The apothecary was a small stone building set back off the outer road with a greenhouse butted up to the side of it. I’d been in it once as a child, and I remembered being forbidden to touch anything. Took me years to figure out why.
The door to the greenhouse was open, and the man inside—blessedly alone, with no Otis or Isla in sight—knelt beside a row of plants, pulling out errant weeds. The tall bunches of delicate white flowers growing a few rows behind him sparked memories of bitter juice and months of stomach pains as my father prepared me for my initiation. With any luck, I might be able to convince theherbalist to slip me a bottle of hemlock tea to refresh my tolerance and build up Penny’s before we faced the third Oath. The one I’d been avoiding telling him about since he asked after it back in my den in Forstford. The one I was dreading most of all.
When I stopped in the doorway, the man inside looked so much older than I expected. Gray hair frizzed out from beneath a brown knit cap while wiry brows dipped low over coal-dark eyes. Heavy lines cut furrows in his forehead and around his mouth, set in a perpetual frown. He was thinner and more worn down than I remembered, his back hunched as if under a great weight, but there was no mistaking him.
“Harlan Volkur,” I said, forcing a smile. “And here I was thinking all the familiar faces were gone.”
He didn’t rise to greet me, but I didn’t expect him to. After so many years of listening to him agree with my father that I wasn’t worth the effort he put into me, it was assumed I’d get no courtesy from him. So, I’d have to take a different approach.
He sat back on his heels and brushed the dirt from his hands onto the thighs of his pants. “Kit Koesters, like a specter back from the dead. I’d heard the rumors you were here but didn’t believe them.”
I held out my hands. “Well, here I am. Glad to seeyoustill tending the fields of poison.” A nod toward the hemlock behind him had him glancing over his shoulder. “Not what I came for, but since I’m here…”
Harlan scoffed and pushed to his feet. “Whatdidyou come here for, Kit?”
It was strange to feel myself slipping into a persona I hadn’t worn in years. This was different than the stoic indifference I used with the rest of the Bone Men, the empty posturing that kept people at a distance. This waspure manipulation, identifying the chinks in the old man’s armor and exploiting them for my benefit. I’d watched my father do it to him for years, and I was a quicker study than I let on. Every part of it felt awful and wrong, but I needed what he had if I wanted any hope of keeping Penny alive. And right now, that was more important than my own comfort.
“Burn salve. Enough for two.”
His eyes dipped briefly to where the brand was hidden by my shirt before meeting my gaze again. I stepped into the greenhouse, over the rows of seedling vegetables, and closed the distance between us, stopping a hair too close and using the six inches I had on him to my advantage. I loomed over him as a grin crept across my face, and I knew I must have looked like my father: feral and mad and cruel.
My voice was ice when I added, “And enough hemlock tea to build my tolerance back up before the Shroud Warden tries to kill me in a few weeks.”
Harlan tried to pull himself up to his full height, but he still had to look up at me. For a moment, I saw the fear in his eyes before he set his jaw. “You know I can’t interfere. If you’re not strong enough?—”
“Don’t give me that, old man,” I snapped, and he couldn’t hide his flinch. “You did it for my father. You slowly poisoned me foryearsto make sure I could survive this, so I know you’re capable of interfering when it suits you.”
“I can give you the salve, but you’re not getting any hemlock.” He didn’t sound quite as confident as he had at the beginning of our conversation. “I won’t interfere. If you’re strong enough, you’ll live. And if you’re as weak as your father always thought you were, you’ll die. That’s the way of it.”
A dark chuckle rumbled out of me. “Well, if that’s howyou treat an old friend’s son, I suppose the Right Hand might like to hear about your part in lifting my father to power.”
He swallowed hard. “Hugo was ill.”
“Oh yes, of course he was.” I dropped my arm around Harlan’s stiff shoulders and pulled him against my side, gesturing at the veritable field of white flowers not far behind us. “You and my father made himquiteill, didn’t you? Tainting his food with hemlock for weeks until he succumbed.” I leaned my face close to his. “I know all your secrets. You’re not exactly in a position to be refusing me help.”
He tried to shift away, but I held fast.
“What would it matter?” His voice was laced with apprehension. “Vaughn’s been gone for years.”
“Yes, butyouare still here.” I dug my fingers into his shoulder to keep him close. “And I’m not sure how well Levitt will take the news that you helped my father eliminate those who disagreed with his vision for the Bone Men, or that you worshipedhimmore than you ever worshiped Eeus. And I think he’d be rightfully concerned to know that your alliance is so easily bought and that you show no compunction in plotting to murder your betters.”
“You have no proof,” he hissed.
I couldn’t bite back a laugh. “Oh, Harlan… Did you really not know my father at all? He wroteeverythingdown. I have records ofallyour misdeeds.” I grinned down at him and prayed the bluff was convincing enough.
There had at one point been proof, but it had been in my father’s later journals. I’d burned those years ago.
If the man could have crawled out of his own skin to get away from me, he would have. But I was stronger than he was. The lack of struggle was proof enough that he’d accepted that there was no escape.
“Fine,” he conceded through gritted teeth. “I give you the hemlock, and you keep your mouth shut.”
I patted his back and let him go. “Good choice.”
He jolted away the moment he was free and rubbed at his shoulder. “Not like you gave me one.”
I flashed another malicious grin. “Just giving you a taste of my childhood. Don’t act like you didn’t have a part in molding me into my father; you should have expected this.”
He sneered at me as he disappeared through the door to the house.
