Page 200 of A Touch of Poison
She’d missed her chance to see Ella grow into the wonderful woman sitting before me.
My eyes burned as I pushed stray hair from her cheeks so it wouldn’t get caught in the tears trickling down them. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not telling you this for my sake, Kat.” She caught my wrist and leant closer, piercing me with the intensity of her stare. “I don’t want to see that happen to you.”
A chill rushed through me.
I’d always known she wasn’t just worried about her “hard work” being undone. But this? That she was afraid for my very life? I’d never imagined that might be the price.
When I began drinking, I’d had a miserable, small existence. A couple of months ago, I’d told Bastian my life wasn’t worth saving, but now…
“There.” Ella’s voice cut through my racing thoughts. Her smile was like the dawn, a slow brightening. “You see it.”
I opened my mouth but couldn’t find the right words. There was too much in my head—Kaliban would’ve been deafened.
Instead, swallowing, I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Ella. I didn’t… I never thought…”
She laughed softly at my mangled attempts at sentences. “I know. I can see the cogs turning. I’m afraid I may have overloaded the machinery.”
I rubbed my forehead as a fresh ache throbbed to life. “I feel like it’s broken, completely.”
“Well, I think I need to let this pretty little contraption process all this.” She rose and planted a kiss on my brow, then nodded towards the book with my notes tucked inside. “You know, you could use some of that paper to write your thoughts—it might help.”
“They won’t make sense.”
“Does that matter?” She spread her hands as she backed away. “It’s just for you.”
I was still giving her a bemused smile when she blew me a kiss from the doorway and disappeared.
The blank pages peeked out at me from the book. I did have plenty of paper—this wasn’t like at the estate where I had to scrimp and save to afford just a handful of sheets. And the pens in Elfhame were incredible—instead of constantly dipping in a well of ink, they were filled with the stuff and could write for hours.
I grabbed the one I’d bought from the shop next door to Ariadne’s—paid for with my wages from Bastian. Weighing it in my hand, I eyed the paper.
I could give it a try.
So I took a sheet and removed the lid from my pen.
Where was I supposed to start?
Ella had suggested my thoughts, but that didn’t seem quite right—there had been a trigger for them. So I began with what she had told me and then all that had come to me after that, and the next thing I knew, I was turning the sheet over and writing on the back. Soon, I reached for the next page and another and another.
And then I found myself writing about how I’d once been a pot-bound plant, confined to a small existence by other people’s rules. But now—now—I had space to grow.
Maybe I even kind oflikedthe person I was becoming.
Good gods. No wonder Ella was worried for me.
Yes, there were awful things, too, but did I really want to numb the rest just to escape those? There had to be a better way.
My eyes were full of tears—the good kind—when there was a knock at the door. I had no idea how long had passed, but a stack of pages sat on the low coffee table and my hand ached. Ella’s chest of beauty alchemy still sat to one side.
I chuckled as I went out to the antechamber. “You were so excited you forgot your—”
But when I opened the door, it wasn’t Ella.
Pasty-faced and glowering, in the doorway stood Robin.
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