‘What was THAT?’
‘BAJI?!’
Xander laughed as he walked away, leaving Bisma to face the girls.
She smiled shyly. ‘Thatwas none of your business,’ she said, walking over to Xander’s bed to grab a blanket. ‘Mei, help me set this down.’ She and Mei placed the blanket on the floor for them all to sit, and Azalea grabbed pillows. As the girls crowded on, getting cozy, she continued, ‘Xander helped me find the cure that saved you all.’
The girls had a thousand questions, ranging from asking how the goats were (Nori) to how long they were asleep (Mei) to what exciting gossip they had missed (Azalea). Bisma answered all of them, everyone talking over one another as they came up with more and more questions. She had missed them so sorely: each of their voices, their expressions, their touch. Her heart panged.
Then Xander joined them with food—a hearty vegetable soup with warm bread and baked potatoes topped with golden butter and melting cheese—and the girls ate their fill, growing more and more energetic as their weakness wore off, their voices and laughter increasing in volume by the minute.
They all laughed and teased. Deeba looked on in wonder at all of them, speaking her own gibberish, her little chubby hands squeezing Bisma’s.
Bisma held Deeba close. She had nearly lost all of this … that could never happen again. Now that they were all alright, she needed to find out who did this. She would get revenge.
Eleanora was the only promising lead she had come up. But how to bring it up? How to investigate?
And there was now a glaring hole in her theory—why would Eleanora poison Xander? Even if only to hurt Bisma, it was hard to consider that Eleanora would risk her precious son.
‘What is it?’ Xander asked, as if he could sense her thinking.
She turned to him, to his patient, kind face, the face that she loved so dearly. She couldn’t do it—she couldn’t tell him her suspicions, not without evidence. ‘I—’
She broke off, noticing a figure lurking behind Xander. In the shadows outside the greenhouse, Frederick was watching her.
When her gaze met his, he spun on his heel and disappeared.
Why was he watching them?
‘Bis,’ Xander said, brows furrowed. ‘What’s wrong?’
She cleared her throat. ‘Nothing.’ She stood. ‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she said, smiling reassuringly at the girls and Xander.
‘Anything I can do?’ he asked.
She touched his cheek. ‘No, thank you.’
Bisma slipped away from the greenhouse, leaving them chatting and laughing. She went to the mansion; she knew where the back door to the laundry was and it was easy to sneak in from there.
Inside, she ducked away from servants, not wishing to be seen. Lurking quietly, she made her way upstairs, going to the wing that housed all the family’s rooms. She soon found it—Frederick’s room.
Bisma slipped inside, closing the door behind her. A grandfather clock ticked in the corner, as she looked around, her heart beating fast. Frederick’s desk was clean, but she pulled open the drawers, finding vials from the Apothecary; she recognized the special glass bottles imported from Castletown.
They were regular-looking potions, nothing suspicious or strange. In his papers she saw maps of town, blueprints, nothing of any use.
Bisma glanced out the window behind the desk. Down below, Frederick was talking to a group of men who looked to be workers—surely the workers on his expansion project.
Her thoughts raced. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the poisonings began soon after Frederick came to town. Bisma had been too preoccupied suspecting Eleanora to consider someone just as powerful and resourceful. She had ruled him out because he was not a garden-witch, but what if … ?
Bisma looked out the window again, and this time, Frederick and the men were gone. Logically, she knew that she should have left his room before he returned, but she wanted answers. And she wanted them now.
Setting her jaw, Bisma pulled out the leather chair in front of Frederick’s desk. She sat down, making herself comfortable. Then she waited.
A few minutes later, the door opened and in came Frederick.
He didn’t look surprised to see her; he looked as if he had been expecting her.
Anger flared through her. What was going on?
