Madly (10 page)

The same fears plague my brain. But if I let my fears act as my roots, I'll wither on the vine. “I'll have Kirsty with me. And I'll call Anita and Arjun—let them know I'm back in. Maybe if we can work together, we can
make sure one of us comes up with the potion first.”

He nods. “So what now? Have you thought about what ingredient might come next?”

I chew my bottom lip. “I've thought of something. But it's just a hunch. And if I'm right . . . I think I'm going to need a plane ticket.”

Chapter Twenty

Samantha

“YOU'RE BACK IN!” SCREECHES ANITA down the line.

“Yes! Granddad had some pearl powder stashed in his lab. Can you believe it?” The line is crackled and full of static, so I miss her next sentence. “'Nita, I can barely hear you . . . did you get my email?”

“Sorry, hun . . . distance call is expensive . . . got your mail . . . keep your pearl powder safe! Rumors are that someone had theirs stolen last night. Better to work together than let the Zs win! See you here soon.”

“Wait! Where should I meet you?” I ask, but she's already off the line.

The phone buzzes again. “Anita?”

But it's not. “Sam, it's Kirsty. I'm coming to pick you up now. Your dad wired me the money to book the flights; I've got you some clothes, just grab your toothbrush and let's go.”

“Okay but—” She hangs up before I can get the sentence out. What is it with people cutting me off?

I sit down on my bed, gripping the corner of my duvet. I'm about to travel halfway across the world from Nova to Bharat, a country with one of the biggest untouched areas of Wilds. The terrain in Bharat ranges from desert to rainforest to mountains to some of the world's most densely populated cities. The capital city, Loga, has over ten times as many people in it as Kingstown.

Not only have I never even used my passport before, but the first time is going to be to the country that's going to give me the biggest culture shock I could possibly experience. This is jumping into the deep end of adventure, with both feet and no lifejacket.

It's all to find real eluvian ivy. Ever since I saw it mentioned in that old book, and then Zain's reaction when I asked for eluvian powder in the lab, it's been my hunch that it's one of the ingredients. Typical that this time I know it's something we don't have—it's rare, and combined with the fact it's extremely volatile and needs to be kept in special wooden canisters, we don't bother stocking it. And it's dangerous for the Finders too. Its habitat is the deepest, darkest rainforests of the Bharatan peninsula.

I judge I have at least ten minutes before Kirsty rocks up, even if she jumps every red light and hops every curb. I dash around the house like a mad woman, but before
shutting down my laptop, I log on to Connect—the most popular social network in Nova. I find a surprising number of people that I've barely even spoken to trying to add me as a friend—and twice as many again who are complete strangers. I've never been a huge fan of Connect, if only because it seems like just another place for Talenteds to congregate and exclude me online. So my profile is set firmly to “private” and contains as little information about me as I can get away with.

I scroll quickly through the new requests, deleting and denying as I go, but one name causes my finger to catch on the delete button. Zain Aster. Again.

I hesitate for a moment, then before I can talk myself out of it I hit connect. Immediately his profile unfolds on the screen before me. Strings of photos, the most recent ones catching my eye, as they were obviously taken at the Rising. Zain is standing next to his father on the yacht, Zol holding out the pearl in front of him in his palm.

Dad calls from the hall, “Kirsty will be here any second. Ready?”

Then I catch the status update. Zain's latest one.

Zain Aster is about to jump to Bharat. Madness. @TheKTTransportLounge

My stomach flips at the thought, even though that's as good as confirmation that my hunch is right. It's a big
country, I tell myself. The odds of running into Zain in the rainforest have got to be slim.

*   *   *

An hour later, and I'm sitting inside the terminal at Kingstown International Airport, waiting for Kirsty to buy magazines and snacks for the journey. Unlike Zain and his dad, there's no way we'd go to the KT Transport Terminal—it's just too expensive.

I open my diary, smoothing the pages on my lap. I thumb through the recipes, my neat scrawl covering the pages. I turn to a fresh page. Then I write at the very top:

Love Potion

*Full moon oyster merpearl. Crushed. 30 g.

*Eluvian ivy

I hear the telltale snap of a camera going off behind me and I slam the journal shut. I spin around and a young girl, not much older than Molly, is pointing her phone at me.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I ask.

“You're that girl off the TV, right?” she says. “My friends aren't going to believe this. You were in the hunt. Can I get your autograph?”

I hesitate for a moment. “Sure, if you show me the picture first?”

She shrugs and hands me her phone. I zoom in but breathe out a sigh of relief when I see you can't read the ingredients.

“Wait, can we take a selfie instead?” she asks.

“Um, I'm not—”

Before I've even finished speaking, she takes the picture. If this is going to be standard practice, I really need to work on my posing. The girl says a quick thank you and rushes off to join her parents.

“What was that all about?” Kirsty comes over and dumps her heavy carry-on bag on the seat between us.

“She thinks I'm famous, maybe?”

Kirsty purses her lips. “We're going to have to be more careful. It's not just the media we have to look out for; it's everybody with a phone. I somehow don't think your involvement is going to be a secret for very long.”

“What should we do?”

“I have an idea; I'll send a message to my contacts in Bharat. Until we get there, be extra vigilant. We still don't know what we're looking for beyond . . .”—she drops her voice—“the ivy, and we need to change that.” She gestures to her bag. “So pull out a book and dig in. We have a lot of research to do.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Let's see . . . You think the ivy is an ingredient, but you're not sure. I'm going to trust your hunch, but one hunch isn't going to be good enough. Not if we want
to beat ZA and the rest. They can afford to transport, which already puts them hours ahead of us. And the setback with the pearls puts us behind even the ordinary teams, like your friends the Patels. Down . . . but not out.” She leans forward conspiratorially. “But we have an advantage.”

“What's that?” I say.

She puts her finger on my forehead. “That.” Then she moves it to hers. “And this. Your skill for mixing potions. My nose for finding ingredients. We're heading out into the deep Wilds now, Sam. If we can figure out what elements might go into a love potion, get a jump on what the next ingredient is, we might actually have a shot at this thing.” A sequence of beeps sounds out from the overhead intercom, and we're ready to depart. “Come on. We've got a nine-hour flight ahead of us. Might as well make it productive.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Samantha

THE HEAT OF BHARAT HITS me as soon as we disembark from the plane, and I peel off the sweater I've been wearing. My pale blue T-shirt sticks to my skin. The humidity and warmth are so far removed from Kingstown weather it almost feels like we've flown to another planet.

“Wait here,” Kirsty tells me, right before we leave security to pick up our luggage. When she's back, she has two silvery scarves in her hands. “Put one over your head.”

“Why, is this the custom in Bharat?” I ask, winding the scarf over my hair.

“It will help you blend in with the crowd, but even better than that, it's perfect for thwarting any paparazzi that are around. Try it on me.”

I take out my phone and snap a picture of her with the flash. The picture shows a bright white light
obscuring her entire face. “This is genius!” I say.

She grins. “Right, now let's go.” Kirsty shoots through the crowd in the arrivals area like an arrow from a tightly strung bow, and I struggle to keep up with her. I keep my eye out for cameras, but it's so busy it's impossible to tell who's coming and going through the sea of people.

All through the flight, we pored over the books Kirsty brought with her, but I'm having a mental block. I hope my brain is still ticking over the information, even as now I have to use all my senses to take in the sights, sounds, smells of Bharat.

“Over here!” Anita shouts at us, ducking under the barrier and throwing her arm around my neck. “Finally! Arjun's waiting in the truck. Come on, we're going to leave straightaway.” Anita's eyes sparkle with mischief. “We're going somewhere no other Participants will know about. It's the kind of place you can only find if you have local knowledge.”

Kirsty nods. “Lead on! Arjun is one of the best apprentice Finders I've seen in years, so I trust his instinct.”

Anita blushes with pride for her brother.

Once we're outside, I have to take a moment to catch my breath. Everywhere is riotous with color and smell. Horns blare, voices are shouting, and tinny Bharatan music is blaring from an old-fashioned style boombox tied to the back of a scooter. I step back when I'm almost run over by a rickshaw, pulled by an incredibly thin but
strong man, and carrying a girl in a beautiful, flowery dress with an ostentatious parasol.

“Careful!” says Anita, who takes my hand and navigates us across the road. I don't think I've experienced a more perilous crossing in my life. Not only am I dodging rickshaws but dark-windowed SUVs, motorbikes, and porters rolling massive luggage trunks stamped with the name of some luxury designer.

The truck that Anita leads us to has a smashed backlight and a bumper that looks like it's held on by duct tape and a prayer. Kirsty and I bundle into the back, while Anita squeezes in next to her brother on a bench-like front seat. Arjun isn't driving, though. “Sam, Kirsty, let me introduce our cousin, Vijay,” says Arjun.

Vijay grins, then reaches out to the rearview mirror and grips a small statue of a god that's dangling there like the air freshener in Kirsty's car. He mumbles a quick prayer and pulls out into the mayhem.

No wonder he needs to pray. My knuckles have turned white gripping the seat (did I mention that there are no seat belts?), but Vijay seems to have some kind of magic sense that guides him through the traffic.

Even Kirsty looks grim, so I grip tighter and focus on holding on to the contents of my stomach. We don't head into Loga, the capital city, which disappoints me a little. All the way to Bharat and I'm not even going to be able to see the main attractions that adorn the postcards:
the red-bricked palace that once housed the Bharatan royal family, or the enormous gold-plated statue of the multi-headed elephant god. Still, once we're out of the city, the roads clear of the mayhem. Kirsty relaxes, and I follow suit. That's when it strikes me how tired I am. I feel like I haven't slept in days.

“So what do you guys know so far?” Kirsty asks.

Arjun and Anita shift in their seats so they are facing us. “We've got it on good authority that there are other teams out there looking for golden jasmine as the next ingredient,” says Arjun. “Someone got in touch with our relatives who live in the Wilds to try to get a guide.”

Jasmine. Bloom found across the Bharatan peninsula, into the Kang mountains and beyond, far into Shan province. I almost smack my forehead, it's so blindingly obvious. “Of course! That makes sense. It's the perfect ingredient for a love potion.”

White jasmine flower is common enough, and readily available in most potion stockrooms, even in Kingstown. I've used it in plenty of potions, often reluctantly—as it is most often used to . . . ahem . . . increase virility. Yeah, when old Mr. Waters from the grocery store around the corner came in to ask for a virility potion, the unwanted mental images made me shudder. I even debated not putting the right amount of jasmine in, so it wouldn't work. Of course, that wouldn't do much for our already downtrodden reputation, so I just did my duty. But, when
the new Mrs. Waters came in asking me personally to start fudging the recipe, I was happy to oblige. Anyway, that's by no means its only use: it's a versatile plant that can boost everything from self-confidence to simple happiness. The golden version is rarer but, when mixed with boiling water, unleashes heightened potency.

“So you agree? That's good. When you wrote about your eluvian ivy hunch in your email it was karma. We can get both of those ingredients where we're going.”

“And where is that?” asks Kirsty.

Vijay decides to join in the conversation, and he turns around too. “To my village! We refused those other Participants. Why would we help them? The Wilde Hunt is a Novaen tradition; since we are no longer a Novaen colony, we have no desire to help your alchemists and Finders pillage our Wilds. But you, you are family.”

“Uh, Vijay, maybe you better keep your eyes on the road?” says Arjun, who is now gripping the steering wheel and driving from the passenger seat.

To my relief Vijay puts his hands back on the wheel and focuses on the road again. I peer over his shoulder and see the speedometer pointing at 10 mph. Yeah, that's definitely broken. “Our village is important because it's said to be the resting place of the goddess Daharama,” he says. “Goddess of love.”

My eyes open wide at that. “Wow.”

“The legend of Daharama is that every living thing
that set eyes on her fell deeply in love. Eventually she decided that in order to keep the number of people who loved her down to a minimum, she would live in a secluded village, far from the rest of mankind. Our village is that village.”

“Really? I'm pretty familiar with Bharatan legends and I seem to recall that hundreds of villages claim to be the home of Daharama,” says Kirsty.

Vijay spits out of his window. “Those other claims are heretical. Ours is the true one.”

The fire has gone out of him a bit, and I'm annoyed at Kirsty for ruining the story. “Well, I'm not that familiar with Bharatan legend. Carry on? There might be a clue in the story that will help us build a love potion.”

Kirsty shrugs her indifference and Vijay continues. “People still came to visit her, of course, including young couples who wanted her blessing to grant them a lifetime of love and happiness. She met anyone who made the long journey, but she always made sure to do so behind a curtain of heavy silk, so that no one could lay eyes on her. As a sign of respect and gratitude, her pilgrims would lay wreaths of jasmine flowers at her feet.

“Daharama lived in peace like that for a long time, but you cannot be the goddess of love without invoking some jealousies. Even hatreds. The legend continues that Daharama had one day without any visitors. She was very tired as she had not had a day free in many
years. She decided to relax her mind by going on a walk through the nearby jungle, where she could gather up food and firewood and spare her willing servants from their duties for one day.

“But the reason she had no visitors was because of the jealous goddess Lakishi—her sister and opposite in every way. Lakishi had diverted the pilgrims in order to get Daharama alone. Then, as Daharama was walking in the jungle, Lakishi accosted her with her familiar, a huge white tiger known as Gar. But Daharama had at that moment chosen to lower her veil, to take a closer look at a beautiful jasmine flower growing on a tall tree. Lakishi caught sight of Daharama, and all of a sudden her hatred melted away, to be replaced with unconditional love.

“The problem was, the tiger also fell in love with Daharama. He saw Lakishi as a rival for Daharama's affection. He bared his teeth and growled most fiercely at Lakishi, who was too enchanted by Daharama to notice. She moved to give her sister a warm and loving embrace, but at that moment Gar decided to pounce. His great bulk threw both sisters to the ground, and Daharama's head was dashed upon the very tree she had been admiring.

“Realizing what they had done, Lakishi begged Gar to kill her too, which he did. Gar himself walked far into the jungle and died of a broken heart.

“Daharama's blood seeped into the ground where she
had been slain. The roots of that jasmine vine drank up her blood and now its petals are tinged with pink. We consider the pink flower that blooms there to be a gift from the goddess, that we are duty-bound to protect.”

“It is the rarest and most potent jasmine bloom there is—way more than golden,” Arjun says.

“Pink jasmine. I'm impressed. And it's worth a fortune on the black market,” says Kirsty. “You'll give it to us just like that?”

“We have protected the flower for many generations, but for family, and for your princess, yes. We will permit you to take two blooms. Anita and Arjun have said you are as family to them, and so, to us.”

“Then we are deeply honored.” Kirsty reaches over the seat and places her hand on Vijay's shoulder.

“Thank you so much,” I say, almost breathless at their generosity. “So we can go get the pink jasmine, then on to the eluvian ivy?” I ask, but it's not really a question. Already I can feel the potion building in my head, puzzle pieces turning, turning, and then finally slotting together. I pull out the diary and add pink jasmine to my list of ingredients.

Kirsty continues to interrogate Vijay on other ingredients native to Bharat, but my eyelids droop as we bump along the rutted road. I barely even wake as Kirsty hands over our Wilds passes at the border.

Waking up stiff from being tumbled about, I blink the
sleep out of my eyes and take in my surroundings. It's a complete swirl of green outside my window, lush jungle that occasionally sidles right up to the glass and brushes it with a long green finger. The road is nothing but mud—a far cry from the highway we were on before. I find it hard to believe that this is the main thoroughfare to the Patels' family village. But then, what do I know?

A little further down the lane, the jungle cuts away abruptly and the first signs of civilization appear: a string of flags strung from a tree, an abandoned wooden bucket overturned and sprouting a coat of moss as if the jungle is claiming it as its own. And a face suddenly appearing in the green makes me jump, but it's just the inquisitive look of a little girl.

Vijay slams on the brakes and I fly straight into his headrest.

“We're here.”