36. Chapter 36
Chapter 36
I set up seventeen cauldrons: fifteen potions to be keyed to specific familiars, one potion to remain generic, and the last for my secret potion. Rather than using the desk-mounted ones, I set up two rings of them on tripod stands. The outer ring had nine cauldrons, the inner one had eight. Madame X, as I had christened her, hopefully wouldn’t think twice about that because inexperienced brewers often set up spare cauldrons in case something went wrong. Hopefully she would assume that I was feeling nervous and was making spare potions in case I screwed up. Then I just had to pray to the Goddess that she didn’t check the wrong cauldron.
I set up my other potion closer to the window so any different fumes coming from it would quickly be whipped away by the cold air. I guess that I had about forty-five minutes before Madame X returned, so I hastily continued chopping.
When I heard the familiar snick of the key in the lock, I hastily covered a handful of prepared ingredients with my workbook and continued to mince some rhodiola, careful to remove all the yellow flowers into the waste pile.
Madame X came in, gave the room a cursory glance and left again. The tension in my shoulders eased; she was clearly anxious not to be in my presence for any longer than was strictly necessary. Presumably, in case I identified her. She was too late in that regard, but her nerves worked to my advantage. She wasn’t stringent in her inspections. This was absolutely going to work.
Now that most of ingredients were prepped, I turned on the flames under all of the cauldrons and started to make the bases. I let myself get lost in the intricate ebb and flow of stirring, mixing and making. Even when I was kidnapped, potion brewing was my happy place.
The next time Madame X came in, I called out, ‘I’ll stop for the night now. I’m tired and I don’t want to make mistakes. I’ll put these in stasis and finish in the morning.’
She gave a sharp nod and left. I grinned and started painting stasis runes onto all of the cauldrons, bar the last one. On that one I painted the stasis runes onto the lid but didn’t set it on top of the cauldron. It needed another hour of brewing time before I could turn off the flames even temporarily.
I heard the snick in the lock after half an hour and hastily put the lid over the cauldron, but I misaligned it so that the runes wouldn’t activate. I turned the flames down low and hoped that my visitor would leave quickly.
In strolled my father carrying a tray with two plates of food and two glasses of red wine. My stomach let out an audible grumble: I was both starving and parched. He set the tray down on a small table in the corner of the room. ‘Join me?’ he asked expansively. Like I had a choice.
I sat and he passed me a plate of food: roast chicken with vegetables, gravy and Yorkshire puddings. It had been my favourite dinner as a child, and I suspected he was trying to curry favour with me by remembering that small detail.
I hesitated before eating the food. I’d been present at the soul auction and I’d seen the dark objects they’d sold there. Poisoning his daughter would be the least of my father’s crimes, though I doubted he would do that until he got what he wanted from me.
He saw my hesitation. ‘It’s fine,’ he reassured me. ‘Here, have mine.’ He swapped the plates.
I snorted. ‘A clever man would put the poison in his own food because he would know that only a fool eats what he is given.’
‘And you are no fool,’ he murmured, eyes flashing with amusement. ‘The Princess Bride , Amber. Really?’
‘Inconceivable,’ I muttered back, a smile tugging at my lips. We’d watched the movie together countless times. When Jeb had broken the clearing and given me back my memories, it had made them sparkly and new. They weren’t memories of events that had happened thirty years earlier made murky by the passage of time, but memories of moments that felt like they had happened yesterday. If I thought too much about them, it made my heart hurt.
I hesitated another moment and he sighed. The smile faded from his face. ‘I have pet wizards. If I wanted to harm you, you’d already be hurt. If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead. If I wanted to compel you, you’d already be doing my bidding. If I wanted truth from you, I have a truth seeker. I don’t want any of those things, Amber. I want us to have dinner. I promise the food is safe.’
‘Ah well, since you promised,’ I said drily. I tried to keep the shock off my face that he had a truth seeker. The only one I knew was Jinx, but there had been a pale, thin woman at the soul auction who had been confirming the truth of what we said when we introduced ourselves on arrival, even though we were standing on truth runes. If my father had a truth seeker, she could compel people to tell the truth and she could affect their emotions. She could make me trust my father. The thought chilled me.
In the end, hunger and thirst won. I believed him: if he wanted me harmed, dead or compelled, I would be. My father had even urged me to get away when the Connection had raided the auction. For whatever reason, he seemed to want me to work for him willingly.
The food tasted delicious, but it was a lead weight in my stomach. Was Bastion eating now? Did he think our silent bond meant that I was dead? Was he grieving whilst I was eating a roast dinner and drinking wine? The wine soured in my mouth.
‘What’s wrong?’ my father asked, a shade irritably.
‘Bastion must be so scared for me,’ I admitted. ‘I feel awful for him. I just… I need to know he’s okay.’ I met my father’s eyes. ‘He’s my familiar and I can’t feel him. Do you know how awful that is?’ Tears welled in my eyes. ‘I can’t feel him.’ My lip quivered.
My father studied me. ‘He’s your familiar?’
Oh shit.