“But what if Tal is right? If Ampara thinks we infected those soldiers, you know what they would do to us.”

Kaylah looks away from me toward the bamboo groves, and I’m surprised at my nerves as I wait for her answer. I have my own doubts about this mission—how could I not? Sitting under the awning this morning, listening to Tal propose a plan that could kill us all, or worse…the entire thing had felt surreal. I’d been ready to tell him he asked too much, that I’d sacrificed enough already.

But Tal’s words about the Amparan threat rang true. We’ve all heard countless stories about what happens to Ampara’s enemies. Villages razed to the ground, entire families sold into slavery. And while I don’t want to believe that the emperor would blame us for the battalion’s illness, I can’t deny the possibility.

“It would be harder for you there in many ways,” says Kaylah. “You’ll be locked away with the other rosemarked. They won’t treat you like a human being.”

“But there will be other healers there who would work with me.” I know I haven’t lost her yet, if she’s still talking. Kaylah has no authority over me—I could go whether she permits it or not, but the idea of continuing without her blessing scares me.

Kaylah lets out a long sigh. “This is a slippery slope, and it pains me to put you in such danger,” Kaylah says. “But I will help you.”

Over the next days, I prepare my potion with Kaylah’s advice. The principles behind it are simple. The soulstealer snake sweeps away your memories, and the only protection against it is ziko root potion, which weighs the memories down so they’re not permanently lost. Someone who’s taken ziko root and gets bitten still becomes amnesic, but his memory can be restored if we purge the venom from the body with a tincture of nadat root. A weak tincture restores the memory temporarily, while a strong one restores it completely. With Dineas, therefore, I’ll act as both snake and healer. I’ll give him snake venom and ziko before the mission, and nadat root after his mission is over.

The potion is the easy part. Perhaps that’s why I spend all my time on it, obsessively refining my mixtures, rather than face the last issue I must settle before I leave. I’ve not yet told my family. I don’t know what I’ll say, and I’m not prepared for their reactions, especially since I cannot tell them the whole truth. They’ll be safer if they don’t know the real reason for my quest. To them, I’ll simply be studying and serving in the rosemarked colony as a healer. Finally, with a few days left to spare, I gather my courage and summon them to my cottage.