But the moment I feel a familiar sensation of warmth spreading from my shoulder through the rest of my body, I realize why he must have insisted on looking for us himself. Danial’s healing touch sobers us up just enough for us to head to the gardens unassisted, and for my face to burn with embarrassment as I begin the long walk to the table where an empty seat beside Meredy has my name on it.
I curse myself for not telling Simeon about the breakup. I’m sure he would have made alternate seating arrangements for me, even at the last minute.
Hardly anyone is looking at me or Jax as we sit—instead, their gazes are trained on Simeon as he finishes giving a toast I assume was meant to occupy the guests while Danial fetched us. A cheer rises into the night air.
Meredy doesn’t even look my way as I slide into my seat.
“Now it’s a party!” Simeon calls, flashing Jax and me teasing grins to show he’s not upset. He gestures to the first course, already laid out in front of each of us. “Dig in!”
I poke at my slices of cold boar smothered in some sort of light brown sauce, moving them around on my plate so it looks like I’m enjoying the food. Despite the healing from Danial and only eating a slice of cake so far tonight, I’m no longer hungry. Something smells the slightest bit off, a whiff of an odor that reminds me of parsnips. I’ve never liked them.
From the look of things, Jax doesn’t have any appetite, either. He’s already back to sneaking sips from his flask when Valoria, seated beside him and hungrily tucking into her meal, isn’t looking. At least he’s put his fork in his hand to feign interest, though.
Gazing toward the head of the table, I watch the happy couple while Meredy alternates between eating slices of her meat and sneaking some into the napkin on her lap to give to Lysander later. I don’t understand how she can carry on like nothing’s wrong. I guess she really isn’t hurting over being apart.
Like Jax and me, Danial hasn’t touched his food yet, too busy kissing his new husband’s neck as Simeon tries to chew and swallow his latest bite while laughing.
Suddenly, Simeon drops his fork. It clatters against his plate, and instead of picking it up, his hands fly to his throat.
Beside me, Meredy coughs violently, gripping the edge of the table for support.
Strange, those two choking at the same time.
A moment later, Valoria falls forward into her plate, wheezing and clutching at her throat like Simeon. She can’t even seem to sit up.
Something in the air shifts as people begin to murmur worriedly to one another.
On Valoria’s other side, her twelve-year-old brother and her middle sister start foaming at the mouth, coughing and spluttering. A few seats down, Baroness Shealea’s lightly tanned complexion drains of color as she, too, struggles to breathe. Beside her, Katerina spits a mouthful of meat into a napkin, all sense of decorum abandoned.
And it’s not just them. The sounds of people gasping all around disrupt the still night air.
I don’t understand.
I grab Meredy’s shoulders to help her stay upright through a fit ofcoughing, my heart pounding in my ears. There has to be something more I can do. Her face reddens as she struggles for breath against whatever is ailing her.
Slowly, the horrible realization takes hold: There was something in that sauce that shouldn’t have been.
“It’s lady’s lace!” Danial shouts hoarsely above all the choking. He’s already trying to heal Simeon, so his Sight must have revealed the type of poison coursing through his husband’s veins. “Don’t touch the food!”
Lady’s lace is a dark green plant with tiny white flowers. As kids, Evander and I called it break-your-mother’s-heart until Master Cymbre taught us its proper name. Everyone knows that it kills by forcing your airways to constrict, which means no one would be stupid enough to put it in a sauce. Unless they were hoping to kill us all.
I can tell by the way Danial looks wildly around as he heals Simeon that he wants to do more, but he can only help one person at a time, and there’s no way he’ll get to everyone before they die. There’s no way he’ll get to everyone, period. He’ll be paralyzed long before that from using his magic too much in one night.
Even with the aid of the other healers in attendance at the party—two of whom converge on Valoria at once—there’s no way all the guests will make it out of here alive. Guards run around the long tables, helpless to do anything but try to hold people up and direct the healers toward them.
Meredy collapses in my arms. Somehow, through a haze of tears, I manage to lay her on the grass a few feet away from our chairs. I lean over her and exhale into her mouth, trying to breathe for her. Her coughs become more pitiful with each passing moment.
“You can’t do this,” I murmur, patting her cheek as her eyes drift closed. She doesn’t open them again, even when I shake her. “Youcan’t go. I love you too much.” I stroke her hair and cradle her head in my lap. “Please, Meredy, I love you.”
I can’t sense the rise and fall of her chest anymore.
“Please, don’t leave me,” I beg through a sob, staring at a patch of grass.
It hurts to look at her. It hurts to breathe. Everything hurts.
Finished healing Simeon, Danial swoops down beside me, and I scramble out of the way as he puts his hands on Meredy’s throat. His face is expressionless, as though it went numb from healing his new husband.
A dull thud nearby manages to make me tear my gaze from Meredy for the briefest moment. Noranna has fallen out of her seat. The white foam on her chin and the way she’s not moving tell me she’s past the point of help, even as I shout for a healer to go to her. Of course, they’re all busy already.
