It’s all there. A future I can never live taunting me at night like a beckoning Will o’ the wisp leading me to my doom.
His eyes narrow to thin slits. “I would never do that. I want you in my bed, Zemira, but I want you there of your own accord.”
“I know that.”
“But you hesitate.” He leans forward in his chair, his hands clasped between his knees as if he’s trying to solve a particularly complex equation. “You kissed me. You kissed me and then you pushed me away. Why?”
“Because….”
“You’re attracted to me.” He says it as though it’s a fact. “You want me.”
“I want a lot of things that aren’t good for me. It doesn’t mean I choose to pursue them.”
“Hmm….”
“You want to know what the problem is?” I snap. “You’re a prince. You’re a fucking dragon. When you walk through a forest, everything flees because you’re the predator. You can take what you want without consequence. For you, a kiss is just a kiss.” I hold my arms up so he can see the glyphs inked into them with magic. We’re the only ones who can see them. “For me, a kiss can never be just a kiss. The balance of power between us is skewed in your direction. You. Own. Me. Maybe you won’t insist I share your bed as payment, but even if I was to fall for your charms, the truth remains: We’re on uneven footing within this… partnership. And thankfully, I came to my senses last night before it was too late.”
His mouth opens, but….
For the first time since we’ve met, he appears to have nothing to say.
I roll my sleeves down and grab my knife off the table before sheathing it at my hip. “Now, I’m done playing by the rules. It’s only going to get me killed. Anissa and Belladonna are hiding something. Belladonna wants her betrothed dead. Malechus is holding something over Mistmark’s head in order to force him into marriage. Basically, we have two fae who do not wish to be married, and I want to find out why.”
Malechus is the key, I feel.
And in order to find the horn and Soraya, I think I need to know more about what’s going on with Malechus.
But I can’t tell Keir that, or else his hackles will rise again.
“You want to help?” I throw over my shoulder as I head toward the door. “Then keep Belladonna distracted for the afternoon. Just don’t kill her.”
“How in the cauldron’s name am I supposed to keep her occupied?” he growls behind me.
“I don’t know,” I call back. “Maybe you can show her your big scaly tail and see if she’s impressed.”
10
Boldness is the order of the day.
I spend the morning searching for certain herbs in the kitchens, blaming it on my moon courses—but what I ask for is foxglove and a four-leaf clover, and a flower spike from the lords-and-ladies plant. The clover is the giveaway. It tells the servants I want a charm, and they direct me to one of the towers that curls out of the mountain slopes.
Inside is the Ragwort Man. He’s a tiny brownie with brown-stained teeth and by all accounts serves as the apothecary here in the court. “Foxglove, you say? And lords-and-ladies?” he asks, as I press him for the clover. “That sounds like a nasty bit of charmwork to me.”
“It’s not real,” I tell him with a smile, as I examine the glass bottles and small tinctures on his shelves. For a brownie with good intentions, he certainly has a decent assortment of poisons, including a single ruby-red drop of miroire oil carefully sealed in a glass bottle. He’s sealed the bottle with lead too, which tells me he knows just how dangerous it is. Someone knows his trade. “It’s just a game we ladies play…. I want to deliver a message to one of my rivals.”
Arching a tufted brown brow, he produces the ingredients I ask for. “If anyone ingests that foxglove—”
“It’s not meant to be ingested,” I tell him. “I plan to tie it all up in a little satchel of black velvet, and leave it in the bed hangings of my rival. They say it brings misfortune and bad dreams.”
“Aye, that it does.”
“And if she finds it, then she’ll know to keep her hands off my prince.”
He doesn’t look convinced. “I’ve had three young ladies in here this week, looking for medicinals.”
“Three?”
“Best check under your bed,” he says through a nasty little smile.
“Oh, I always do.” I toy with a ring on my finger. The door is closed, but I make a great mimicry of checking it is latched. “Perhaps you can help me with something else…. Do you know if any of the servants have any abilities with natural remedies? One of the kitchen hands said there was a woman here….”
“Remedies to what?”
“The usual sort of feminine problems.” Which could be anything from avoiding an unwanted child, to removing a rival. Permanently.
The brownie pauses to polish his spectacles. “There was a young woman working here for a few weeks who had some interest in such remedies, but it appears she’s moved on.”
“Moved on?”
“Her name was Violet.” He puts his spectacles back on and peers over the top of them at me. “Took up with a fancy lord, I was told. Seems she preferred silk sheets to scrubbing her mistress’s floors.”
Violet. There you are, dear sister. Cultivating the same habits as usual. Soraya prefers not to carry her own poisons with her—it’s too easy to be searched. But most courts have an apothecary and I’ve never met one she hasn’t charmed.
It was an educated guess.
And it tells me more than he knows.
Violet is the persona Soraya uses when she wants to play the slightly mysterious maid. The fact she was offering hints that she might be able to assist in certain feminine complications means she was trying to get close to one of the ladies of the court.
She ingratiated herself as Anissa’s maid.
But
