Page 16 of A Touch of Poison
I couldn’t help returning her grin and winking. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“As is yours.” Holding the door handle, she paused and her expression softened. “If you want someone to talk—someone who hasn’t got the weight of old-fashioned fae ideas of contractual obligation… Well, I’m here.”
Then, with a nod she was gone.
7
Kat
The summons arrived after lunch the next day, when a servant informed me that Bastian would like to see me.
I was shut in his rooms, so he could’ve seen me at any point over the past twenty-four hours, yet here I was, being escorted through star-ceilinged corridors to his offices. The few fae we passed watched with undisguised curiosity. At least in Albion folk usually pretended not to stare.
After Bastian had gone, I’d spent the rest of yesterday alone with only books for company.
And my thoughts.
They were the worst companions of all, reminding me of how my body had twitched and trembled out of control as I’d approached death. Reminding me that safety was impossible—this poison meant I was permanentlyunsafe.
To escape it, I’d buried myself in books and stayed up until I couldn’t keep my eyes open but still didn’t hear Bastian return. This morning, he’d gone by the time I got up.
Now, I felt a little queasy after eating lunch, like the poison was already making its presence known.
I fingered the necklace I’d found wrapped and placed on my bed with a brief note. It hung between my breasts, cool and solid. An inch long potion bottle made of some sort of dark crystal. It flashed green-gold-blue as it caught the light, like a dark counterpart of the moonstone buildings I’d seen yesterday.
Inside was the antidote.
With it had been a large bottle of the stuff and a tiny funnel, as well as a jar of the preventative. According to the note, a sip of this concoction was enough to save anyone I accidentally touched. Thankfully, the poison that seeped from my skin was regular aconite, easily cured by the normal antidote. Not that I fancied testing that out.
Was this gift thoughtful or practical? I couldn’t decide.
The Bastian who’d touched me yesterday—I’d have said he was being thoughtful. But the one who’d left me locked in his rooms?
Perhaps he was the one who’d not only left gowns in the armoire but two drawers full of gloves in varying designs to coordinate with different outfits.
Today I’d chosen a plain pair made of black silk so fine I could feel the coolness of the crystal pendant and count by touch the five pearls that formed each flower on my pearlwort necklace.
I clasped my hands against the urge to rip it from my throat as my skin crawled at the thought of the changeling. It was bad enough the poison he’d made lived in me, never mind wearing his jewellery.
I lost track of the route by the time we arrived at a large set of double doors, where my escort handed me over to a smiling young man who introduced himself as Brynan. Surveying me, he stepped out from behind his desk and ushered me into a large office dominated by a dark yew desk and the man who sat behind it.
“Thank you, Brynan.” Bastian didn’t even look at me as I entered, his attention focused on his assistant instead. “Ensure we aren’t disturbed.”
Once the door was shut, he nodded to a chair in front of his desk.
My pulse pounded in my throat. Why did I feel the same as I had when the queen summoned me to the throne room?
His formality was all wrong. This distance between us was all wrong. And yet it was the only way to be in our impossible situation.
He had hurt me. I had hurt him. Perhaps I’d paid for my wrongs by taking poison. Perhaps it didn’t change anything.
Surviving had changed things though—for me, in me. I had made the decision to take it and I’d been sure of it—still was—but I hadn’t expected to live to deal with the aftermath.
Yet here I was.
Alive and unsure what to do with myself, unsure what my decision meant, unsure of… anything.
And across from me sat Bastian, looking like a stranger.
