A/N: A shoutout to my anonymous reviewer! Yes more ill people. More on that now. Thanks!
Chapter 17
Fiyero rushed down to the infirmary after exiting the meeting with the Council. He had promised them answers and hated keeping them out of the loop, but this was a mess that the Ozian government hadn't been built to accommodate. Technically, the Council would govern if Glinda was traveling out of town or in the short term if she was unavailable due to pregnancy, but a possible long-term illness was somehow left out of the language. Of course, when the rules were written, not too many people survived long illnesses.
"Fae," he kept his tone low as he approached his wife to be. She jerked her head toward the doctor's office and the two moved over there, away from the sleeping patients.
"Who's the new guy?" He'd noticed poor Larry in a bed not far from Glinda.
"Larry. He works at the mill that potentially provided the contaminated flour. I haven't heard from Chistery, which is bothering me," Elphaba explained now that they were behind the closed door.
"Sent him down there to find out what was going on? Maybe he's tracking down a lead?" Fiyero figured.
"A Munchkin named Nick gave the contaminated flour to Mr. Samuels. Maybe he found him. In the meantime, I don't think Larry has what Glinda and Bayram is dealing with. He would probably have been dead when we found him. Now that I got him in a more well-lit space, his skin has a yellowy tinge to it. It's some sort of digestive issue, which Doctor Talib is consulting the books. He's seen this before but at this advanced stage, he wants to confirm before I try any hocus pocus, as Talib called it," she told him with a chuckle at the good doctor.
"Ok, so Larry being out of work was legit. Maybe our Munchkin, Nick, is too. Perfect way to blame a Munchkin for using Munchkin flowers in the poison," Fiyero said.
"Could be. Glinda is feeling better, but I don't see her being able to rule for at least a week. She's been stuck in bed and barely able to keep food down. Her muscle tone is decreased from lack of activity and she's lost some weight; not that she had that much weight to begin with," Elphaba explained.
"Ouch. Ok, I need your help with the Council. I managed to parry their questions fairly well, but Boq wasn't kidding. These men are good men and they know when they are being played," he told her.
"Now that we have more evidence, I think you're right. We need to bring them up to speed. We'll need the assistance in keeping the public out of the loop," she nodded.
"Boq and Zetti are worried about leaks to the public. I can understand that so we'll have to try and limit the Council, if we can," Fiyero pointed out.
"Yes, for sure. In the morning, we'll talk to them. I need to run an experiment, but I need some space to do it. Let me tell Faruq that I'll be back in a little bit and you can help me," Elphaba smiled. Fiyero raised an eyebrow but didn't get a word in edgewise before she left the room. He quickly followed her and found her talking to the young man training to work in Doctor Talib's footsteps.
"Good luck Miss Elphaba, Prince Fiyero," Faruq bowed slightly.
"Same to you. Excellent work on discovering that flower," the Prince said.
"Thank you, sir," Faruq smiled. The two promised they'd be back soon and ducked out of the infirmary.
Down the hall, Elphaba led Fiyero into an empty office with dirty dishes spread out on the empty desk, along with some cupcakes that looked a few days too old. Not sure what he was looking at, Fiyero gave her a look. The dishes smelled, the food on them was obviously bad.
"So, the spell should help me find foreign objects amongst the dishes," she semi-explained.
"Where are these from?" Fiyero wanted to know.
"Larry's. The cupcakes are what Mr. Samuels made," Elphaba said.
"Larry is a bit of a slob or he had company?" Fiyero wondered.
"If I'm right about the digestive issues, then the latter – never got the chance to clean up, though I would have hoped someone would have gone looking for the poor guy. If he was truly poisoned, then the former. The poison is quick acting. Not sure he would have made it to the bed, but maybe that was all he was thinking before the onslaught began," she figured. He nodded and watched her try the spell. The magic flowed from her fingertips and around the items on the desk.
"What's supposed to happen?" Fiyero asked after nothing seemed to occur.
"The items are supposed to glow if anything unusual appears like poison. Nothing really seems to be doing that, but we know that Mr. Samuels used the new flour in the cupcakes and that was it. Only Glinda and Bayram ate them," Elphaba frowned.
"Maybe the amounts are too small now that the cupcakes aren't edible anymore," Fiyero shrugged.
"Maybe there's too much stuff to sift through. What if we separated a few things?" She wondered.
"You want me to touch this stuff?" He gave her a goofy look. She chuckled and pointed out that the cupcakes were on a plate and he pulled them away from the rest of the group, setting them on the floor. While he was doing that, Fiyero noticed that there was something odd about them.
"Douse the candles," he said. She did so, throwing them almost into complete darkness, as the shades had been drawn earlier.
"Winner, winner chicken dinner," Fiyero said as the glow grew to resemble the candles on a lighted Lurlinemas tree.
"The poison is not on Larry's dishes or his leftover food," Elphaba smiled. There was an urgent knock on the door and they bade the person to enter.
"Corporal Kaplan, what is it?" Fiyero asked.
"Chistery and the boys are back," she told them.
To Be Continued…