"Dark hells," she muttered and drained the water.
Delphi's neck ached. She moved to refill her basin and stripped out of her sodden night gown. The icy cold water made her face burn, but it helped with the headache. She didn't bother to use magic to heat the water as she washed the sweat from her body. Her skin was hot and too tight, as if she were running a fever.
Had she used too much magic yesterday? It didn't seem like much at the time, just a simple transmutation for her father. She was hollowed out and drained.
Delphi brushed and braided her hair before checking it in her cracked hand mirror. She froze, her eyes staring in disbelief at the long red scratch that ran from under her ear to her shoulder.
The dream... She dropped the mirror, her hands shaking.
"Deep breaths. This is impossible. Dreams can't hurt you, just like they can't give mind-altering orgasms," she told herself. Maybe a bug had bitten her, and she had scratched herself in her sleep? That made more sense.
Delphi pulled on a fresh pair of leather leggings and a linen tunic, then loosely laced her bodice over it. She needed to eat and make tea to alleviate her throbbing headache.
Stumbling into the kitchen, she risked making her headache worse by placing her hand on the tea kettle and heating the water. With well-practiced ease, she mixed dried feverfew, peppermint leaves, and ginger into a cup and poured the hot water over it.
Delphi noted that the soup she had left for her father had been eaten. She cocked her head, listening, but couldn't hear his usual snores. That was strange. Even when he went out to the tavern, he always managed to make it back home again.
Delphi ate the heel of yesterday's bread and sipped her tea. Her stomach clenched, but she managed to keep it down. She found her small jar of healing balm and rubbed it over the scratch on her neck. It burned for a few moments before a cooling sensation moved over it.
The dream had felt so real. It had been clearer than ever before, too. Had she somehow used her magic in it? Her pussy felt sensitive and a little sore. Light had filled her, and she had glowed as she came hard for her shadow man.
Delphi cringed. Maybe shehadused magic in her sleep. She would have to go through her books and try to find any reference to dream magic in them. She would ask Narcisse if she had to. She couldn't have her magic leaking when she was asleep.
"Just what you need." Delphi rubbed her temples and the knots in her jaw. Would a charm or talisman work? She had used them before when she was younger and had struggled with hermagic manifesting when she got angry. She had been angry a lot as a teenager.
Taking her tea, Delphi stepped outside into her garden. On one half of the small plot, she grew vegetables, and on the other side were herbs, medicinal plants, and flowers.
When she could get the seeds, she grew delphinium, the deadly blue flowers she was named after. When ingested, it could kill beasts and humans alike. She had only ever distilled one batch of poison from it, and it had never been used. Mostly, she made her own ink from the blue petals and would pick bunches to brighten up her room.
Delphi's eye snagged on the crumbling stone wall. The loose stone she used to hide her money was upside down. She had been in a rush to get inside the night before. Maybe she had put it in wrong? Her heart in her throat, Delphi pulled out the stone and felt around behind it. Empty. Her money was gone.
Delphi dropped to her knees, blood rushing from her head. "Narcisse..."
It had to have been him. How had he known about it? She had always been so careful with her hiding places. She suspected he would go through her rooms, so she had never left her money in the house.
A hot, angry sob broke free from her chest, her fingers gripping the dirt. She tried to take some deep breaths all the way into her stomach to try and calm down. She had to find him before there was nothing left.
Delphi went inside to grab her bag and locked the cottage before heading toward the village. She half expected to find Narcisse passed out in a ditch, but all she saw was the mangled remains of a deer on the edge of the forest. The kill looked fresh, but she saw no other creatures about.
Delphi cringed and picked up her pace, the uneasy feeling in her stomach growing with every step. The village should havebeen busy at that time of day, but the streets were empty. The bakery tables hadn't been put out for customers either. She wanted to go in and ask what was happening, but kept walking. The sooner she found Narcisse, the better.
The tavern was always open, and Delphi spotted horses in its stables. They didn't look like the usual country nags. Occasionally, they had travelers, but they usually came later in the summer. Spring in Grisvallon was still dreary.
Delphi pushed open the tavern doors and approached the bar, where the owner was wiping down the counter.
"Hey, Alain. I don't suppose you have seen my good-for-nothing father anywhere?" Delphi asked, sliding onto a barstool.
Alain didn't stop cleaning. "He was here last night. Seemed to be in a good mood because he had come into some money. Don't ask me how."
"He fucking stole it from me," Delphi said and put her head in her hands. "I'm going to murder him."
"You might have to get in line," Alain replied. Something in his tone made her lift her head. He was looking at a space just past her right shoulder. Delphi opened her mouth to ask what he meant by that when a smooth voice broke the silence first.
"Delphinium, it has been too long."
Hot panic dumped down her spine, and she slowly turned around. A group of three men stood behind her. Two brawny bodyguards flanked a lean, well-dressed man carrying a rapier.
Louis Boudon was the son of Rodolphe, Lord of Bellemere. Technically, Grisvallon was still a part of his father's territory, but in the two years since they had lived there, Delphi had never seen a trace of their overlords.
