“Don’t touch that one.”
She retracted her fingers.
“That’s impweed. Its sap is extremely toxic. To get any on your skin can cause blisters and a stinging sensation that lasts for days. I touched it by accident once. It made for a terrible week.”
“Why do you have it?”
“It flowers in the spring, and the nectar it produces is used to treat seizures, among other things.”
Mallory grinned, awed by this information.
Sensing her interest, Armand went on, “I have some books in the library you might like. One on carnivorous plants, too.”
“Carnivorous?”
“Yes. I have one here.” He picked up a shallow bowl, where a gangly plant was steeped in wet soil. Its serpentlike heads each had little mouths with needlelike teeth, open wide. Except for theone that was closed, and when Armand held it closer, she could see the wings of a moth sticking out.
“Is that planteatingan insect?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he said, setting the bowl down. “You said you needed help?”
“Oh. Oh, right.” Mallory racked her brain, trying to recall the herbs she’d seen listed in the book, wishing she had written them down. She slowly ticked them off on her fingers. “I’m in need of juniper, baby’s breath, viper’s bugloss. Um.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Something-wort. Maidenwort?”
“Never heard of maidenwort,” said Armand. “Milkwort maybe? Or madwort?”
“Madwort.” She snapped her fingers. “That sounds right. And there was one more. Pennyroyal, I think.”
“That’s quite a list.” He started working again, filling a pot with soil from a barrel beneath the table, then tenderly transplanting one of the tiny seedlings into it. He handled each one like it was a precious thing, even though the seedlings themselves were rather ugly little plants—droopy and spiny with an unhealthy gray pallor. Moving on to the next seedling, he asked, “What are you planning to do?”
“I told you we’d begin our exorcism with the simplest method. This is it.”
He considered this, and Mallory was surprised that she recognized the expression he made when he was thinking through new information. The tiny line that formed between his eyebrows. The dirt-encrusted fingernail mindlessly tracing the shape of his lips. “Is this a common spell?”
“It doesn’t get much more common than this.”
He regarded her uncertainly as he watered the new plants, then brushed the dirt from his hands.
“If you’re sure. It’s only… Pennyroyal is dangerous. When distilled to an oil, it can cause fatal organ failure.”
Mallory digested this information. “Which is why I’ll be burning it.”
“Ah.” His expression relaxed. “I’ve never heard of any dangers from pennyroyal smoke. So… yes, I have what you need.”
It took a few minutes for Armand to collect the specimens she requested, and he even helped her tie them into neat bundles, his hands plucking away dead leaves as Mallory knotted the twine.
“What exactly is this supposed to do?” he asked, tidying up the stray bits of stems and leaves that littered the worktable. Mallory could not help being impressed, as he had run down the list of ingredients that she needed, not only knowing precisely where to find each plant within the labyrinth of the conservatory, but also having an encyclopedic knowledge that rivaled her own expertise in murder and mayhem. Which parts of the plant could be eaten, which were poisonous, and which were poisonous but could be eaten if prepared to precise (and in Mallory’s opinion, not-worth-the-risk) specifications.
“The smoke should create a pathway for the spirits to follow into Verloren, and they will find the aroma too alluring to resist its call.”
He laughed.
When she didn’t even crack a smile, his laughter abruptly cut off. “Really?”
She tapped the bundles against the table, feeling like it was silly to even pretend such a thing could be the undoing of a spirit like Monsieur Le Bleu.
Mallory had made her living off of pretending silly things, and she wasn’t about to stop now.
“It is only the first step. If it proves to be ineffective, I have many more tricks up my sleeve.”
