Page 36 of A Wolf for Winter

“Because no one’s been betrayed by an ally before.”

“Boar, that is enough!” Lilac held out her hand to the server. “Judith, come here.” She turned to Allen, who had returned, and plucked the handkerchief from his vest pocket to offer to the woman.

“Boar.” Allen didn’t look at her brother as he spoke to him, instead eyeing the stream of people leaving Hawthorne Hall and traipsing down the hill back to the village. Some were just done with the fair, some were spooked by Landen’s choking and were whispering about curses. “Somebody tripped the wards just minutes ago. I felt . . . malicious intent.”

“You felt it too late, didn’t you?” Boar snarled. “You should’ve felt it before when someone spiked the punch!”

“Someone more than spiked it,” Rose said.

She had squatted down in the snow, pushing the red slush away with a stick until she had uncovered something brown.

“What is that?” Boar demanded.

“You got me,” Rose said, backing away. “Reeks of bad juju. Just look at it steaming.”

Lilac abandoned Judith to have a look in the snow bank. She immediately recognized the collection of twisted sticks. “That’s an ill-wish,” she gasped.

“A what?” Boar asked.

“I think the term defines itself.” Lilac took Rose’s stick and began poking it. “It’s a crude weaving spell of sorts, and they’re inert until activated.”

“How do you know that? I don’t remember Aunt Hyacinth or Aunt Forsythia ever teaching us about those in spells class.”

She rolled her eyes. “Because I read, Boar. That’s why.” And Edith’s Forgotten Lore of the Arcane was proving quite handy right now. “Though,” she had to admit, “I’ve only just recently learned about them myself.”

Lilac pointed with the stick. “See how these twigs are all bound together to resemble a wreath? Except these aren’t twigs. They’re cinnamon sticks. And this piece in the middle? It looks like star anise, but it’s not. I’m not sure what it is, actually, but usually the ‘heart’ of such a spell is in its center, so this must be what’s giving the ill-wish a very specific set of instructions.”

She tapped it, and the not-star anise disintegrated. What looked like thousands of tiny brown spheres dotted the snow like miniature caviar. “To dissolve and release its spell slowly, apparently. It also seems to be the origin of the brown grit I saw at the bottom of Laden’s punch cup.”

“Was anyone else affected?” Boar raked his hands through his brown hair. “By the Green Mother, this is going to be a disaster if we get a mass poisoning on day one.”

“I didn’t see or hear anyone else choking,” Allen answered.

“Me neither,” Rose agreed.

“Did any of your drink it?” he asked, panicked.

They answered in the negative.

“I didn’t either. Lilac, get away from that now,” Boar ordered.

But she wasn’t done poking around. Something nagged at her. Landen’s poisoning/choking event happened immediately, but only after drinking his second cup of punch. The cup that Lilac had rejected.

Magic is specific, she remembered from her lessons all those years ago.

It was impossible to tell how long the ill-wish had been marinating in the punch bowl, but it was safe to assume more than Landen’s cups had been contaminated by the little brown spheres. Truly, they were hardly larger than snapdragon seeds—easily swallowed, easily unnoticed. Yet no one else had suffered a similar fate.

Because the ill-wish had a target.

Hoping she was wrong and that it was just her pride talking, Lilac abandoned the stick and made a little cut on the side of her finger with her thumbnail. She reached forward with her hand and squeezed her finger until blood beaded there like a glittering jewel.

“Don’t do that!” Allen exclaimed, lunging for her.

But the blood dripped onto the disintegrated ill-wish before he could stop her.

The snow exploded with a hundred prickly pods, each the size of horse chestnuts. Each large enough to block her throat and inject their venom into her veins.

Allen snatched her arm and hauled her away just as the heap of pods tumbled like a miniature rockslide after her feet. He kept her tight against him as Rose and Boar blasted the pile with their magic, forming a hasty containment barrier. Squashed as she was against his chest, Lilac heard the frantic beating of his heart. She felt the micro-vibrations in his skin, even through his clothing, like he was trembling on a cellular level. Both were at such odds with his controlled façade that it further convinced her he wasn’t at all what she thought he was.