She gritted her teeth. It was a painful thought. Frieda might never recover completely, even if she got the very best treatment. She might never—through no fault of her own—be trustworthy again. Emily cursed Daze, and Fulvia, as savagely as she knew how. Frieda had been turned into a monster, her reputation utterly destroyed, as collateral damage. Emily had been the real target ...
Spread rumors about me, then drive one of my closest friends insane, Emily thought, angrily. Was that the whole plan, or was there more on the way? Did she want to discredit me? Or make it impossible for anyone else to trust me?
Closing her eyes, she reached down to the familiar bond. It felt odd against her mind—she was drawing on the bond itself, rather than her magic—but at least it was intact. The spell holding the snake in place melted into the bond, allowing the snake to return to normal. Emily grunted as Aurelius’s thoughts slammed into her mind, at once calmer and wilder than usual. She no longer had the magic to cushion the blow ...
She peered through the snake’s eyes. Aurelius saw the world differently: she was a reddish mass, while Frieda’s still form was flickering with magic. The rest of the room was cold. Emily breathed a silent prayer that Daze hadn’t put any wards of his own around the storage chamber, then directed the snake towards the nearest vent. Her wards wouldn’t stop the snake. She’d allowed Aurelius to explore the ducts, when she’d been alone in the house. He knew how to find his way from room to room.
And I might have needed to use them myself, she thought. She’d done that before, at Whitehall. It would let me move from room to room without being seen.
Her head swam as the snake slithered up the wall and into the vent. Aurelius had no problems with heights, but she did ... when the storage room suddenly looked bigger than Whitehall. The snake’s sense of proportion was different to hers, too different. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to concentrate, steering the snake through the vent and up to the next level. It wasn’t easy—the snake’s senses were constantly assailed by potential prey—but somehow she kept her mind together long enough to get the snake into the upper chamber and look around. Her emergency kit was where she remembered.
God bless you, Professor Thande, she thought. As eccentric as he was, Professor Thande had drilled the importance of keeping a safety kit within immediate reach into her head. She’d made sure to keep hers well-stocked, even when she’d done as little alchemy as possible over the holidays. You might just have saved my life.
Aurelius climbed up the table leg and looked at the small collection of bottles and scented cloths. Emily had to force him to focus enough to pick out a purgative from the rest, even though the snake’s nose was sharper than hers. Aurelius simply didn’t care about flavors, let alone understand the urgency of what she was trying to make him do. The snake wasn’t intelligent, not in any sense a human would recognize. Her more complex orders either caused confusion or were simply ignored.
And all of those talking familiars from storybooks were so smart, she recalled, feeling a flicker of envy. The Nameless World had never developed stories about talking animals, something that had surprised her until she realized that talking creatures were often very dangerous. No one in their right mind wanted to tangle with an angry adult dragon. And no one who wrote those stories realized what a familiar bond might be like.
She pointed Aurelius at the nearest purgative and commanded the snake to swallow. Aurelius resisted, just for a second. She caught a wave of what she would have unhesitatingly called grumbling in a human, a moment before the snake swallowed the bottle whole. It didn’t sit well in Aurelius’s stomach, but she ignored his increasingly annoyed protests. Instead, she directed the snake to hurry back to the storage room. She had no idea how long Daze would wait before getting to work.
He thinks he has time to do it properly, Emily thought. She had a lot of defenses against mental tampering, thanks to Lady Barb and Sergeant Miles forcing her to practice, but she knew that no defense was invulnerable. Daze was clearly practiced in mind and blood magics. She had a nasty feeling he might know something about soul magic too. And he might be right.
The thought chilled her to the bone. Shadye had influenced her, once upon a time. But Shadye hadn’t been interested in doing more than using her as a tool. He’d never even seen her as a person, she thought. Daze, on the other hand, would break her mind and then hand her over to Fulvia. Or, perhaps, keep her for himself. If he realized just how many secrets were locked away in Emily’s mind, if he realized just how many advantages she could give him, he’d never let her go. Fulvia could offer him all the wealth in the world and he’d refuse, because Emily could give him more ...
She pushed her fear aside and kept a tight hold on the snake’s mind. Aurelius growled—she’d never thought a snake could growl—as he crawled back into the vent. The sensation of sharp discontent grew stronger and stronger, tearing at her mind. She silently prayed that the snake’s stomach acid wouldn’t destroy the bottle before it was too late. The potion probably wouldn’t do any harm to the snake, but she doubted she could make Aurelius go back up for a second bottle.
I might not have a choice, she thought, sourly. She racked her brains, but she couldn’t think of any other way to escape in time. Daze clearly wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t untie her until she was firmly under his control. Even pretending to be under his control would be very dangerous. If this fails, I will have to try again.
She allowed herself a moment of relief as Aurelius practically fell into the storage room, then forced herself to focus on the bottle. Aurelius stopped in front of her—her perspective shifted and shifted again, reminding her that she should be glad the room was dark—and slowly regurgitated the bottle. The sensations were so strong that Emily retched in sympathy, even as she turned her head to take the bottle in her mouth. Thankfully, the lid had been designed so that someone could flick it off with their tongue. Holding the bottle’s neck between her teeth, she tilted her head to allow the potions to flow into her mouth. The taste was awful, but infinitely superior to the durian ...
The first convulsion hit her a moment later.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
EMILY SHUDDERED, RETCHING HELPLESSLY.
It had been years since she’d swallowed a purgative. It wasn’t an experience anyone wanted to repeat, even with a relatively mild potion. One experience had been enough to make it clear that she had to be careful what she put into her mouth. The purgative was designed to rid her body of potion as quickly as possible. Everything from dignity onwards came second.