Poison and Potions: a Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by Erin Hayes

  “Who?” I asked. “Which of the Fae are we going to practice on? And what will you do if you can’t choose one?”

  “All my servants are life-sworn to me. Most of them have been given small caches of magic in order to better perform their duties. Any one of them will do.”

  For the first time since I had recovered from my illness—since I had seen him at night in the hallway without any candles—I saw in Kaedon the harsh Fae lord. This was a man who would ruthlessly cut down one of his own people—risking who knew what kind of damage, what kind of pain—to reach his goal. His statement that the servants’ lives were sworn to him only showed how little he considered their own autonomy.

  Something in my thoughts must’ve shown on my face, because Kaedon quickly amended his statement by saying, “I will, of course, ask for volunteers.”

  “And will you tell them what the risks and dangers are?”

  He frowned and raised his hands. “We don’t even know what the risks and dangers are at the moment.”

  My harsh bark of laughter held little of amusement. “No, you will simply take one of your servants, run him through your magical test, and see what happens.”

  Kaedon’s mouth twisted as he looked at me. “Do you have a better idea?”

  I began pacing through the room, walking along the outermost ring of the pentagram. As I circled it, a plan began to form in my mind.

  “Perhaps.” Step. Step. Step. “We could take your vision mirror, with its crystal-clear image transfer, and bring it in here.” Step. Step. Step. “And then we can combine that with a standard magical sending.” Step. Step. Step. “We tie them together with a travel potion, a far-sight incantation, and some kind of spell of removal.” Step. Step. Step.

  I closed the circle, finding a sense of completion well up within me. Surprised, I glanced around to discover that as I had walked the perimeter, I had invoked it—though I was uncertain what I might be invoking it for.

  Lord Kaedon was also examining my inadvertent invocation.

  “And perhaps the spell should be cast from within an invoked circle?” he asked.

  I blinked at him, staring between the completed circle and the elf who had started it all.

  “It does seem better than risking your servants’ lives,” I finally said.

  “Certainly for the servants. However, if the spell backfires…”

  “That’s why we’re in here, isn’t it?” I gestured at the walls with their runes. “This room is as well warded as any space I’ve ever seen. I think your people will be safe from the backlash of the spell.”

  My own words jarred a memory loose—Sister Susanna’s note.

  Beware the backlash.

  Was this what she’d meant? Had she had a vision?

  “But will we be safe?” Kaedon was asking. “Wouldn’t it be better to test the spell on the nearby subject before we attempt to send it out into the world?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable testing a magic-stripping spell on a servant who has no choice in the matter.” I made my voice as firm as it could be, but Kaedon didn’t immediately reply.

  After several seconds of staring at me directly, he said, “What about a prisoner? Would you be satisfied if we practiced the spell on a criminal?”

  “I imagine that would depend on his crimes.”

  “I’ll find one whose behavior has been suitably horrific,” Kaedon promised dryly.

  “I’m not at all certain that it’s possible to find anyone any more horrific than the torturers you’ve already shown me.”

  Kaedon inclined his head, acknowledging the point. “We will perhaps need to settle for a lesser monster to begin. In the meantime, I should see what I can find to create the spell you suggested.” He moved away from me and toward the supplies. Without stopping to ask my opinion, he began pulling vials, bottles, and jars down from the shelves, arranging them on a worktable space he cleared.

  “Would be difficult to move your vision mirror up the stairs?” I asked.

  Kaedon laughed, the sound one of pure entertainment. “Will it offend your delicate, witchy sensibilities if I have my servants bring it to us?”

  I rolled my eyes, but did not deign to answer.

  We worked through the remainder of the afternoon and into the evening, drawing together the various ingredients we needed to complete such an intricate spell. The servants who brought up the mirror were, in fact, cheerful. They did not seem to fear their Fae lord, nor were they overly obsequious. Instead, they laughed with him, accepting his jokes as if he were one of their own.

  I was surprised to see a Fae lord laughing with his servants. Despite the fact he had never been unkind to me, I still worried that, at some core level, Lord Kaedon was the same evil Fae lord my people had warned me about.

  That belief did not accord well with what my eyes saw and my ears heard, however. This elf might just turn out to be a good man.

  More than anything, that realization scared me.

  By the time we set up the spell’s components, we were tired, hungry, and more than a little snappish.

  “Now, we simply need to target the prisoner, work the spell, and determine whether it depletes him of his currently held magic and separates him from his ability to take more.” Lord Kaedon stood at the worktable, staring down at our spell components, drumming his fingers against the tabletop.

  “It might be wise to rest first,” I said. The gaze Kaedon turned on me was sullen and defiant.

  I suspected that for most of his life, his bad moods had been catered to.

  That was not the kind of witch I was.

  Channeling my best Mother Jonas, I pulled my shoulders back, stared down my nose at him, and said, “If you attempt to cast a spell while you are exhausted, weak from hunger, or otherwise incapacitated, you will surely wind up hurting yourself and others.”

  “Who was that?” Kaedon asked.

  “What do you mean by ‘who was that’? It was me.”

  “I recognize a quote when I hear one. That was someone who taught you about spells.”

  I shook my head. “Perhaps it is just common sense.”

  Kaedon rolled his eyes, but he put his hands up in surrender. “I’ll arrange to have food sent up.”

  “And rest?” I asked. “Are you going to be able to have that sent up, as well?”

  “If you wanted to be truly helpful, you could arrange for a spell to help keep us awake.”

  “I have absolutely no desire to be truly helpful unless I can also be safe. I am not here by my choice—but I will work to end this war, if I possibly can. I will be helpful only as long as I am not involved in killing anyone, either accidentally or on purpose. Including you. Trying to complete the spell without adequate food and rest is idiotic. We will hurt someone if we go forward now.” I glared at him, my mouth tight.

  “Very well,” he said, amusement at my tirade threading through his voice. “By all means, let us at least eat.”

  For the first time since I’d been brought to the castle all those weeks ago, Kaedon led me to a room not directly associated with either my recovery or magic.

  When we stepped into the castle’s main dining hall, I gasped. It was bigger than any room I had ever set foot inside. Its dimensions, the ceiling soaring far above my head, made my head spin, much as the drop from the mountains outside did. This, however, was a vertigo of interior spaces, my mind insisting that rooms with stone walls should be small and safe, like the tiny cottages that held our beds—and little more—on the island, or the unremarkable rooms in the interior of this castle where I had lived and worked since my arrival.

  At the sound of my swiftly indrawn breath, Kaedon glanced at me, assessing my state with a single look. He took my hand in his. Sliding my arm through the crook of his elbow, he led me straight across the dining hall through another door, this one leading to the kitchen.

  The castle’s kitchen was a warm, bustling place, and I found myself glad to be escorted to a trestle table flanked by bench
es on one side of the room.

  Lord Kaedon brought me a plate himself, piled high with breads and meats, and I caught the servants in the room casting significant glances at one another.

  I chose to ignore it, focusing instead on the food he’d supplied.

  A young serving girl came up to the table, dipped into a curtsy, and said, “My lord?”

  I tensed, half expecting Kaedon to break the girl for interrupting us. Instead, he turned to face her, giving her the entirety of his attention. “Yes… Leimani, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Leimani said, giving another curtsy.

  “Your brother, Stanislan, he’s the one with the lame leg, is he not?”

  “Yes, my lord, he is. Thank you for remembering.”

  “What can I help you with, Leimani?” Kaedon’s voice was kind, inquisitive, and ready to respond should she need his assistance.

  “It’s about my brother. You see, he’s old enough to begin to learn a skill or trade, but no one will have him because he’s lame.”

  “But you have something in mind, I take it?”

  “Yes.” At that point, too excited to maintain her deferential pose, the girl—who couldn’t have been more than thirteen herself—said, “He might be lame, but he’s ever so clever with his hands. I think he could be a master artisan, if he were apprenticed to the right person. Perhaps a glassblower or a jewelry maker? Someone who doesn’t need to be able to move quickly or stand for extended periods on his feet.”

  Kaedon nodded. “You may be right, at that,” he said. “I will call him down tomorrow and discuss his options.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” The girl remembered her manners at the last moment, bobbing another tiny curtsy before racing off to give her brother the good news.

  My confusion over Kaedon redoubled. How could he consider choosing one of his own people at random to strip their magical abilities away in virtually one breath, and in the next, be applauding a young girl’s decision to help her disabled brother find good work? This elf was a study in contrasts, and nothing like the Fae lords I had been trained to expect from the stories of my childhood.

  I bundled my concerns, wrapped them in an imaginary casing, and shoved them deep down inside me—right next to my mother’s magic—where they settled in to become part of me, never leaving, but never quite breaking free enough to be useful, either.

  Not until it was almost too late.

  Chapter Eight

  By the time we finished our impromptu meal, most of the servants had left the kitchen for the evening and our walk back to the spellcasting practice room was through a quieter castle. Once again, Kaedon did not carry a candle, but led me through darkened hallways and staircases with the surefootedness of a cat.

  Even if the elf lord could see in the dark, I couldn’t. After only a few stumbles, I conjured a small witchlight to carry in my palm—one that burned like fire, but without heat.

  Kaedon glanced over his shoulder, amusement shining out of his eyes.

  Apparently, even staring directly into a witchlight couldn’t affect his night vision.

  At the top of the winding staircase, we reentered the spellcasting room, where Kaedon lit several candles and I doused the flame in my hand.

  “How will we choose a convict to practice on?” I asked, surprised by how quickly I had come to terms with his plan. I moved toward the supplies we had discussed already and began laying them out on the table in the order we suspected they would work best.

  “I’ve already thought of someone I think will be appropriate.” Kaedon didn’t look at me as he spoke.

  “What did he do?”

  Kaedon had begun putting salts down into one of the circular grooves around the pentagram. He didn’t speak until he had almost close to the circle, leaving open just enough of the gap for the two of us to enter before we closed entirely.

  “For tonight, we should simply focus on separating him from a small part of his magic,” Kaedon said, not answering my question.

  I stepped into the circle with him, carrying everything we would need for the spell. “Was he involved in the tortures you showed me?” The thought of it made my stomach turn. “Or something worse?”

  Kaedon’s mouth tightened. “Rape,” he said shortly.

  My stomach lurched and I nodded, happy to forgo learning the details.

  Plucking a small vial of blessed oil from my arms, he began drizzling it into the groove directly inside the salt circle. This time, he muttered an incantation as he moved around the circle.

  Not for the first time, I wondered if the Fae truly understood the magic they took from witches to use. For all that we, too, often relied on potions and incantations, we also knew that such things were only focusing devices. They might help the magic bend more easily to one’s will, but ultimately, will was all that was needed. With a strong enough will, a witch wouldn’t need any accoutrements at all.

  I didn’t say anything as he completed testing the circle, however. When he’d finished the blessed oil addition, I ran one hand up the smooth inner walls of the magical dome he had constructed around us, then I closed my eyes, turned my back on Kaedon so he couldn’t see me, and murmured a single word of power that I had worked with when I learned to cast circles. I imagined it glowing in my mind, a rune of protection that flashed out into the world and embedded in our spellcasting space. When I opened my eyes, the dome that arched over our heads glowed with a faintly purple light, shot through with shades of blue. The new color surprised me. On the island, it had been reds and oranges, like fire. In the elves’ mountains, however, my protection circle was made of ice.

  Kaedon placed the elemental representatives around the points of the pentagram—earth, air, water, fire, spirit—and from opposite sides, we stepped into the center.

  The ritual we had devised to best tap into these particular desired results required we face one another, palm to palm.

  I began with eyes closed, imagining the two of us standing in that meadow where I had turned the small amount of magic into a flower. When I could all but feel the petals against my hands, I opened my eyes and stared into his. I hadn’t noticed until now that they were such a stormy gray. And the longer he stared at me, the more his eyes seem to turn and twirl, drawing me in, holding me still. In my imagination, I held the flower out to him—but he didn’t take it.

  He seemed just as frozen as I was, caught in a loop running from his eyes to mine and back again. With a start, I realized it was merely the beginning of the current. Much like the electricity that had circled the witches on the stakes in the torture chamber, this force spun around us and into us, whipping through my entire body only to go out one hand and make a similar trip through Kaedon’s body, then out his hand and back into mine.

  For as long as we were stuck in this feedback loop, the magic would spin through us. However, it twirled through us so quickly, the speed increasing exponentially, that I could almost pinpoint the moment at which it would blow us apart—not only from each other, but perhaps entirely.

  If I didn’t find a way to shut it down, we would face almost certain death.

  The cool detachment with which I considered these possibilities would surprise me in any other moment. Here and now, however, it seemed perfectly natural. I hadn’t even realized precisely how much it hurt until I began studying the problem to find a way out. The powers shooting out of one palm and back into the other truly was agonizing, I realized, again noting how little I seemed to care.

  I needed to shut the power transfer down to something controllable. Something smaller.

  The spell as we had envisioned it was causing the initial power transfer to go out of control.

  I tried to think about what ingredient might have caused the spell to go out of control.

  No. It doesn’t matter.

  It was almost as if the voice inside me came from someone else entirely, even though I knew it was my own.

  I’d been working spells my entire life. I remembered Mo
ther Jonas’s words: “The issue is always in the spellcaster, never in the spell.”

  Spellcasting is a matter of will, not ingredients, I reminded myself.

  I only had to overcome the magic with my will.

  And it was my magic.

  I knew precisely what to do.

  With a tremendous effort, I pulled my eyes closed against the mesmerizing swirling of Kaedon’s. Inside the darkness of my own eyelids, I could see the swirling energy patterns whipping through me. I trace them in lines of bright blues and pinks and greens, shining like nothing natural in this world.

  Creating another landscape inside my mind, I focused on the sheer blackness of the void; it was everything inside me and the lines of power coursing through it. I watched as they swung by again and again until I had sussed out the rhythm that ruled them. And then I counted. One… two… three. On the number three, I leapt, throwing my consciousness out into the void and pulling it into myself as tightly as I could at the same time, until all that I knew of myself was hurtling through the blackness toward a line of power that grew ever larger the closer I got to it. In the instant before I landed, I straightened myself out as if in a dive, breaking cleanly through the bright pink energy and inserting myself into a current as easily as a swimmer into a lake. And then I rode.

  I felt it the moment I left my own body, in a wrenching, agonizing rip away from myself. If I’d had a voice, I would’ve howled in pain.

  But my voice was somewhere behind me with my body, standing frozen, petrified, and insensate.

  Even protected by the currents of power surrounding me, riding this wave from myself into Kaedon—into this form that was alien to me in every way—was almost as agonizing as leaving my own body.

  And as my stream of magical energy cycled through the Fae lord, I felt a subtle change. The magic that had been hot and racing in my body cooled in his changing from the hot pink to a cool purple—the natural tones of my power saturated with the blues of his.