foreign—”

“And that it came from Auster,” I finished. “He fooled everyone. How could something like this happen?”

“It happened because I didn’t stop him years ago, when I had the chance,” North said angrily. “I underestimated how much hatred he has…to do something like this…”

“It’s not your fault,” I breathed, my eyes drifting shut. For a moment he didn’t say anything, but I felt his dry lips press lightly against my cheek.

“Rest, Syd,” he said. Another dreamless sleep washed over me.

After sleeping for so long, I sat up slowly, my limbs stiff and aching. I knew another day had passed us by—a day we could have been traveling.

I felt surprisingly alert as I glanced around the room. The cool air was a welcome replacement to the unbearable warmth of the blankets.

“North?” I whispered.

I heard a muffled crash outside. My legs buckled beneath me as I stood, but I forced myself over to the window. I pushed it open, thrusting my head into the freezing air.

It was barely light outside, but the wizard and his former student were standing side by side, knee deep in a blanket of snow. Around North lay dirt and grass in stark patches of brown, but for the most part, the snow remained undisturbed and piled high.

I reached through the window’s opening, barely able to contain a grin as I scooped up a handful of snow and let it fall between my fingers. It clung to my skin in a way sand never would have, and it was soft. I brought my lips together and blew. A thousand little specks of white flew off the window ledge, floating to the ground.

Under the cover of snow, small, smoking chimneys were the only parts of the roofs visible to me in the valley. I missed the endless sea of billowing green grass, but there was something beautiful here as well. I turned to look for my boots and a blanket in order to go outside, but Pascal’s voice stopped me.

“If you want to track him using magic, you have to be willing to open yourself up fully to the magic.”

“But doing that is agony,” North said. “I can’t hold on to it like the others can—how am I supposed to track him when I can barely hold myself up?”

“I know, Wayland, I do,” Pascal said. “I know how difficult it is for you, as it was for your father and his father before him. But you must try.”