“Your first deal got us chained together and your most recent deal nearly got you kissed against your will. I’m not overly eager to enter another.”
“Shut up a second and listen. Don’t take the Stillheart tomorrow, and I’ll try to be mildly less annoying so you can cope with the inconvenience. Deal?”
“Why do you care what I take?” His mattress creaked as he turned over.
“Because I’m curious what the real Zafir is like, not the statue Zafir.”
“The real Zafir makes more mistakes.”
“Sounds like he’s human, then. I like humans more than statues.”
CHAPTER 23
The next morning, Zafir was in an exceptionally good mood. “Sleep well?” he asked politely. No used bottles littered his desk.
“Not too bad. Still a little embarrassed from last night, though.”
“Wasn’t it you who told me it was nothing to be embarrassed about? It was just a reaction, same as your blood-replenishing potion. We’re even; don’t give it a second thought. Would you like help with your makeup again?”
“I should learn how to do it myself.”
“I don’t mind helping, and you’ll need it done for the Emberlight Revelry tonight anyway.” He sat me on the usual stool and began applying the base layer. “I’m having breakfast delivered soon,” he went on conversationally. “If you want, we can eat together and review some flirting tips. That way, you’ll be ready when Julian calls on you.”
“Okay.” This cheerful Zafir was a new experience for me. Was he always like this when he didn’t take the Stillheart Tonic? “Are there any side effects from the potion I had last night that I should be aware of?”
“No. It’s a potion with no side effects. Handy, right? How are you feeling this morning?”
“I think I’m back to normal.” I assessed my emotions. There was a slight giddiness I felt at the prospect of Zafir doing my makeup again, but nothing so wild that I felt the need to report it. “I think I’m back to myself.”
“Good. You may have liked infatuated Zafir, but I prefer you as a venomous little viper.”
“That works out well, then. I very much enjoy being a venomous viper with you. Oh, and I forgot to ask last night. How are the male and female potions different? I don’t even remember seeing you brew one.”
“I…I made it before you woke up yesterday.”
“That was fast.”
“Which was one of the key differences,” Zafir said in a rush, avoiding meeting my eye. “It didn’t take long to brew at all. And it needed…Wyrmsleep.”
I didn’t push the topic, but that didn’t sound right. Wyrmsleep was a sedative, even when combined with other ingredients, and I had felt anything but sleepy after drinking that tea.
“You need a necklace,” Zafir said, draping spiderweb-like jewelry around my neck. His fingers grazed my skin and I clenched my jaw, determined not to react to his touch. “You make it beautiful.”
I froze. Zafir was flirting again, but he hadn’t had the potion.
“Thank you,” I told him awkwardly. Was this his way of teasing me after I’d made his time with the infatuation elixir so difficult? Or was he genuinely developing feelings for me?
When he went to bathe soon after, I edged my way over to his desk and thumbed through the recipes until I foundthe one for infatuation potions for women. There was no mention of Wyrmsleep anywhere, and it was a recipe that took four hours to brew. I knew he was an early riser, but there was no way Zafir could have made it before I woke up in the morning. I looked through the list of ingredients. Several of the ingredients had potent scents I knew I would have recognized, but I hadn’t smelled any of them the day before.
I sat, confused. Had he gotten the potion from someone else when I wasn’t looking? Had he used a different recipe? Had he lied about making it? Perhaps he’d given me the men’s potion to test the effect knowing it would be similar. Or…a sneaking suspicion stole into my head. Had I never been dosed at all, and he invented the lie to give me a way to save face and I had developed real feelings for him?
I slammed the book shut. I had bared my innermost thoughts to him, praised his personality and looks and everything. If I blamed everything on the infatuation elixir and I’d never been dosed, I was only confirming that I harbored some secret feelings for him. But if hehadgiven me a potion, I needed to be honest about the side effects. He had tricked me either way.
I’d rather chew glass than admit it, but after seeing how kind and helpful he’d been with my sister, I was struggling to hate Zafir. Why couldn’t love be simple? If I were a more honorable person, I might’ve been more resentful about his deceit, but I simply admired the ingenuity. Either way, it had been a brilliant move on his part.
My eye fell on the abandoned cup I’d drunk from the night before. If Zafir had slipped me something… I had to know, and I wasn’t sure I could trust Zafir to be truthful. At some point last night, he had lied. He’d originally said he didn’t drug me, then had admitted to doing so. Which was true?
The chain didn’t stretch far enough for me to stray too far from where it ran into the washroom, but I managed to pull out the tiny charcoal-black truth serum I’d taken and kept hidden in my bodice, then busied myself making Zafir his own cup of tea and let a droplet fall into it.
