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My blood boils as I make my way up the private stairs.
I don’t even know who I’m so furious with. Einar for shutting me out again, or myself for deserving it. Or, most of all, Madame.
I can still help him,I tell myself.
I can’t risk outright disobedience, though. Images of my sister’s fair skin and golden hair reappear, as they always do when I contemplate the very notion.
The sound of her laugh. The way she smiled and followed my every move without question, for better or worse.
Worse, as it turns out.
I push the memory away. This is different. I wasn’t given any direct orders about this.
Unless...I think about the second set of instructions I was sent with. It had seemed so trivial, weighed against marriage and a baby.
Steal something valuable and replace it with something worthless. He’ll never know the difference.
A betrayal, but a relatively minor one, all things considered.
I have been so, so stupid.
Desperately, I focus on my surroundings.
What did I miss?
The staircase ends in a vast room with a domed ceiling and rounded windowpanes.
Each wall is full of books, plants, and alchemist’s tools.
There are graphs on the wall of various plants and their anatomy broken down piece-by-piece with a small description of the medicinal or toxic properties. But most prevalent are drawings and notes on one flower in particular.
A rose.
The reminders of her are endless, even as the pieces of this twisted puzzle click horrifically into place.
Several vials line the walls with papers next to them. I had largely ignored them before, but this time, I shuffle through each paper.
1 Rose petal - 3 ml of lavenaia berry juice - claw of raven -Turned to a combustible black substance.
1 Rose petal - 7 drops puffin blood - stardust -Boiling acid that rots flesh.
1 Rose petal - 8 ml wolfsbane - tail of scorpion -Promising at first - but seems to accelerate effects of poison.
They go on and on in this way, all of them with slashes drawn through them, notes and warnings scribbled next to them. There must be hundreds of variations here that he has tried, and all have failed.
I hastily search the drawers and cabinets and vials for answers, but I come up empty. And the longer I’m here, the more I realize that I will only find what I need if I’m with him.
He’s not the only one running out of time.
With those thoughts, I sneak back into my room and discreetly change into the warmest clothes I can find, packing an extra cloak in a small bag along with whatever food is left over from earlier, as well as a canteen of water. It isn’t much, but it will do in a pinch.
The memories reappear.
I’m thirteen again. Rose and I are packing what few belongings we have to escape from the window balcony of the villa.
I had just arrived home and found her sleeping. Her eyes were red and swollen from tears. She knew I hadn’t wanted to go. She knew I was scared.
It was the night I became a woman. It was the night that whatever was left of my childhood had been sold to the highest bidder.
