Chapter 20
Alex knew he wasn't where he had been, but he also wasn't sure where he was. He could still feel Julian, distantly, as though a great gulf separated them, though he could also somehow tell it was temporary. That this, whatever it was, was just for him and not for his husband.
Alex looked around, seeing trees and bracken, grass and flowers, a forest built of whimsy and darkness, each shadow reaching a little too far, too wrong, while each plant was a little brighter and more friendly-shaped than the real-world equivalents.
As he watched, a single fat bumblebee flew to one of the flowers and stuck its face into its centre, legs hanging out as it fed on nectar.
"I have no idea what any of this means," said Alex aloud, feeling his ears pop as though he'd been muffled. Suddenly he could hear other bees, birds, and small animals all around him, all the life of a forest moving just out of sight.
He tried to listen to the magic, too, but his senses wouldn't flip for him. He was stuck in the mundanity of this strange world, and he didn't know if he liked it.
A strange elf came into the glade and walked right up to Alex.
"Do you know what's going on?" asked Alex.
"You're on a belladonna trip," said the elf helpfully. "It won't last long, but I can give you one revelation unrelated to the murders."
"Figures," grumbled Alex, but he took a deep breath and asked instead, "How do we keep serving the Source without becoming so tied that we can't leave the grounds?"
"This is just growing pains," assured the elf. "Give it a few more years and you'll balance it all out and be able to travel the isle just as Her Majesty does."
Alex blinked. "That's a very coherent, useful answer. Am I going to forget it when I wake up?"
He was starting to hear chimes all around them, as though there were bells and bottles in all of the trees being stirred by the wind that had picked up, as well.
"Probably not," said the elf. "But who knows? That's not my area."
Alex laughed, eyes closing, and was hit with a wall of vertigo followed by acute nausea.
"Oh, gods," he murmured, the world feeling very loud and the floor moving very unpleasantly. Or couch? He seemed to be on a couch now, horizontal instead of vertical, and not in a good way.
"He's going to be sick," said a familiar voice, and then Alex put word to deed and threw up into what he hoped was an appropriate receptacle and not onto someone's shoes.
"I'm glad you're back," said another voice, one he couldn't forget for the world. Julian's fingers stroked over his forehead, gentle and cool. "I'm no good without you."
"Same," croaked Alex, and then he threw up again. It wasn't any more pleasant the second time.
"You're going to live, anyway," said the first voice, Geoff's voice. "Once you've purged out everything that's coming up, I'll give you a pain potion for your head. It shouldn't react with any remaining belladonna in your system."
"Belladonna? That explains the dream," said Alex. He squinted his eyes open just a little, then blinked to clear them as Julian's face swam into view. "Apparently the power problems are growing pains, and will settle again in a few years."
"That's good," said Julian. "Are you going to be sick again?"
Alex closed his eyes and nodded.
"Now?" asked Julian, holding up the receptacle can he'd been using.
"Now," croaked Alex, and brought up what felt like the rest of lunch and also breakfast. "Ugh."
Eventually the vomiting stopped and Alex was allowed to sit up and rinse his mouth, wrapped in a cocoon of fluffy blankets. "How long?" he asked.
"Including the digestive dramatics, a couple of hours," said Geoff. "Everyone's phones have started working again, so that's kept them occupied spreading the gossip all across the land."
"I talked to Thomas, he and Murielle will be out soon, they got assigned to the case because of us," said Julian. "I haven't called James and Jacques yet to tell them we're targets, because they can't help."
"Smart husband," croaked Alex, throat sore from the throwing up and head pounding in the too-bright room. "I don't suppose I'm allowed that potion now?"
"Yeah," said Geoff, handing over the little phial. "It's one of ours."
"Good." Alex downed it in a single draught, making a face at the bitterness but finding it flowed through his systems fast and efficiently, relieving all the small pains he'd barely been aware of along with the giant headache. "That's so much better."
"Good," said Julian. He handed over a cup of very weak tea with sugar and no milk. "I've checked this one as best as possible."
"I'll take it," said Alex, sipping on his own tea. "Is Winterson awake yet?"
Geoff shook his head. "No, you got even less of a dose than she did. Or you metabolised it faster, or differently because it's belladonna. I'm not sure. Strangely, magical poisons aren't really my area."
"They might be Gallowglass's area," said Julian, thinking of their idle conversation. "Doesn't she have a poison garden?"
"Why isn't she a suspect?" asked Geoff.
"Nowhere near any of the crime scenes," explained Alex.
"She'd have to also be magic to have gotten any of us," added Julian.
"Or have a magic item, though what a weirdly specific one," said Geoff.
Alex shrugged. "I haven't heard of anything that can introduce a substance into a cup from afar, but I haven't heard of everything, either."
"Oh, that reminds me, you have heard from Lapointe," said Julian, pulling Alex's phone out of one of his jacket pockets and handing it over. "Finish your tea and call her."
A servant had already discreetly disposed of the barf bucket, and Alex had managed not to get it all over himself, so he was almost restored, croaky voice aside. He supposed he could check his messages, though he'd decide later about answering them.
There were a number of texts from family about the storm, nothing exciting, just updates that everyone was okay and snowed in at their various residences. Those he answered with, "Good to know. Snowed in at Chudleigh's."
They'd either hear the gossip or not, and he'd know when more messages began to flood in.
Next he read through entire threads full of messages from Thomas, Lapointe, Smedley, and a couple of Lapointe's junior agents, all asking him questions about the case. He answered Lapointe only, telling her he'd call soon with what details he had.
After that came the texts from Alys and Nat, which were mostly reassuring them that the house and grounds were doing okay in the storm. Alex replied to that with the news that they'd just gotten their signal back and were okay, but that there was murder afoot and they'd explain when they got home.
Nat sent back a leaf icon that was somehow very unimpressed looking.
After that, Alex was out of tea and excuses both, so he called Lapointe rather than listening to any of his voicemails.
"Took you long enough," she said by way of a greeting.
Alex snorted. "I've been without signal first, and then poisoned. What's taking you so long?"
"Fair enough," she said. "Wait, poisoned? You're not going to die on me, are you?"
"No, no, it wasn't a big enough dose," said Alex. "I got the 'prophetic hallucinations and vomiting' dose and not the 'dead in an hour' dose."
"There's a poison that makes you a prophet?" said Lapointe.
"Magical belladonna, yep. Everything our poisoner has used so far was magical, Miss Winterson had a dose of baneberry but we kept her heart going past the danger point, and Wicket was done in by venom stolen from a rare, magical snake on the premises."
"Are the others from on premises?" asked Lapointe.
"No, or at least, there's nothing growing here that anyone knows of, even if anyone could get at it with the snow.
" Alex pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closing against the still-too-bright lights.
He couldn't wait for the pupil dilation to go away.
"One of the guests might have had some on her, but she's not a suspect for opportunity reasons. "
"Those are good reasons," said Lapointe. "All right, well, Julian says you made a hash of witness interviews, so that'll be fun for us."
"I'm terrible at them," agreed Alex almost cheerfully. "When will you be out?"
"Tomorrow morning, we hope," said Lapointe. "Chudleigh's direction is being prioritised now that the city's been unearthed and they can send extra plow crews out that way."
"So it was normal country plows before this, that makes sense," said Alex. "Nothing sinister there, anyway."
"No, just bad luck. Look, I've got to go, there's a bunch of paperwork involved in me coming out there, but I'll call you back." Lapointe hung up.
Alex chuckled and put his phone away. "Hopefully I'll answer when she calls back this time."
"She didn't yell at you too much," said Julian, kissing his temple. "Now, if you think you can stand, we can go get you cleaned up for tea, which is being served in people's rooms this time, no fancy suit required."
"Chudleigh thinks they've got enough trays of various sorts to serve everyone," said Geoff, looking at his own phone. "It seemed wise to keep everyone's food and drink away from everyone else, no one in the hallways while it's being delivered except the servants."
"And they've all been cleared due to lack of opportunity," said Alex firmly. "Smithson was there for Wicket and myself, but nowhere near the parlour when Miss Winterson was taken out."
"He won't be ferrying trays, anyway," said Geoff. "He'll be doing prep where he has no idea which drink is for who, really, just making pots and pots of tea."
"I could use pots of tea about now," said Alex. "I'm even hungrier than before, if you can believe it."
Julian stepped close and pressed a kiss to his forehead, feeding him some of Julian's warm, lively magic. "We'll take care of you, love. Let's go change into pyjamas and lounge around for tea time."
Alex made a face. "And brush my teeth, please."
"Yeah," agreed Julian with a little nose wrinkle. "Definitely brush your teeth."