The Potion Diaries

by Amy Alward

  We slam back against one of the walls, safe. ‘Thanks,’ I manage to squeeze out between gasps of breath, my heart pounding in my chest.

  ‘Come on,’ she says, dragging me to my feet and leading me back outside, and through the maze of streets. We can see the drone still – just – disappearing around the corners ahead of us.

  We burst through into the outer ring of the monastery, where the streets widen out. Standing there, holding the drone, is Zain – and behind him, Daphne.

  I’m about to shout at him for sending the FollowMe into the monastery without permission, but the look on his face stops me short. He walks towards me, his arms open, his eyes glassy with held-back tears. Zain doesn’t cry easily. Panic grips my throat. ‘Sam . . .’

  I stop moving towards him. I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say. ‘You have to come back to the town. Something’s happened at the Palace.’

  ‘Castle Nova?’

  Zain shakes his head. ‘No, not the castle, the floating Palace.’

  ‘But that’s impossible—’ The floating Palace is impenetrable. There has never been a successful attack on the Royals’ hidden residence. Then it hits me. ‘Oh god, but Molly is there!’ I look down at my watch and mentally try to calculate the time difference. They’re several hours behind us. ‘She should have been back already.’

  I don’t know how it’s possible, but Zain’s face turns even whiter. ‘She was there at the time. We’re not sure exactly what’s happened yet . . .’

  ‘And the Princess?’ Trina asks from behind me.

  Zain’s silence is the worst answer he could give.

  I jump in the front seat of the car next to Zain, and Daphne and Trina get in behind. Mei and the Waidan get back in the 4×4 we took up here initially.

  ‘Sorry for the FollowMe,’ Zain says. ‘When the news came through we couldn’t find you anywhere in the compound – you didn’t let me know you were going.’

  ‘I was in a hurry,’ I say, defensively.

  ‘We assumed you’d come up here so we drove up as fast as we could. But this place is huge. I only used the FollowMe to help us search for you faster than we could.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘Please. Let’s just get back as soon as possible.’ I can tell Zain wants to ask me more about what I’ve learned, but I don’t feel like sharing yet. I wrap my arms around my body, hugging myself. The winding journey down the volcano feels like it’s taking twice as long as it did on the way up.

  Once we arrive, I follow Zain as he races through the residential part of the compound to a large communal space where a television screen is set up. Dai and James are there, leaning forward on their knees. Their eyes are glued to the screen, where a breaking newscast is unfolding live. I burst in, almost colliding with the back of the sofa.

  ‘. . . We are told that the Palace is going to be making a statement any second now, but Phillip, what do you think this means for the future of Nova? And who do you think could be responsible?’

  ‘What’s happened?’ I ask Dai, as the newscasters drone on.

  ‘It’s all speculation at this point, but it doesn’t sound good. They’re just waiting for the official word . . .’

  I let out a long groan. Then I turn to Zain. ‘I should call Mum and Dad—’

  ‘I tried already. Your grandad told me they’d gone to Castle Nova to get answers, so they’ll call you as soon as they know anything. Oh, look – the headlines are on again.’

  I whip my attention from Zain back to the screen.

  The newscaster says: ‘Once again, folks, we have breaking news: a group of school children have been involved in an incident inside the floating Palace of Nova. We don’t yet know the condition of the students, but we are being told that they are all alive and in safe hands— Hang on one second, we’re going to go live to the Palace now, where Prince Stefan is ready to make an announcement to the crowd.’

  ‘Prince Stefan?’ I whisper to no one in particular, but my unease is growing by the moment. I’m surprised – and scared – that it’s not the King and Queen, who would normally make this sort of announcement.

  The screen shows an empty podium outside of Castle Nova, the new crest of Nova emblazoned on the wall behind. Otherwise it is a sombre affair: there are no elaborate flower arrangements or oversized flags in the background. After a brief moment of dead air, the Prince suddenly appears on the screen, passing through the wall behind the podium with the crest on it. It’s a casual display of his new power – the power that he received from Evelyn on their wedding day. Seeing him makes me dig my nails into the back of the leather sofa. He’s dressed in a military uniform: a sharply tailored navy blue suit with golden buttons polished to a mirror shine. A thin band of gold nestles in his thick blond hair: the Prince is really trying to remind the Novaen public that he’s Royal today. If he’s worried or nervous, he’s doing a good job of hiding it. There’s strength in his tiger-striped eyes. Determination.

  ‘Citizens of Nova,’ he begins, his voice clear and – god I hate him – powerful. ‘Today, I have some terrible news for our nation. This morning, a dangerous and highly contagious virus was unleashed on Palace grounds. This attack took place during a Royal visit with local schoolchildren that my wife, Princess Evelyn, was hosting. The group of Talented young students who were in attendance were also affected. While we have managed to contain the worst symptoms of the virus for now, we are keeping the affected people – including the Princess – in quarantine until we can find a suitable cure.

  ‘Your King and Queen have also been taken into quarantine while we race to control the spread of this awful contagion.’ A slight drop of his eyes is the only show of respect he gives the Royal family, before he returns his intense gaze to the cameras.

  ‘This was obviously a targeted, co-ordinated attack on the Princess and her Talented visitors. While the Palace doctors, in partnership with ZoroAster Corp, are doing all they can to help those that have been affected, you can rest assured that we are also looking for justice. I, personally, will not rest until those responsible for this heinous attack are either behind bars or banned from Nova for good.’

  He disappears off the screen in another flash of power, and the television presenters take over, repeating and dissecting the Prince’s every word. Within a few moments they’ve drafted in experts to weigh in on what the ‘virus’ could be.

  There’s still nothing from my parents.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Zain asks.

  ‘I can’t wait any longer. I don’t care what Grandad said; I need to call them. Is there somewhere I can go?’ I ask the Waidan. He points me down the hallway to his office, where I can use video chat on my laptop. Zain tries to follow, but I shake my head. Thankfully, he seems to understand and leaves me alone in the small room.

  It takes a few tries before it connects. Mum looks distraught, her face a mess of dried tear tracks and deep lines. ‘Sam, thank goodness.’

  ‘I’ll come back straight away,’ I say, almost over the top of her words. ‘I’m sure that I can get a Transport—’

  ‘No,’ says a voice from offscreen. Mum moves the computer so that it shows Dad inside the screen. He looks just as distraught as Mum, rubbing his eyebrows with his thumbs. There’s more grey in his hair than there’s ever been – between the Wilde Hunt and the Royal Tour and now this, this year has been stressful for him, to say the least.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask.

  ‘You need to stay where you are. It’s too dangerous for you to come back here.’

  ‘Too dangerous?’ Panic rises in my voice.

  ‘There’s all sorts of talk that the Prince is going to put sanctions on ordinaries – and there’s even news coming in about ordinaries being attacked by Talenteds on the street. You’re safer there.’

  I swallow hard and clench my fists under the office table, where my dad can’t see. ‘I just saw the Prince’s broadcast.’

  Dad nods, looking glum. ‘We were watching too in case he relea
sed any new information.’

  ‘And what about Molly? Is she okay?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ says Mum, her voice trembling. ‘All the Palace will tell us is that she has been quarantined as they’re worried about the virus spreading. They have assured us that they have the best doctors and the ZA synthmakers on it.’

  ‘Did they give you any information at all about her symptoms?’

  ‘They’re barely telling us anything!’ Dad throws his hands up in the air.

  Surprisingly, Mum is the one with the cooler demeanour. She frowns in concentration. ‘They sounded similar to what you thought the Princess had before, at your ceremony. A cough – the white powder . . .’

  I bite my lip. If that’s the case, then it looks more and more likely that the drain has spread from Gergon to Nova. But who could be the source?

  As I’m lost in thought, I see my mum and dad being ushered off the screen and Grandad moves into their place.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve found out in Long-shi,’ he says.

  I struggle to bring my mind back to what I saw inside the Jing monastery and the story locked away in that pool of liquefied magic. But once I start telling Grandad, it gushes out of me – everything, from how Tao Kemi created the potion to make an ordinary person Talented, all the way through to how a cure now lies within my potion diary, with phoenix flame the main ingredient. It fits all the symptoms. Grandad’s expression barely changes as I tell the story, though I can tell from the occasional twitch of his eyebrows that he’s listening intently.

  ‘That’s why I have to come back to Nova, Grandad,’ I say. ‘I need to confirm we’re dealing with the same potion – so I don’t make the wrong cure.’ It’s the only option. I’m not going to risk being wrong – not when it’s my sister’s life on the line.

  ‘Tell me again about the pool,’ says Grandad. ‘Describe it to me.’

  I frown, but do as he says, describing every detail of the pool that I can remember. I can’t see the relevance it has to me getting back to Nova.

  ‘Amazing. I wish I was there to see it myself,’ he says. I don’t often hear my grandad sound so filled with wonder. Then, his demeanour changes again – from awe-filled to determined. ‘Can you get back to the pool?’

  ‘I . . . I think so.’

  ‘Go, immediately.’

  ‘But why? I don’t understand.’

  ‘There might be another way to get you into the Palace. I just need to pray Tabitha answers.’

  The screen goes dark.

  I have to trust him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Princess Evelyn

  THE STORYBOOK LESSONS CAME flooding back to her.

  Tales of princesses fallen into enchanted sleeps, sometimes for hundreds of years. Sometimes for eternity. Just lying there, waiting for their prince to come. It was something she’d always wondered about when she heard the stories. What did those sleeping princesses dream about? Did they live decades in their dreams, only to wake up from suspended animation to expect to live life again?

  Maybe that was immortality. Living hundreds of realities that never really happened.

  Waiting . . . but who was she waiting for? To her knowledge, no one even knew she was asleep. Surely the Prince would keep the fact that he injected her a secret. She should have never let him in her room in the first place.

  No, there was going to be no Prince Charming in her story.

  There might be a Princess Charming, she thought. Or at least . . . a bodyguard?

  You blew that, she reminded herself.

  No, no one was coming to save her. So, the only solution was that she was going to have to save herself.

  First, she had to understand the rules. She took a deep breath and opened the palm of her hand. This time it was easier to summon the vision of magic on her own, and she gasped as the beams of light spread once again from her fingers in different directions. Still, she could sense pressure on her magic, drawing it toward the tower inside the walled town. Here, far from the town, she could still resist.

  But the Gergons, inside their walled city, could not. The oneiros wanted to terrify her with their nightmares, driving her into the ‘safety’ of the city. Her good thoughts were still powerful enough to ward them off – for now.

  But every moment that passed, she felt a little weaker. A single strand of her magic travelled in the direction of the tower. No matter how hard she tried, she could not change its flow. She needed to find out who was drawing the magic.

  The second question she had was: how long had she been here?

  How many days had passed since the Prince had sent her to sleep? This question plagued Evelyn, as Prince Ilie seemed to imply he had been in this state for months. Was there even time here? Maybe it was simply an illusion.

  ‘Hello?’ a voice cried out, interrupting the Princess’s thoughts.

  In a flash, the Princess dismantled the walls of her dream bedroom, so that she was in a completely white space. And what she saw there was no longer a dream but a nightmare. She immediately searched for oneiros, but there were none to be seen. In front of her was a group of young girls who didn’t have the same wavy quality of the people she usually dreamed up. They were new arrivals to the dream world. And since they weren’t dressed in old-fashioned clothes, that meant new arrivals from Nova.

  One of the girls stepped to the front, and Evie realised she recognised her.

  ‘Molly?’ The name came out of her mouth before she could stop it.

  ‘Princess!’ Molly’s word came out as barely a whisper, but the fear on Molly’s face vanished, replaced by a relieved smile. ‘Guys, it’s okay! The Princess is here. Everything must be all right. We’ll be going home soon.’

  She was talking to the whole group of kids – students, by the looks of their neat school uniforms – all about the same age.

  Evie put on her best smile, to keep this dream-Molly calm. ‘What’s going on?’

  The other children gathered round behind Molly, who took the lead – not so different from her older sister after all. The others were staring up at the Princess in wide-eyed awe that seemed to border on terror. Molly took a moment to answer, her brows knitting together in concentration.

  ‘It’s all a bit fuzzy. We were invited to the Palace to meet you and Prince Stefan. It was like . . . an official Royal visit.’

  ‘So have I been . . . awake?’ Evelyn felt idiotic asking the question, but the reality was, she didn’t know.

  ‘Um, well, nobody’s seen you . . . you haven’t been on a cast for ages.’

  At Molly’s words, Evelyn felt the blood turn to ice in her veins. ‘Nobody’s seen me? In how long?’

  Molly blinked. ‘Since your wedding. There were some pictures of you on honeymoon but no one’s actually seen you in person.’

  ‘On honeymoon?’ Evelyn frowned. ‘But I haven’t left the Palace at all. I’ve been too unwell to travel.’

  ‘That’s what Sam was afraid of. So it’s true . . .’

  ‘The Prince must have faked the pictures.’ Evelyn slumped back, and the dream caught her in a chair of her own making. Then she stood up again, and just as quickly the chair disappeared. ‘So what does it mean that you’re here? Are you even real?’ In a very un-Princess-like manner, she strode towards Molly and poked her hard in the arm.

  Molly winced and jumped back. ‘Hey! Of course we’re real.’

  Now the other students around her started to panic. The noise within the dream rose, static filling Evelyn’s ears, their voices crying out for their parents, for help, for anything.

  Evelyn knew she had to take control of the situation, or else she would never be able to get to the bottom of this. There was also the question of the oneiros. She didn’t want them anywhere near Molly and these children. These children were her subjects. She wasn’t going to let them be taken into the Gergon village.

  She would build them their own place here. And she would keep them safe.

  ‘Tell me what you remem
ber,’ she said, putting her arm gently around Molly’s shoulders. ‘Tell me what you can remember about today.’ She employed her most Princess-y tone, and she felt Molly’s shoulders relax.

  Molly closed her eyes. ‘I woke up this morning, and immediately panicked about what to wear. Then Mum came in and said that actually we’d been instructed to wear our school uniforms just like Sam predicted – at first, I didn’t want to, but then I realised that made perfect sense. And plus, it took the pressure off in a major way from deciding what to wear. We were meeting at school, so Mum took me in early. That’s when I saw all these guys.’

  ‘And everyone who you came to the Palace with is here? There’s no one missing?’

  Molly craned her neck to look around. ‘Yup, everyone’s here. Except our teachers.’

  Evelyn frowned, then motioned for Molly to continue.

  ‘The Palace had provided special coaches for us to travel in. It was pretty exciting because no one had ever been to the floating Palace before. Not even any of the teachers. And everyone was so excited to meet you. I overheard Mr Rosetta saying that this was just proof of the new era that Prince Stefan was ushering in. One where Talenteds would get the position in society that we deserve, or something. But then, he would say that, seeing as he’s our main Talented Arts teacher.’

  ‘I see,’ said Evelyn. ‘So you assumed I was at the Palace.’ That was one thing she had needed to confirm. It was unusual that members of the public had been invited up to the floating Palace, but not unprecedented. In fact, it was something she had wanted to reinstate once she was Queen.

  ‘Oh yes, the letter said that we were going to meet both you and the Prince. When we reached the castle, we were let out of the coach and then one by one we were taken up to the Palace via Transport screen. That was so exciting. The Palace is so beautiful. I can remember seeing all these candles floating in the hallway and these huge marble steps leading up to the different floors. We met the Prince in the entranceway, took some pictures with him and were given a guided tour of the Palace. Then it was finished. We were going to be sent home. And —’ Her breath caught in her throat, and tears sprung up in the girl’s eyes. She covered her face with her hands. ‘It’s all my fault.’