Tasia hunched in on herself; then the meaning of his words seemed to register. “Wait, drug? What do you mean?”
“Filemu is a rare plant that grows wild,” he started explaining. He scrubbed his hands up and down his jacket. “I think dryads use it to sooth their young.”
“We’re not baby dryads.”
He shook his head and looked at her, feeling more grounded as she stared back. “Human healers have tried to use it to calm people with really bad injuries. But it’s hard to find, and the side effects aren’t . . . great.”
As he was coming to expect, Tasia didn’t let it go there. Her forehead creased. “Does it kill people?”
Mitch set a hand on her shoulder, wanting to reassure her yet knowing the subject matter wasn’t soft and straightforward. She leaned into his touch and his mind blanked for a moment.
“What does it do?”
He dropped his hand so he could stay present. “It does create the illusion of calm, or downright shuts off the user’s brain while it’s in their system, but it also makes them very suggestible.”
Tasia opened her mouth, then paused like she wasn’t sure what to ask first. After working her lips in a couple inaudible words, she asked, “Shutting off their brain, like dying?”
“Not at first.” He shook his head. “It’s more that they don’t think for themselves. If it’s for a short while, under a healer’s care, that’s not so bad. But long-term use leads to death because the patient doesn’t feed themselves or drink or move out of the way.”
“That sounds really bad.” A grimace marred her delicate features. “What was the suggestibility part?”
This was the part that really bothered Mitch. “With the right dose, filemu users will do whatever you tell them to do.” He tilted his head from side to side. “As long as they know how to do it. You can’t ask them to cook a souffle if they never learned how, or fly like a bird.”
“That sounds like a bad tool in the hands of a nefarious person,” she said slowly. Her pretty blue eyes pierced him through the heart. “How do you know this?”
Mitch crunched his toes up inside his boots. “I’ve worked for a lot of different people over the years. Not all were good—mostof them,” he corrected himself, “were not good guys. By any stretch of the imagination.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you saying thatthat”—one gloved finger pointed to the overturned basket—“is well-known and commonly used?”
“No!” he hastened to assure her. “I only worked for one person that advocated using filemu that way. And I left his employ as soon as I could.”For that and other reasons, he added to himself.
“Just to clarify: Filemu is not something that Grandmother could use as a medication for herself?”
A derisive snort got away from him. “No. Especially not in that amount, every single week.”
Something resolved itself in Tasia’s mind; he could see it in the way she pulled herself up and nodded sharply.
“So what do we do now?”
They both turned to stare at the basket again. For a long moment, neither of them said anything.
“You suspect Grandmother of wrongdoing, yes? That’s why you called her ‘Granny’ in such a snotty voice,” Tasia observed.
A flash of heat painted his cheekbones. “Uh, yeah. She just gives off a bad vibe. And she’s really rude, making you wait outside her door until she feels like talking to you.”
“Are you sure that isn’t because she’s old and slow?”
“She sneers at you when you aren’t looking.”
“Oh.” Tasia took a couple steps toward the basket and used her toe to nudge it upright. “So it would be safest to assume she has bad plans for this stuff.” She looked at him. “I don’t want to give it to her now.”
“I don’t want you to deal with her at all, but I’m worried about how she will retaliate if you fail her.”
She winced. “Blunt and to the point. Thank you.”
“Sor—”
“Don’t be sorry,” she interrupted. “I need that right now.”
