Page 70 of The Duchess Curse

“That does sound diverting.”

“I had considered going without telling you.”

“I am not surprised to find myself betrayed by you once more. I would rather poke your eyes out than be left behind.”

“Don’t you mean your own eyes?”

“No, I do not.”

Ouch. “That is why I decided to be less predictable. Save my eyesight.”

“Wise man. For once.”

The ride to a dirty East End alley was completed in silence, and when he jumped down to tie their horses to a hitching post and help her down, she was studying his face intently.

“What are you going to do about the glamour?” she asked.

“Hope the shadows take it away. It would not be ideal for word to get out that the Duke of Braxton is slumming it in the East End. Finsbury Square is one thing. This…” He set her on the ground but didn’t release her right away, and she didn’t seem to notice, so he held on as long as he could. “Stay close.”

She stepped away from him but didn’t object when he stuck so close behind her they almost touched. “Where is it?”

The alley was dark, and the glamour on his arms had begun to fade. The buildings on either side of them grew thinner the higher up they went and were crumbling around the edges. Ropes spanned the width of the alley, stretching between windows and were draped with drying clothes and the odd dead bird.

“Ominous,” Guin said, looking up.

“The door at the end of the alley.” It was narrow, paint crumbling off it, a drooping awning hanging over the top. And above that hung a sign that read Madame Poppy’s Potion Emporium.

“Should we have brought Hesperus with us?”

“He’s about.”

“Ah. I should have guessed.”

He placed a hand on the small of her back, and she looked up at him.

“Your eyes are still golden and glowing,” she said.

He blinked several times, shook his head as if that would do anything. He needed the glamour fully gone. He needed a little light to draw the shadows, but too much would banish them.

“There.” She patted his arm. “Better. Green now.”

He nodded and knocked.

A small window slid open in the door, and a pair of large, bespectacled eyes blinked at them. “Good day.”

“Is it? Clouds are low. Nothing’s growing.”

“Right you are, guv’ner.” The small window slapped closed and the whole door opened, revealing a short man with tufts of graying hair just over his ears, standing atop a bucket. He jumped down, kicked the bucket to the side and welcomed them into a low-ceilinged gray room. “All the way back you go, then.” He pointed down a long hallway. “Third door on the left.”

Bran pressed his hand into her back to propel Guin forward, and she went toward the slow rhythmic drip of a ceiling leak somewhere in the dark.

They reached the door, and this one didn’t require a knock. It was unlocked, and they pushed right through into a small room crammed full with tables. And on the tables, potions in sparkling little scarlet bottles.

Guin picked one up and uncorked it, waved it in front of her nose. She gasped and picked up another, uncorked, sniffed. And on and on down the table, leaving behind her a small glass graveyard.

“What is it?” Bran asked.

“A variety of potions. Some for complexion, some for belly aches, a mood enhancer. All curiously strong.”