“S-sorry,” I whisper.
“Hurry up,” she snaps.
I place the mug on the table, and she ladles the poisoned tea into the hammered metal. A drop of liquid slides free of the rim.
“I th-thought the tea needed an extra ten d-days to steep?” I ask tentatively.
“Our Lady of Mercy requires ten days to reach full strength, but I need to test a sample, make sure everything is in working order.”
My hands fist behind my back, fingernails cutting deep into my palms. She will force the substance down the prisoner’s throat. Withhis wrists shackled, his ankles, he will be helpless to escape. Not that it will matter. She will soon learn the poison is defective. “My lady—”
She brushes past me, and the swish of her dress vanishes up the stairwell leading to the northern tower. My knees wobble. I collapse onto a chair and wait, heart in throat, for the sword to fall.
A furious shriek heralds doom. I lurch to my feet as her ladyship stomps downstairs. Should I flee? No, that would surely mark me as guilty.
Catching my arm, she yanks me up the stairs with impossible strength. When we reach the cell door, she flings me onto the ground.
“It didn’t work,” she snarls. “Tell me why the poison didn’t work.”
I scramble onto my back. “I d-d-don’t know, I—”
“What do you meanyou don’t know? You informed me Master Alain had all the ingredients. Did you lie?”
My mind is a frozen wasteland. Nothing roots. All I know is this: she cannot learn that I replaced vanishing night with a completely different substance. “N-no! Perhaps M-Master Alain gave m-me a d-d-different powder by mistake?”
“I see.” Her upper lip curls. “That is unfortunate.”
Sweat drips beneath my arms, and I gulp in air. Lady Clarisse has enormous influence in this town. If she believes Master Alain to have sold her the wrong ingredient, she might think it intentional, a means to steal her coin. It would not take much to blacklist his business.
“I-I-I’ll go b-b-back,” I whisper. “I’ll inform h-h-him of the m-mistake.” By which I mean, I will purchase another five tablespoons of vanishing night with my own meager funds. New shoes will have to wait. “I’m sure he’ll be h-happy to accommodate.”
“Stupid girl,” she snarls, and kicks my stomach. I curl inward with a pitiful cry. “Have you heard anything I’ve said these past weeks? Vanishing night must be added today.Beforenoon. If Our Lady of Mercy steeps longer than twenty-one days without the additive, the powder will not bind properly with the solution.”
She kicks me again, again, again. My stomach throbs; my bones quake in pain. I go limp. If I do not move, then I am not a threat. If I am not a threat, she will grow bored of me and eventually depart.
“Enough!”
The low growl lashes through the steel door. Through the shadows blotting my vision, I watch Lady Clarisse straighten, lips peeling back in a silent snarl. She slams a fist against the door’s metal face. “Quiet, worm!”
There is a heavy thud, and suddenly, her ladyship is plastered against the door, her startling shriek cut short.
I stare, wide-eyed, at the semi-transparent tendril that has coiled itself around her neck. She scrabbles at the noose with sharp fingernails. Her boots kick at the wall. “Min!” It emerges as a fraught wheeze.
I remain motionless, my feet fixed to the floor. No one outmaneuvers Lady Clarisse—no one. What sort of power does this god possess? It seems he can manipulate the air, but if that were so, why not force the door open? Why not fight back? Unless she has weakened him with other insidious brews?
“My… pocket,” she chokes, face purpling to indigo. “Toss it… inside.”
I lunge, searching her pockets. My fingers close around a small metal tin: sleeping powder. Prying open the top, I send it through the slot in the door. Seconds later, the noose vanishes, and her ladyship collapses onto the ground.
I rush to her side. “My lady, are you all right?” When I reach for her arm, she slaps my hand aside.
Sweat dots her upper lip. She wipes it away with the back of her forearm, then shoves to her feet, expression thunderous. “Min.” She glowers down at me as thoughIam to blame, and within her black eyes, there is the promise of blood. “Come with me.”
I wake to darkness.
I lie on the squeaky cot in my room, blankets having twisted around my bare legs. Any slight shift sends fire rupturing up my back. I mufflea cry, biting my cheek so hard copper coats my tongue. A chill rolls through me, and I shiver, though my skin is feverish to the touch.
Gingerly, I push into a seated position. Beneath my nightgown, a horrific bouquet blossoms across my skin: blue, green, mauve. Along my upper ribs, where Lady Clarisse’s boot made contact, the color has rotted to a mealy gray. I do not want to look at my back. In tatters, like the rest of me.
