“None,” Eurus says.
So, he lives alone on this barren rock.
“While I was gone,” he says calmly, “I returned to your village. My intention was to kill your employer.”
The rich broth coagulates into a paste plastered across my tongue. I swallow and return the spoon to the desk, my hunger evaporating. “And did y-you?” I whisper.
“Unfortunately, she evaded me.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “She seemed to have anticipated the attack. I assume this isn’t the first instance of an immortal escaping her? Or enacted revenge?”
It was long ago. One of the fair folk managed to slip away after stealing Lady Clarisse’s name, using it as leverage until she opened their cell door. Later, they returned, slinking into her bedroom while she slept. They would have pierced her heart, but she was ready. She pierced theirs first.
“If y-you had told her wh-wh-what she wanted to know,” I argue, “she might have let you w-walk free.” It sounds pitiful, even to my ears.
The East Wind’s laughter is one of roughened scorn. I flinch, for the sound is chilling, edged by sharp points.
“I’m constantly amazed by how blind you mortals are. You would rather stick your head in the sand than face the truth. That woman is evil.”
My face stings with rising heat. “That’s n-n-not true,” I say, though they are feeble, these words. If I am to have a home, if I am to remain close to Nan’s memory, then I must abide by her ladyship’s instructions. As she often touts, there is no room for compassion in the herbal arts.
“Shall I describe the hot coals shoved into my mouth, the branding on my bare back? Shall I describe,” he goes on, voice hardening, “the mutilation I endured, the severed fingers, their slow regeneration? Or how about the acid thrown in my eyes, the daily whippings, the blood pouring from my body in sheets? Shall I—”
“Stop!” I’m panting, a cold sweat beading along my hairline. I dab it with a shaking hand. “No m-more. Please.” What I feel is beyond illness. It is a rot that has taken root.
We stare at one other in silence. I cannot see his eyes, but I feel the rage vibrating off of him. He doesn’t understand. I am only doing what I can to survive.
“How l-l-long do you intend to keep me h-here?” I whisper hoarsely. Months? Years? Am I to live out the remainder of my days isolated in this highest tower above the sea?
My mind goes to all the things I will miss. My weekly stroll into town. Master Alain’s kindness, gossip snatched from front stoops and open windows. The churn of soil beneath my hands. Nan’s spirit, touching every overgrown grapevine in the garden. Her ginger scent, which I swear I smell on particularly frigid mornings. Freshly baked baguettes, which we would tear in two and slather with homemade blackberry jam. All those memories, clouding the air of the estate, the place I love most. A home that will be sold, soon enough.
“You will never return to your old life,” the East Wind states. “I suggest you forget about St. Laurent. From this moment on, you are under my employment. In return for your services, I will feed you, clothe you, provide a roof over your head. You may not find a home here, but you will not be mistreated.”
My breath comes short. Feast or famine, slap or caress. It is no choice at all. “We m-must have d-d-different definitions of m-mistreatment,” I dare say. “Everything you’ve done so f-f-far has been mistreatment.”
He considers me, this immortal. “Allow me to amend. I will never raise a hand to you. But should you decide to deceive me, you will quickly realize how dire the consequences can be.”
I cannot, will not, accept that. Somehow, I must return to St. Laurent. There might still be an opportunity to repair my blunder. Perhaps I might become the woman Nan always saw within me, hidden deep.
“Come,” says the East Wind, turning toward the doorway. “The day is long, and there is much to learn.”
6
“HOW ADEPT ARE YOU ATmaking poisons?” Eurus asks, directing me down a corridor on the second level of the manor.
The summer I came to live with Nan at her estate, she placed a mortar and pestle into my hand. I haven’t looked back since. “I can manage,” I say.
“That tells me very little.”
I glare at the East Wind’s back, where his scaled wings sit flat along his spine. With his long-legged stride, I’m forced into a trot. “If you want a more detailed r-r-response,” I say, “you need to ask a more s-specific question.” The slap of my shoddy loafers is abruptly muffled by the long, worn rug stretching the length of the hall. Tall, elegant windows panel one side, offering a view of the island, where sandy footpaths wind down the protruding rock to the strip of beach below.
He grunts, quickening his pace. The East Wind is…irkedby my challenge? “Allow me to rephrase,” he says. “How much of your employer’s work was hers, and how much was your effort?”
All teas made in-house are touched by my hand, every one of them. “M-most teas, brews, and poisons w-were created by me.”
“But she takes the credit.”
Admitting this feels like a betrayal to my employer. There would be no apothecary without her. She informs me of this often enough. “I’m j-just her apprentice.”
“Mm.”
