I pay for the items and grab my basket. “Good day to you, sir.”
“And to you, Min.”
As I reach the door, my hand tightens around the knob. Easy—too easy, perhaps—to step beyond the shop, return to the estate, brew the next poison, remain silent as the dead. But the hole into which my dismay floods yawns wider. Something is not right.
Turning, I say to him, “Vanishing night.” I hold up the small envelope. “May I ask what its properties are?”
He studies me a moment, suddenly guarded. “That depends on what ingredients you’re brewing it with.”
“Silk violet, liquid amber, hair of a banshee, tears of a pregnant mortal in her second trimester.”
He frowns, pondering this information. I shift uncomfortably in place. “Sounds to me like a poison to drain a body of strength.”
I blink at him. “Come again?”
“When the liquid is consumed,” Master Alain explains, “it will move through the bloodstream like threads with small hooks, which attach to the victim’s arteries and veins, siphoning all nutrients from the muscles and flesh.”
I am struck mute with horror. Her ladyship’s cruelty is a staple in my life.Artistic ingenuity, she calls it. Why do I continually underestimate her? “But the strength will return, won’t it?”
“Yes, but it may be days before that occurs.”
So Lady Clarisse intends to drain the prisoner of strength, thus removing the last barrier—his will—barring her from the location of his ax. The man—god—will survive, but only long enough for her to bury that god-touched weapon in his chest.
“Good day to you,” I say, then depart the shop swiftly, my basket of supplies banging against the side of my leg.
“My lady?” After wiping the dirt from my loafers, I enter the workshop. The door leading to the basement stands open a crack. A pained shriek splinters from the obscured depths below, and I flinch. Nothing I can do. Not unless I, too, wish to be confined belowground.
As I do every week, I remove the ingredients from my basket and line them across one of the battered work tables. Our Lady of Mercy simmers in a pot on the stove. It reeks of spoiled meat. Once vanishing night is added, the poison requires another ten days to steep.
I fiddle with the powder-filled envelope uneasily. This is not how Nan conducted business. Her teas promoted healing. They never inflicted pain or granted one person power over another. Some nights, when I am feeling particularly daring, I consider the possibility of resuming her legacy: bringing healing back to St. Laurent.
And so I wonder. Might I obtain the information Lady Clarisse seekswithoutforcing a poison down the deity’s throat?
What makes you think you have the authority to question my work?
My hand trembles. The envelope slips from my grasp. It hits the table, and powder clouds the air, the floor, the front of my apron. I snatch the envelope, peer inside. Less than a teaspoon remains.
Dread. Dread like nothing I have ever known hardens my stomach to stone. Her ladyship will kill me. I know this as a truth of the world, like the easterly sunrise, the flow of water downstream.
Tiptoeing toward the basement door, I press my ear to the crack. A dull roar floods my eardrums, my heartbeat a cacophonousthump, thump, thump.
“Again,” Lady Clarisse snarls.Crack!A weakened cry crumbles, petering out beneath the hiss of the simmering brew. I recoil, nausea ringing my throat. I’m sweating so profusely the envelope wilts in my dampened palm.
Seconds later, the creak of wood pricks at my awareness. Footsteps, ascending the stairs.
Move, Min!She can’t learn of my mistake.
My body lurches into motion. Two steps, and I reach the open window, nearly dropping the envelope in my haste to empty theremaining powder onto the overgrown hedges. A gentle wind wipes all evidence away.
Envelope clutched in hand, I spring toward the supply cabinet and select a powder of summer thyme, a harmless ingredient similar in color to vanishing night. I add five tablespoons to the empty envelope—the amount required for the draught—and shut the cabinet door seconds before Lady Clarisse stomps into the kitchen, her boots marking bloody prints on the scuffed floorboards.
“Oh.” She blinks. “You’re back.” After peeling the soiled apron from her front, she tosses the garment into a basket in the corner before washing her hands in the washbasin. “I trust Master Alain had everything in stock?”
With her back to me, I’m able to slip the envelope amongst the ingredients unnoticed. “He d-did.”Breathe. Just breathe.“I… didn’t w-want to disturb you.”
My employer ignores me as she stirs Our Lady of Mercy, wisps of steam rising to moisten her pale face. As though sensing my attention, she glances toward me in irritation. “Well? Don’t just stand there. Fetch me a glass.”
As she dumps the envelope’s contents into the pot, I retrieve a copper mug from the cupboard, accidentally hitting a stack of plates in my haste to comply. The sharp clatter causes her head to whip in my direction. Her dark eyes promise pain, always pain.
