by Nyna Queen
Stephane, who had started dabbing at his doublet with a handkerchief, registered the servant’s distress and waved a lenient hand. “No harm done, son. Just get me a new one. Quickly.”
The servant blinked. “Of—of course, sir. Immediately!”
From the other side of the box, Heloise shook her head, her thin lips pressed together in a harsh line. She wouldn’t have been so generous, that much was certain.
With shaking fingers, the servant set the glass down on the wooden snack bar below the banister, reached for a small flask inside his coat, and refilled the glass with a generous portion—probably to make up for the previous blunder. After that, and with a few more apologetic mumbles, he bowed and left as fast as he could without actually running.
Poor fellow, Alex thought as she watched him leave. She just hoped he didn’t lose his job because of such a minor incident.
Another fanfare boomed through the ballroom, this one even more elaborate than the ones before; a heralding trumpet that was joined by another and another, until a clarion chorus of trumpets filled the hall.
A loud, hilariously squeezed voice called everyone to attention: “Please rise for his Majesty, Prime Gerald Michel ante Alain ante Léopold Beauchamp-Mareille, his exalted grace, Lord of Zeshire and Voulante, General of Arcadia’s Armed Forces honorably discharged, and Sworn Protector of the Republic. And for her Majesty, Prima Genevra Madelaine Therese Beauchamp-Mareille, royal consort and bearer of the Laurel Sash for charitable achievements.”
Almost in unison, the occupants of the boxes stepped forward to the banisters, while the people in the rows below straightened up to get a better view of the prime’s entry. All heads turned toward the ballroom doors. An expectant hush fell over the gathering.
Alex found herself sandwiched between Stephane and Darken. With a little grimace, she shifted a little closer to the banister, drew a small breath—and froze. Her hackles rose to the ceiling.
Slightly confused, Alex leaned forward and inhaled again through her nose. Her skin crawled and the spider hissed, baring its teeth inside her core.
On top of the intensive-sweet elder note of the drink in her hand, there was something else. Something … wrong!
Her eyes fell to Stephane’s glass, which was still on the wooden bar below the banister. Her pupils contracted as her true skin shot upward and she caught the slightest hint of a milky sheen within the liquid, while her instincts were screaming bad, bad, bad.
Shit! Poison! There had to be some kind of poison in Stephane’s drink!
The crier’s voice boomed through the room again. “Raise your glass for the toast!”
At the door, Alex vaguely noticed the prime, as golden and handsome as on TV, and the prima accepting glasses of their own and holding them out in front of them.
Throughout the room, the guests mirrored them.
Stephane reached for his glass. Without thinking, Alex quickly bent over and pretended to wipe a few more speckles of the spilled drink off his sleeve with her right hand, while her other hand exchanged the two glasses behind the banister with shaper speed. The movement took less than a second. Stephane gave her a slightly bewildered look but she just shrugged and smiled blandly, raising the glass in her hand. He picked up his own—or better her—glass from the wooden bar, and also held it out.
Alex’s eyes fluttered through the room, while her pulse beat in her ears, darting from one face below to the other. Her mind was racing like a panicked rabbit. Was someone down there watching right now to make sure Stephane drank his spiked drink? Would they get suspicious if someone in their box didn’t drink?
She hovered at the edge of a gaping chasm with options flowing before her like treacherous bridges, one less solid than the next. Spill the drink and put who might be watching on alert, or drink and hope she didn’t do anything stupid? Ah well, she was a shaper. She could hold her poison. A little sip wouldn’t kill her. And she might even be able to identify the substance.
The prime raised his glass higher, beaming widely at the royal gathering.
“Prosito!” he boomed.
“Prosito!” The answer thundered through the ballroom, coming from hundreds of throats.
Everywhere people tilted their heads and knocked back their liquor.
Alex hesitated only for a heartbeat. Ah, to hell with it! She brought the glass to her lips and took a small sip. The chilled liquid dribbled over her tongue. The first sensation was the tart sweetness of the elderflower, followed by the sharp bite of alcohol. She felt its liquid fire burning all the way down her throat to her stomach. However, she didn’t detect anything odd about the taste. Could she have been wrong?
Alex lowered her glass and scanned the crowd. People were cheering as the prime and prima made their way through the human aisle toward the thrones. Prime Gerald smiled and waved and even shook a couple of hands. Alex rolled her eyes. Stage hog. At least he didn’t stop to hand out autographs.
Alex put her glass down on the wooden bar below the banister and solicitously joined the applause, while her tongue traced the backside of her teeth, trying to get another taste of the liquid. The majesties reached the podium and sat on their thrones. Prime Gerald had to be using some kind of hidden magic micro-gadget, because his voice seemed to come from all directions at once, ringing through the hall, loud and clear. “My dear lords and ladies. Welcome! Welcome to our traditional Summerball. As always we’re honored …”
Alex stopped listening to the prime’s no doubt bombastic speech and returned to checking the audience, her body still brimming with tension. She could almost feel someone’s eyes upon them. Her true skin itched. Well, if she was right and there had been poison in Stephane’s drink, whoever was behind this, was in for a hell of a surprise. Though, whatever the stuff was, it didn’t seem to be so very—
A sudden pain seared through Alex’s insides like a red hot knife slashing her guts. She could barely stifle a gasp. Her hands grabbed the wooden bar. What the—
The room started to move around her. Strong nausea clamped her stomach, making her dizzy. Alex took small shallow breaths through her mouth, her fingers digging into the wood as she fought to keep upright.
Stephane leaned over to her and said something. She saw his lips moving, but the only thing she heard was her own breath rattling in her ears.
His face blurred. Alex blinked. A cold sweat broke out on her skin.
Mother’s mercy and Jester’s grace! Whatever this stuff was, it packed a lot more of a punch than she’d expected and her body was switching straight into fight mode. Heat was flooding her skin from the inside, pulsing through her limbs. She needed to get to her room. Now. Before her body’s immune response sent her into immediate emergency shutdown.
The audience was applauding again, Alex could see the waving movement through an opaque mist in front of her eyes.
Clenching her teeth and forcing every bit of her remaining strength into her muscles, Alex stepped away from the banister, out of sight of the ballroom, and took a step toward the box door. The effort almost made her vomit.
She took another step.
The world was spinning around her in sickening arches. She swayed.
Another step.
The ground sagged beneath her feet. Alex blink-blink-blinked. Had … to get … to her … room …
She made it as far as the curtain before her legs gave out. A warm hand caught her and supported her as her body folded onto the floor. Then, suddenly, Darken’s face was right in front of her, his dark eyes pulsing with crimson worry.
“What’s wrong?”
Alex wanted to reach up and kiss the worry from his face but she couldn’t move a limb. Her body was on fire. The room kept spinning faster and faster, a maelstrom trying to pull her under. Alex concentrated on Darken’s face in the sickening vortex. On the most important message.
“Poison,” she croaked. “Body … is fighting … need … time …”
Alex wanted to say more but the pain tore through he
r vocal cords and hooked its teeth into her brain. The world faded. She felt herself being lifted into strong arms, before everything went black and she surrendered to the relief of oblivion.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
COMING around was like breaking through the surface of a river made of stale, sticky honey. The first thing Alex became aware of were the muted voices of people talking close by, but her ears seemed to be clogged and she couldn’t make out the words.
She tried to raise her head and found she couldn’t. Her arms wouldn’t move either. Panic slammed into her and she buckled, fighting against the paralysis in her body. A cold, hard ribbon dug into her throat and squeezed, slowly suffocating her. Alex gasped for air and struggled even harder.
A horrified shriek sounded nearby.
“Stop! It’s okay, Alex! It’s alright! Stop struggling!”
The light tap of small feet on carpet and a blurred face popped into Alex’s view, turning into a pale oval with wide honey brown eyes, framed by long, dark curls—Josy! Alex’s panic eased a notch but she still couldn’t quite relax.
“Everything is okay, Alex.” The girl held her down by the shoulders as easily as if she were a little child. “You’re safe. It’s fine. Just hold still for a minute. I’ll unbuckle you.”
Unbuckle?
Josy’s head vanished. Alex lay flat on her back, wheezing and curbing the instinctual urge to fight against the pressure on her throat for all she was worth.
Small hands fumbled around her left wrist and suddenly her arm was free. The other followed. Then Josy bent toward her neck. “Just another second.” The pressure vanished and Josy stepped back holding a … dog’s collar and leash?
The girl blushed and bit her lip. “I’m sorry. But you went spider on us several times throughout the night and we didn’t know how else to keep you put without endangering ourselves. The palace doesn’t exactly offer many options …”
“It’s okay.” Alex winced at the hoarse sound of her voice. Her throat felt as if she’d attempted to swallow steel wool. She tried to push herself up into a sitting position and Josy hastened to help her, propping pillows up behind her back. As far as Alex could tell, she was inside her suite in the palace. Bright daylight was streaming in through the sheer silk curtains. At the foot of the bed, Stephane and Edalyne’s tense faces were looking back at her.
Before Alex could say anything, the door to the adjourning room that was occupied by Darken, flew open and Darken rushed inside. His dark hair was a disheveled mess and his black silk shirt was wrinkled, yet he still looked so drop-dead handsome that Alex completely lost her train of thought. She blinked. The poison was probably still fucking with her system.
Three long steps and he was beside the bed. For a second, Alex thought he might reach for her but instead, he just crossed his muscular forearms in front of his chest. “How are you feeling?” Huskiness tinged his voice, perhaps from a lack of sleep.
“Like shit!” Alex croaked. “The service here sucks! I think I’ll make a complaint.”
Darken chuckled softly and shook his head, telling her wordlessly that she was impossible.
Oh, you have no idea, your Truebornness.
He raked a hand through his tousled hair and sighed. “Do you have any idea how much you scared me?” he asked. “All of us, actually.”
“Scared myself pretty badly as well,” Alex admitted meekly. “How bad was it?”
“Horrible,” Josy said with huge eyes. “When Darken brought you here, you went into convulsions. There was nothing I could do. You were completely unresponsive. Except that you tried to bite me at least twice.”
Alex flinched. “Sorry.” She ran her tongue along her cracked lips. “Any chance I could get some water? And perhaps a headache pill or two?” Not that they would help much, but it was worth a try.
“Of course.” Josy hopped down from her perch on a chair’s armrest and scudded over to the mini-bar. A moment later, a glass of water was pushed into Alex’s hand. She chugged it down gratefully and held it out for a refill.
Stephane came to stand beside his brother, a glowing sun beside Darken’s shadow-filled night. His face was so tight it could have been carved from ice and Alex had the feeling he was struggling to stay calm. He glanced at his daughter who reluctantly gave a small nod.
“Alex,” he said, “if you’re feeling up to it—can you tell us what exactly happened last night in the box?”
Alex nodded. She put the glass on her bed stand and gathered her thoughts, then told them everything: about her observations, about her instinctual gut reaction regarding the content of Stephane’s glass, and her resulting suspicion that there was poison inside the drink.
Stephane cursed viciously and started pacing around the room. “We already figured it was something like that,” he growled.
Darken just stood motionless, eyes pulsing with a deadly fire.
Alex went on to report how she’d quickly switched the glasses during the commotion of the prime’s arrival and how she’d decided to drink—
Darken raised both hands. “Just let me make this clear,” he squeezed through gritted teeth. “You suspected that there was poison inside my brother’s drink and your first impulse was to drink it?”
Of course, it sounded bad when he put it that way.
Alex glowered at him. “It wasn’t like I had time to make a situation analysis and explore all the options! We’re talking about a split-second decision here. I feared someone might get suspicious if one of our party didn’t drink. Maybe even do a background check on me if they suspected that I had noticed something. So, I figured taking a sip would be the best course of action.”
Darken swore with an obscene creativity that made even his brother flinch. “You’re the only goddam person in the world who would actually think that drinking poison could be the best course of action in any kind of situation!”
Oh, because he always made such reasonable and risk-free decisions—like pitching cars from highway bridges, for example!
“I survived,” Alex snapped. “So don’t make a big deal of it!”
“You could have died, you fool!” Darken shouted.
“But I didn’t!” Alex felt the ridiculous urge to cry. She knew it was a side effect of the poison still remaining in her system but it only made her angrier. She immediately regretted screaming when her skull started to throb like a fresh wound and a wave of queasiness rippled through her stomach.
Josy coughed softly. “From a medical point of view, I don’t recommend—”
Darken raised one hand, stopping her, while the other pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just—stay out of this, darling.”
His niece hesitated, obviously torn, but finally sank back into her chair.
As quickly as it had come, Alex felt the fight seep out of her, leaving only tiredness behind. She just wanted to close her eyes and drift away but everybody kept looking at her as if she owed them an explanation. Well, perhaps she had acted a little … rashly.
“Look,” she said, rubbing her face, “I’m a shaper. We’re immune to most kinds of poison. Sure, we might experience some pain and maybe dizziness but our system normally burns through it quickly and without any major consequences. I honestly didn’t think it would do me any harm if I only took a small sip. It was … a miscalculation.”
Darken opened his mouth as if he was about to yell at her again but then paused. His head tilted to the side and a sudden glint filled his eyes. “Did you just admit that you made a mistake?”
Oh, for the love of—
“Guess that’s one way to interpret my words. Suit yourself!”
And there he was again, Mr. Smug! At least he wasn’t yelling anymore. At the moment, her head just couldn’t take it.
Stephane returned to the bed. “After saving my children, now you’ve saved my life, too,” he said. “I don’t know how we can ever repay you. My family owes you more than ever.”
“Ah, don’t mention it, sugar.” Alex weakly waved a
hand. “You would have been dead. For me it’s just a terrible hangover.”
And the hangover symptoms were getting worse by the minute. Her head was pounding and her stomach was twisting into knots. She would need something to eat. Preferably something salty and greasy. And tons of water.
Alex took another sip from her glass and—The glass! Her head snapped up and she had to swallow down the bile that rose in response to the quick movement.
“Did anyone take the glass from the box?”
Darken’s face turned grim, all carved angles sheathed in silky fury. “It all happened so fast. After I’d brought you to your room and returned to the box, the glasses had already been cleared and brought to the kitchen. It was impossible to identify the right one.”
Damn!
“What about the servant?”
If possible, Darken’s face turned even colder. “Dorian Phelps.” His voice was clipped. “Sometimes works as a temp at large events in the palace. He left right after the toast last night, claiming to feel ill. Hasn’t come today, either.”
Yeah, she’d be sick, too, if she’d tried to murder a member of the royal elite.
“Belaris is on it,” Darken said, then glanced at his brother. “They’ve grown bold trying to assassinate you inside the palace. Or desperate. Maybe we’re closer on their heels than we thought. It seems your allusions are having the desired effect.”
It had been decided that Stephane should drop some carefully phrased remarks about his investigations at suitable points during his conversations. A cautious comment in the right place was certain to be relayed to their suspects and nervous people were inclined to make mistakes …
Edalyne, who had been very quiet so far, joined her husband at Alex’s bedside. She looked ghastly pale. “How could anybody have brought poison into the palace in the first place? It shouldn’t be possible!”
“And how did they think they would get away with it?” Stephane growled, reminding Alex once again of an infuriated lion ready to tear into someone’s flesh. “If I had died shortly after the toast, it would have been foolish to assume that nobody would have made the connection. Especially since Mr. Phelps did such a marvelous job of pouring a drink especially for me.”