Page 122 of Hellbound

“It belongs to a family of poisons that require a reactive agent. It can remain dormant for a few days until it denatures within the body.”

He snapped his fingers and beat his palm joyfully against the tabletop. A cloud of dust spiraled from the dish before he tempered his enthusiasm.

He dug his fingernail against the corked vial of green crystal. “This reactive agent needs to be burned to do the trick. The victim inhales the fumes and—well, I’ll show you the result.”

Ksenia watched the madman as he uncorked the tube and took out a pinch, sprinkling it gingerly into the candle’s open flame.

A flare of green engulfed the flame for a moment before an acrid smell wafted from the candle.

She shrank back, pulling her scarf even higher.

“It doesn’t smell that great, but that’s all that is for you—a bad smell. For me, however…”

His lids grew heavy over his sharp gray eyes. His jaw went slack, and he slumped back against his chair, out cold.

The goblet smashed to the floor.

Ksenia flew to his side, pressing her fingers against his pulse. The steady beat calmed her nerves, and she roughly shook his shoulders, only for his head to loll forward upon his chest.

The guards and Ksenia shared a glance, unsure of their next actions.

For a long moment, he was still, his chest rising and falling softly as though within a deep slumber.

Ksenia pulled him to lie flat against the stone floor.

Then—a breath.

She staggered away from him as he sucked in a sharp, clean inhale, as if he had been drowning.

Mirko’s chest convulsed, and the veins in his throat jumped with a violent pulse before his eyes fluttered open.

He blinked slowly, and a flicker of recognition crossed his face as he focused on Ksenia with an unnervingly calm expression.

He spotted the powder and the vial strewn across the wooden table. “Ah, this isn’t the first time I’ve ended up on the floor. We were doing a poisons lesson, huh?” He chuckled.

Ksenia’s mouth gaped. “You mean, you don’t remember how you ended up here?”

He idly scratched at his nose. “Nope. It’s a great sleep aid if you can get your hands on it.”

Ksenia considered the possibility she’d have to use sleeper’s bane on herself that very night.

She pressed her fingers against her temples, her eyes fixed on the woven runner rug beneath her as she made her way to her quarters. She kept her gaze straight to avoid focusing on the hallucination of blood oozing from the mortar between the stone bricks she passed in the hallway.

It’s not real. It’s not real. Ksenia’s hands tremored.

Her next kill couldn’t come soon enough, but the stakes were higher, and she couldn’t afford any mistakes by rushing.

You know what you need to do if you want your sanity intact… Vornaya’s voice was soft and low.

Her irritation led her to fling the door of her room wide open, smacking the stone wall.

But her mood spiked further.

She had believed that Bohdan wouldn’t go so far as to disturb her inner sanctuary, but she was quickly proven wrong.

Her desk was buried under weapon inventory logs, patrol rotation schedules and field reports filed in triplicate—because apparently a single copy of nothing useful wasn’t enough. She cleared it with a sweep of her arms.

She slumped against the edge of her bed, the mattress sinking beneath her.