Half the vial. Half into her goblet. Maybe that would be enough...
Would it? I have no idea. I don't even know if the thing works. I should have listened to the witch instead of standing there thinking about the woman who fell into me. Hazel eyes. A fistful of my tunic. Flour or chalk on her apron. She heard the whole transaction and probably thinks I'm a monster.
That shouldn't matter. She's a stranger I met in a shop two days ago.
It keeps mattering.
"Torgan? Torgan."
Pa. I blink. I haven't heard a word anyone has said for the last ten minutes.
I take my hand out of my pocket and lean forward. "Sorry. Lots on my mind."
Pa sits at the head of the table in a chair that might as well be a throne. Lord Garran Oakenshade displays his wealth more than any of his children, but tonight I understand why. At the opposite end sits the Duke of Valeforth, a merchant with a purchased title and land granted to him for moving goods across the four realms and taxing everything that enters his territory.
The Duke dines without his sons. Lords Princeton and Caden Voss are elsewhere. Gallivanting, according to the official explanation.
It's the younger one I'd like to see. Not that I would say so at this table. Not that anyone here knows why I'd care.
Except possibly Mirelle.
She has been sneaking out to balls and coming home smelling like a human man's cologne for three months. She thinks I haven't noticed.
I notice everything. It's my whole job.
The seating is the same as it has been my entire life. I'm at Pa's right and Ma is at his left. My sisters sit two and two, with Ysolde and Mirelle beside Ma and Brynna and Saskia beside me. More than twenty years of the same arrangement.
Why does Mirelle have to be the one who breaks it?
"Lots on your mind," Pa echoes. "Care to share?"
There is no version of this evening where I share my reservations about Caden Voss in front of Caden Voss's father. "Trade duties," I say. "From my travels."
Pa raises an eyebrow. Ma makes a small sound into her plate that means behave.
I look down the table at the Duke. White hair slicked back. Beard trimmed close. Pale blue eyes half-lidded over his meal, as though this entire dinner is a nap he is politely enduring.
He appears not to be listening.
I don't believe him.
I should be in the Moonlight Forest hunting stags. Or at the Merreach Docks, getting a look at the Voss brothers and forming my own opinion of the man my baby sister thinks is a secret.
Or back in Starling Vale, finding the woman in the apron. Asking what she really thinks of me.
Why the hells does that keep coming back? It was one moment with one stranger.
I spent twenty gold pieces on a potion that probably doesn't even work. Overpriced piece of shit.
Then testing it wouldn't hurt, would it? Mirelle's goblet is right there...
I press my palm against my breast pocket.
No.
I spear a few vegetables and force myself to eat. The food is bland, like everything else in this castle. Like most things humans make.
Except her, apparently.
