Poison. The weapon of women and men who weren’t clever enough to think their way out of a situation otherwise. When he was still a boy, his mother had tried to instill in him a few rudimentary skills concerning the poisons she favored.
Not enough to prepare them himself, of course. Charlotte Hargrave never would have divulged a secret that could then be usedagainst her. But how to identify them at a glance?Thathe could do.
He merely hoped he could find the right vial in time.
Three minutes.
Quicker. He had to be quicker. His mother’s bedchamber lay at the end of the hall.
Jogging toward it, he burst through the gilt-inlaid doors. More darkness blanketed the room, leaving the space a mere blur of vaguely familiar silhouettes: the four-poster bed, the wardrobe, the vanity housing all his mother’s creams and powders, the sitting area near the cold hearth, and a blanket draped across one of the chairs, out of place. A half-drunk cup of tea rested nearby.
A shard of guilt lanced his heart at the sight of it. His mother had been drinking it the day he had her arrested and thrown in the dungeon, all to appease Mariana. Her bedchamber must not have been disturbed since then; it lay frozen in time.
A testimony to what a terrible son he was.
Truly, a banner year. His mother imprisoned, his court dead, and—if the border villages were to be believed—some lunatic warlord called theBonesingerkilling his way through the outer forests. Had not his brother tried to warn him about that fellow?
Ah, well. Perhaps the man would do Edmund a favor and conquer Drakmor next, putting his wife out of her misery.
Two minutes.
Box. Where was the box? He looked under the bed but found nothing. He flung open the wardrobe and scoured its drawers. Swaths of fine linen, lace, and silk greeted his fingertips, but nothingsolid. Not even a stray vial lurked amongst his mother’s clothing.
Where was it? It had been so long since he last saw the box that he couldn’t even remember what it looked like. All he could recall was that itwasa box. A wooden box. But the only box he could see in the room at all was…
His mother’s jewelry box.
Edmund crossed the room in three long strides. Heart racing. Breath hitching. He opened the box. The glint of dark jewels shimmered against the velvet interior, masking the box’s true purpose. But he knew better. His fingers remembered just where to find the latch to open the hidden compartment, even though his mind did not.
One minute.
A softclickshushed through the still air. A hidden panel at the front of the box cracked open, revealing a row of small vials glittering within, alternating between green and brown hues. Edmund’s jaw tightened as his mother’s little rhyme for remembering which poison was which threaded through his thoughts.
“Green for when someone has done you wrong.
Brown for when you want them to sleep until dawn.”
His hand hesitated over the vials. What did Mariana deserve?
Sleep?
Or death?
“What are you doing?” a smoky voice asked from the doorway. Dark. Saccharine. Suspicious.
“Darling,” he greeted his wife without yet daring to look that way. Swiftly snatching one of each vial, he shut the hidden compartment and pilfered one of his mother’s many necklaces before finally snapping the box closed.
When he turned to face the slender Arathian woman looming in the doorway, he flashed her his most winsome smile. “I fear you’ve gone and spoiled my surprise. Here I was, fetching a gift for you.”
Mariana lifted the candle she carried higher, letting its light spill further into the room. Shadows carved deep ravines in her cheekbones, making her look even more feline than usual—like a lioness forged from obsidian and gold. A starving lioness.
A lioness who saw enemies around every corner and impending doom within every patch of darkness.
Her glowing eyes narrowed.
He pressed the two vials deeper into his left hand and hoisted up the necklace he had stolen with his right, letting the pearls and rubies wink within the candle’s flame. “You see? Do you not like it?”
A vague hint of relief eased some of the sharpness from the witch’s features. “Edmund, you know I do not like when you go wandering off.” Something shifted in her expression then, something that made her almost seem vulnerable. More like a woman and less like a monster. “It gets…so terribly lonely here without you.”
