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  Author's note: So close to finishing this story! It's been an amazing journey and so much fun to write! Please don't forget to like, comment and review. I'm so excited every time I see that someone is genuinely reading the story!

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  Three days had passed. The king had not yet woken up. The medics had tried everything. They had been able to stabilize him, but not to get him to actually regain consciousness. He still breathed, and the servants had fed him soup and milk with small spoons and considerable patience.

  I had tried to call for Adora to help, but she was gone. There were even some rumours that she had burned alive inside her shop, even though people had seen her alive that night. I think she fled for fear of her magic being discovered. When Alvar came to get me, he had left the homunculus in my room. The guards had found it and started a ferocious campaign against magic. I did not dare ask too much about it, but as I understood, people’s houses were being raided, and some were even imprisoned. I doubted that many, if any of them were actual magic users. Some people made the connection that Adora’s shop had burned down the night before the homunculus was discovered, but many thought that that was just a coincidence.

  There was much competition around who would be regent for Prince Etus, Virtus’s younger brother if Virtus would die. I stayed out of it. They had also brought in Virtus’s cousin. He was the son of King Potius’s dour older sister, Duchess Erina. She tried to cim that all Queen Reena’s children were illegitimate, even the ones that looked a lot like the old king. If Virtus died she would try to push him next in line.

  His name was Atilian, and he was actually not too bad. He was a tall, dull man, but nice enough. Not as unpleasant as his mother, or Plinius. He was the sort of man that would make a king the history books would forget. Most people would prefer to live in the time of a forgettable king rather than one that is memorable for the wrong reasons. Still I worried what would happen if there was a struggle for succession.

  I sat in the room with Virtus’s sleeping body. I was trying to embroider, but my vision was blurry from the tears and the exhaustion. I begged and cried every day for him to wake up, but I knew that if he did my days were numbered. I was a traitor to the country of Medora, and to it’s king. They would hang me and there might even be another war.

  It occurred to me that I might save the lives of thousands if I just suffocated Virtus with his pillow in that moment. I could not have done that, even if I wanted to.

  In stead I just watched him sleep. I watched his soft face as he y on the bed, peaceful and innocent.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in!” I called, my voice was raspy.

  I took a sip of my tea to soothe my throat. The door opened. It was Lady Agatha.

  “Your Majesty,” she bowed.

  “Hello, Lady Agatha,” I said softly. “Are you here to inquire after the king?”

  “Yes,” she said, and closed the door.

  She walked to where I was sitting at the chair and looked me severely.

  “Talia, we’ve been through a lot and I’ve covered for you many times. Now you have to tell me the truth about the night the king was stabbed.”

  “All right,” I told her.

  “I was the one who found the homunculus in your room, were you pnning on leaving with Alvar?”

  “Yes,” I mumbled, and looked down.

  “Who was the one who created it.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her I didn’t know. I had no preservation instinct any more, but I still wanted to protect Adora.

  “Adora the dressmaker,” was the sentence that came out of my mouth.

  I put my hand up to my lips. What had happened?

  Lady Agatha nodded knowingly towards my cup of tea.

  "Like I said, you have to tell me the truth."

  So I told her everything, from beginning to end, in hushed tones. She nodded along. She had probably suspected more than I knew.

  “I shouldn’t have taught him Haverish,” she muttered at the end.

  “That was you?” I asked. “That was what you two were always doing together?”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “I was hoping it would bring the two of you closer. It was supposed to be a surprise. He was so excited to show you.”

  I thought there were no more tears left, but I started to cry again.

  “Now calm down, Talia,” she told me. “I think you know by now, I have many of the same skills as Adora, although I do not use them as liberally as she did. I can help him.”

  “You can?” I whispered.

  “But Talia, I can’t just do it. After everything you told me, he would have no choice but to start another war.”

  “Please, Lady Agatha,” I begged. “We can convince him not to do it. Please help him live. I love him!”

  She shook her head.

  “None of this would have even happened if you were not so stupid,” she chastised.

  “I know, let me take all the bme,” I cried.

  “No-one will take the bme,” she said simply. “Just let me do this.”

  She took a long needle from the pocket of her dress. Then she carefully pced it under Virtus’s chin.

  “Stop!” I whispered. “Please don’t kill him.”

  “Stupid girl,” she sighed. “This won’t kill him. I’ll do this and then I’ll wake him up.”

  “Do you promise?” I asked, looking her deeply in the eyes.

  “Yes,” she answered with simir intensity.

  She slowly pushed the needle in at the pce where his neck and his head met under the chin. The needle made a divot in the soft flesh of his neck as it slowly pushed inside. I winced and looked away.

  Then she handed me a bag full of powder.

  “I have pushed the needle in, now he will never be able to speak of anything he saw or heard that night. He will not be able to move against you, but he will remember everything. Magic cannot change a mind. Not for a long time, at least.”

  I nodded, tears in my eyes.

  “This means that you have to keep quiet yourself,” she added. “Never speak of these secrets. Your husband might not want to be around you any more, so you must be prepared for that.”

  I nodded.

  “Just so long as he lives.”

  “Make a tea from this powder, then feed it to him in secret. Let no-one see. Once he has drunk the tea he will wake up.”

  I did as she told me. I waited until the evening, when people no longer came to check on Virtus. I made the tea and asked the medics to leave me alone with him. When we were alone I took a little teaspoon, and slowly and painstakingly fed him every drop of the tea. I watched the golden liquid drip into his mouth and trickle down his throat.

  As the st drop fell into his mouth his eyes slowly opened.

  As he recognised me they filled with fear and anger.