Page 39 of A Lie so Pretty and Poisonous

“How long do seraphs live?” I asked.

“We can live to around one hundred and fifty on the older end. Do humans have such short life spans?”

“You have a good fifty to seventy years on us. Strength, enchants, and longer lives. Seraphs really are the Divine’s favorite.”

His previous smirk fell. “Don’t be so sure of that.”

Before I could ask what he meant, a man with salt-and-pepper hair strolled down the path leading to the barn and met us as we pulled our horses to a stop and dismounted. He wore a stained apron, and his skin was tan and leathery from days in the sun. “Well, Darragh, I haven’t seen you in quite some time. Still pissing off the royals?” He grinned.

“Just by existing,” Darragh said dryly. “Lyrik, this is Lady Aurora.”

Lyrik stepped around Darragh and approached with a bow. “My lady. A pleasure to have you at Toolock Farm. Do you need anything?”

I smiled warmly. “Please, call me Rory, and I am perfectly fine. Thank you for meeting with me.”

Lyrik’s posture relaxed. “Please, please, come in.” He placed my arm in his and swept me by Darragh. “I will take you to meet Frabo, who is most excited to tell you some stories. He has bored us for years with ramblings, so just signal when you feel like you may fall asleep, and I will gladly step in and rescue you.”

“I am sure I will manage, but thank you.” I swallowed a laugh.

Lyrik led us to a large building that housed the estate servants. A farm this size would require a hefty staff on hand. At a table in the main room, a seraph sat, hunched over, slicing up an apple with shaky hands. His upper back was kyphotic from years of laboring on the farm, and every inch of his skin wrinkled and puckered.

Lyrik yelled at an alarming volume, “Frabo! You have a lovely young lady here to visit with you!”

Frabo abandoned his apple and looked up with a smile. “Wonderful!” he exclaimed with a wobbly voice. “And I may be somewhat hard of hearing, but there's no need to scream, Lyrik. You’re being an asshole.”

Lyrik snickered. Darragh groaned.

“Come sit, my lady.” Frabo patted the seat next to him.

I sat down in the rickety wooden chair. “It is nice to meet you, Frabo. I’m Rory, and I am from Edenalee. I was told you may have some information about another human who came here before me.”

“So polite and pretty!” Frabo noted. “Yes, I can try and answer whatever questions you have about ‘ole Psilas.”

I patted his hand. “Thank you. First, how do you know so much about him?”

“My deceased brother worked with Psilas on this farm when he was barely more than sixteen. He told me stories about working with a human.”

“Did Psilas tell your brother how he got from Edenalee to this side of the wall?” I asked a little too quickly.

Frabo shook his head. “Psilas maintained he never understood how he ended up in a forest of Tironaill. It was a mystery to everyone back then, as it is now.”

My shoulders slumped, defeated, but I had come this far, and I needed to keep asking questions.

I steadied my tone. “What was Psilas like here? What did he do for fun?”

Frabo looked to the ceiling, searching for the information. “Well, my brother said he liked to dance and drink. Sometimes he would drink too much for his own good, and the rest of the farmhands would egg him on to see what foolish things they could get him to do while drunk. He taught a good number of them how to make mead, too. Good mead. He used plants like honeysuckle, mushrooms, blackcurrant, dandelions, and berries he would find around the farm or in the forest. We still use his recipes here at the farm to this day! It’s a big hit at the market from what I am told.”

Psilas was a drunk. Lovely.

“I see,” I said with a phony smile.

“Oh, and my brother did say that Psilas was testing out a new mead recipe before waking up on this side of the wall. He tried to recreate it here but couldn’t get the ingredients right. I’d wager it was because he was drunk when he was creating it and sampled it too often.”

I blinked, and my eyes widened for a moment. I looked over to Lyrik. “Do you have his failed recipe by chance?”

Lyrik nodded. “Possibly. It wasn’t his best concoction, so we don’t make it, but I will see if I can find the book that he wrote all his recipes in. It’s likely in the staff kitchen, collecting dust. We know our favorite meads by heart, so we haven’t touched that book in a long time. Let me see if I can find it.”

Lyrik ambled toward the kitchen, and Darragh pulled up a chair next to me and turned it around, straddling it. He relaxed his posture. “What are your thoughts?”