He was too close. She could feel his electricity. Two warring instincts rose within her, one to step away from him, the other was something more primal that flooded her with panic.
Zephyr pounded through the greenhouse door and Asherton straightened. Magdala stood rigid, her cheeks flaming.
Zephyr slid beside Magdala, puffing, his arms laden with floral kitchen towels full of oozing red flowers. Magdala bither tongue, resisting the urge to scold him for using good kitchen linens.
“I told you to wear gloves—why won’t you ever wear gloves? Merciful heavens, the messes you make me clean up,” Zephyr complained.
“I think it is male,” Asherton said, considering the plant still biting him. His speech slurred. “From the shape of the head and its leaves. I think Anton is a good name for it. Also, I think it prefers human blood.”
“Perfect,” Magdala added. “I had hoped my new employer would have a pet that wants to eat me.”
Asherton made a disapproving clicking sound with his tongue. “He isn't big enough …”
Magdala crossed her arms and said primly, “Good.”
Asherton cast her another sparkling glance. “...Yet.”
Taking a chipped earthenware pot from a table, Zephyr poured the stingdrops in and ground them with a pestle. “Let me apply this, and he’ll let go.”
“Not yet. I need Anton to imprint on me,” Asherton said.
“You have about a minute and a half before the venom sets in.”
Asherton scratched Anton’s chin. “Zeph, wasn’t there something in the floristora about how their first scent of blood attaches them to their father and then their second …”
“Attaches them to their mother,” Zephyr replied. “If this is the hematopic species, then yes. That would be accurate.”
“Do these plants have blood like humans?” Magdalaasked.
“Their sap is rich in iron,” Asherton replied. “Plants with both maternal and paternal connections are very rare.”
“So where are its parents?” she asked.
“Wilted as pests …” His voice trailed off and he sagged sideways.
“There’s the venom!” Zephyr barked. “Catch him!”
Magdala lunged out and caught Asherton as he sank to the floor. His body was rag-limp, but he was conscious and seemed only vaguely inconvenienced by his sudden paralysis. Magdala supported his shoulders, his head in the crook of her arm.
“Isn’t this romantic?” he slurred.
She fought the urge to drop him on the floor.
Puffing, Zephyr knelt beside them and rubbed the stingdrops on Asherton’s hand. Anton released him, retching, and sneezed three times through little slits in his eyeless green head.
“How do you feel?” Zephyr asked.
Asherton raised his eyebrows—the only movement he could manage—and said, “A little venom never killed anyone.”
“Yes, it has. Quite often, actually.” The circles under Zephyr’s eyes deepened. “Miss Devney, once he can stand, bring him inside. I'm late for my nap.”
And with that, he strode out of the greenhouse and they were alone again. Uncomfortable, Magdala laid Asherton on the tile and leaned against the glass wall, her arms resting on her updrawn knees.
“I don’t see why people say you’re strange,” she said wryly. “This is all perfectly normal.”
Asherton watched her with palpable mistrust. With a newly functioning finger, he tickled Anton’s lightly furred green jaw, clucking softly like it was a newborn foal or a runt puppy abandoned by its mother. Magdala was astonished when the plant stopped snapping its teeth at him and thrust its head into his palm, cooing.
The prince was unsettling—raw and irreverent. Wealthy people were supposed to be snobbish and similar, all popped out of the same plaster cast. But Magdala had never met anyone like Asherton, not even in the Wildlands.
