If they can wield their magic to destroy…why can’t I use mine to create?
I pick up an orange from the cart. “I can prepare and serve. I’d like to try a new drink. Something of my choice.”
Lila’s expression relaxes.
“You’re powerful, too.” She pats my arm before slipping through the servants’ door.
The males are wrapped in conversation on the far end of the room.
“…and what of the vote in the coming months?” Dominik is asking. “Do you know how Reign will decide?”
“I’m not sure even House of Healing agrees fully. Among our two seats, we are divided.”
“Mm,” muses the wolf. “House of Death always votes down the line. They must have graves for brains as well as homes.”
The executioner doesn’t move.
I chop up a strip of orange rind, toss it in the grinder along with clove, cinnamon, and cardamom. I pour the mixture into a glass of water to let it absorb. From the second shelf of the cart, I pull out the smoky amber liquor distilled in the white oak barrels in the Nest.
Flipping through my knowledge of plants like a deck of cards, I find the herb I need. The closed-bottle gentian. Indigo petals form an oblong shape, the edible root bittersweet. It has an earthiness similar to tarragon, a smell like fresh soil, like faerie magic.
It’s not in the bar cart.
Staring down at my golden moth ring, a new idea occurs. What if it’s too much for me to lace myself and food at the same time? What if the trick is lacing the food alone?
The servants’ door opens and Lila glides in, a tray of goat cheese and fig pastries in her hands. She quirks a brow at my work. “Everything okay?”
“Just making a drink for Lord Dominik.”
She nods on her way to the High Fae. In a moment, her light laughter bubbles into the space, followed by the rumble of male jokes, the scrape of plates.
My attention hovers on the golden moth ring, my mind’s eye seeing a map of the Illusion courtyards, the winding paths and shifting hedges. The little pops of indigo petals from an emerald bush nearthe western wall. The ring warms, energy buzzing, as my genius unspools through me and twists with the borrowed Reign magic.
I push the energies onto the plane, reaching, stretching toward that bush. My consciousness flattens, squeezes through mounting pressure, before bursting out on the other side. I feel it then, a piece of my genius hovering before the bush like a wraith, a small thread tying back to me, anchored in my finger.
After I thank the flower, my genius tugs on the shoot until it comes free, root and all. Cradling the shoot in my mind, I strain the plant through the compression, reel it toward me like spinning that thread around the spool once more.
The chatter of males titters in my ears, my focus blurring, chest tightening as the panic sets in. I am in the plane and I am here; I am nowhere. My grip falters on the mental limb, and I yank it toward me before it’s lost altogether.
My consciousness slams back into my body. Trembling, one hand gripping the cart, I gaze at the other, a white-knuckled fist. Uncurling my fingers, I take in the closed-bottle gentian in my palm.
I did it. I lacedfood. How much food could I lace to the tunnels, to the Peri, with this ability, while I wait for Maxian to approve my proposal? I could cry. With shaking fingers, I cut off the root, grind it with the mortar and pestle, drop it into the mixture. Straining the herbed water into a glass with the brown liquor and sugar, I garnish it with a thin slice of orange skin. The concoction should come out bittersweet, tangy, a little smoky.
A headache pulses behind my eyes, but I feel proud, no matter Dominik’s response. I bounce toward the males and Lila, drink in hand.
“My lord.”
“Took you long enough.”
“Consider this a thank-you for sending me to the House of Reign.” I smile at his pale, cold face, the silver hair that brushes his shoulders. “No one else in the kingdom of Amyria has had this drink before.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I created it now, just for you.”
The Illusion lord curls his lip. What is he thinking? That I am stupid or devious or both? Perhaps I don’t mind the glint of suspicion in his eye, as if I am a threat to be noticed.
“I’m happy to give this to Lord Eli instead,” I suggest.
