But she knew Miss Maple to be particularly low on lavender, so she kept the basket and stepped into the shop.Miss Maple was with a customer, so Diana paced the perimeter of the shop, hiding her face beneath her too big cap and watching the potion mistresses at work.
She’d learned so much in so little time.She could not yet brew a decent potion herself, but she had begun to learn the ingredients for certain ones.The love elixir was well above her expertise level, but she could concoct a sleeping draft and something to clear the skin.
“Can I have some of that?”Miss Binkins asked.She was one of the older potion mistresses, more Diana’s age than the younger girls, and Diana hefted up the basket for her to take her pick.
“Thank you, Miss Smith, thank you.Are you well today?”
“Quite.And you?”
“As well as can be.Better than most days.”Miss Binkins chuckled.“There’s an anomaly in the shop.”
“An anomaly?”
“Aman.”
“I do not think that fifty percent of the population can be considered an anomaly,” Diana said.
“In the shop they are.”
“There’re men in here every day.”Diana nodded at the guards.
“Oh, them.They’re less men and more machines.There’s a real man here.Right through there.”Miss Binkins nodded between two elegantly clad ladies near the front door.“Take a look.Quite the fine fellow to look at.I almost can’t concentrate.”
Diana looked in the same direction, and she could not see anything for a moment.Then the crowd parted, and Diana’s heart stopped.She wanted to run.To hide.To melt right through the floorboards.But she lost all ability to move.
“Transcendent,” Miss Binkins said.“Must be.No one looks like that without a glamour.”
Some men did.And her cousin was one of them.
Apollo.Here.In her safe haven, in the place where she’d found a home.Of course it couldn’t last.She had not thought the end would come so soon.Her hand flew to her neck, and her ears buzzed.
“Miss Smith?”Miss Binkins might have put a hand on Diana’s shoulder.Hard to tell.Diana felt nothing.And everything.The world exploded in chaos.Laughter too loud.Air too hot.Apollo shining too brightly, a dark glow, his hands weapons at his sides.
He would hurt her again.
He might hurt these women.
She couldn’t allow it.But what was she to do against him?She could not pull on a glamour here in the shop.Someone would see.
“Miss Smith.”Miss Binkins put an arm around her, guided her toward the stairs.“You’re unwell.To bed you go now.”
She let the other woman guide her upstairs and put her to bed, and she only rose to lock the door, to shove the old writing table she’d displaced last night against it.Not enough to keep him out.These breaths she gulped in through trembling lips… they could be the last free ones she took.They could be… the last ones.
* * *
She wokewith a pounding head who knew how many hours later.She was curled in her bed with her forehead pressed against the window.She didn’t remember falling asleep, only trying to curl more and more tightly into herself, to make herself so small no one could find her.
She opened her eyes.
And screamed.She jumped out of bed, lurched away from the window and the scowling demon beyond the glass.
Apollo.Apollo had found her.Or he’d sent his henchman, and she was not long for this world and?—
“Diana, it’s me.”
The words pushed through the pounding of her heart against her skull.It’s me.
No demon in the pitch-black sky.
