“Do you always hide in random halls of homes that are not yours, Miss Hawthorne?”
Blythe started at Aris’s voice, jerking upright so quickly that she nearly knocked over the teapot and had to quickly grab it by the spout. She winced when its heat seared her palms. “What are you doing here? Where’s the fox?”
“She’s asleep in the carriage. The driver didn’t wish to leave without you, so I waited ten minutes before I came to gather you myself. What are you doing?”
Blythe could see how badly she was shaking and knew there was no point in lying. If Aris had one redeeming quality, it was that he had not been in Celadon when she’d gotten sick, which meant that he couldn’t have been the one behind the poisoning. If she was going to safely confide in anyone, it may as well be him.
“Not long ago, I was unknowingly poisoned.” She curled in on herself, the very thought of poison resurfacing some forgotten trauma she’d buried deep in her body. “I’m worried the same thing is happening to Eliza.”
Aris pursed his lips. “If it is, would you be able to recognize the taste? Or perhaps even the smell?”
The very thought of smelling belladonna turned her stomach. She pressed a hand to it, fighting back her nausea. “I can’t even pick up the pot to pour it.”
“You’d be able to recognize it, though, if you tasted it?”
In any other moment, she might have laughed at the ridiculousness of such a question. “I don’t think I could ever forget it.”
Instead of a reply, the sound of pouring liquid had Blythe unfurling long enough to watch as Aris poured a swig’s worth of tea into the cup. He was careful to keep it at a distance from Blythe as he swirled it.
“You want to try it,” he whispered. “Don’t you?”
Needed was more accurate. Because if it was poison, Blythe didn’t want Eliza to suffer as she had. She tried again to reach for the cup, but still her hands refused to move. Observing her struggle, Aris asked, “If you didn’t have to drink it from a cup, do you think you could do it?”
She swallowed, imagining the idea. When her mind didn’t immediately reject it, she roused a little. “Perhaps? I’m not sure.”
Again he swirled the cup, lips pressed into a thin line. “If I said I had an idea that might help you, would you wish to try it?”
She had no need to think before responding, “I would.”
The answer had barely left her mouth before Aris tipped the cup to his lips and took the swig. Blythe bolted upright, about to demand that he spit it out when he took one side of her face in his hand and drew her into him. Blythe realized what was happening the second before he kissed her.
Her body drowned in the heat of him, tiny electric currents jolting up her spine as his tongue slipped between her lips.
Aris didn’t taste of belladonna, but of warm ginger and honey. And good God was it delicious. It was a conscious effort to not let her tongue move against his, and to remember that this was no kiss. He was helping her. And yet, while she didn’t mean for it to happen, she sighed against his mouth. The second she realized her slipup, Blythe jerked away, mortified.
She collected the teacup and the pot at once, settling everything back on the tray where it belonged.
“Thank you.” Her voice was brisk as she stood, scooping up the tray. “I-it’s only ginger.” Though Blythe was doing her best to avoid looking at Aris, it was impossible not to see the smugness in his grin.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Good,” Blythe continued for no other reason than that she could not help herself. “And you should know that it’s been a long time since anyone has kissed me. You took me by surprise, that’s all.”
Aris had no right to be so amused, and yet he was practically gleaming. “It wasn’t a kiss, Miss Hawthorne.”
She had to turn away from him, refusing to let him see that she was flushed from the chest up. “Of course not. I have been kissed before, Your Highness. I know they usually elicit a more rousing response.”
Aris’s laughter ceased. “Of course they do,” he said with the utmost defensiveness. “That’s because this was not a kiss.”
Blythe only shrugged, hoping she didn’t look like she was sweating as much as she was. “If you don’t mind, I need to deliver this to Eliza.”
“By all means, don’t let me stop you.”
She didn’t intend to. Before she let herself get any more distracted, she shoved past him and hurried toward Eliza’s room, knocking on the door once, then twice when no response came.
“Open up, Auntie!” she called, knocking again. Still there was no answer. Blythe’s heart was racing, lodged in her throat as she opened the door and prepared herself for the worst.
Fortunately, Eliza had not suffocated, nor had she died in a mess of her own vomit like Blythe had once nearly done. Instead, she was asleep on her bed, above the sheets and still fully dressed. On the nightstand sat a small jar of laudanum.
Blythe let herself feel the weight of her exhale leaving her chest. Eliza wasn’t dead or poisoned; the laudanum had just put her to sleep. Perhaps it truly was a passing illness; something entirely unrelated to poison. Blythe set the tea down on a table as something gave her pause.
Clutched in Eliza’s hand, barely visible, was a tiny vial of half-consumed herbs. Not the kind prescribed by doctors, but the kind found in the very apothecaries that Eliza had always claimed to hate. Blythe reached for it, trying to get a better look. The moment her hand brushed against Eliza’s, however, it was as though Blythe were thrust back weeks into the past, when she’d stared at Elaine’s skeletal reflection in the mirror.
The Eliza before her was little more than a corpse of withered skin taut against sharpened bones. Blythe could do nothing but stare as a maggot curled over one of Eliza’s hollow eye sockets, through her nose, then disappeared back into the corpse whose cheekbones were too gaunt and whose neck was twisted at an impossible angle. There was something stirring within the depths of her body; a sickly and consuming presence that Blythe shut her eyes against.
It was a hallucination. It had to be. Eliza had been asleep, breathing contentedly only seconds before—
“Miss Hawthorne?” The prince’s voice cut through her thoughts, and her eyes fluttered open. “Miss Hawthorne, are you well?”
Blythe forced herself to look at the bed, where Eliza was curled and resting peacefully. No bones. No hollow eyes or dark presence. Just a young woman in an enviously deep sleep.
Blythe gave herself fifteen seconds to memorize what the contents of the vial looked like, and then she stepped away from Eliza and took the prince by the wrist.
“Come on,” she whispered, not daring to spare Eliza so much as another glance before hurrying from the room. “Let’s get out of here.”
THIRTY-ONE
EVEN WITH THE SKY AS GRIM AS IT WAS, THE TOWN AT THE BASE OF Foxglove’s cliffs, Fiore, was busier than Celadon had ever been.
Men strolled the streets with faces less severe than those that Signa had grown accustomed to, untroubled by the business that awaited their return in the city. Courting couples out for a seaside promenade stopped to enjoy slices of sunshine that cut through the gray clouds, their voices jovial.
For all the doom and gloom of Signa’s arrival, Fiore was truly lovely. Not even the unsettled sea was enough to dissuade those who hurried down the street to the pier, eager to soak up their trip for every ounce of its worth. Signa had spent a solid ten minutes standing on the pier herself, staring at the ocean but not daring to venture onto the sand for fear that a wave might whisk her away. Perhaps she’d visit the water in the summer calm; for now, though, she wasn’t foolish enough to venture close.
Fishermen were coming in from the docks, their heads bowed as they spoke softly to one another. Signa caught snippets of their conversation.
“She’s out there on the beach again…”
“… doesn’t understand he’s not coming back.”