Chapter 21
Julian had to help Alex up the stairs and down the corridor, as he was still quite wobbly from the poison, and his dilated eyes weren't focusing well on things like the floor.
Horace had emerged from a pocket and was leading the way, flying from wall sconce to doorknob along the hallway until he waited on their doorknob.
"We're almost there," said Julian. They didn't have anyone leading them this time, as all the servants were busy with preparing the individual tea trays, so it was just them alone in the hallway as they made their way to the door.
Julian led Alex in and then helped him lay down, divesting him of jacket, waistcoat, and shoes before getting to his own clothes. Horace fluttered around during the process, fussing at Alex adorably, not quite scolding but definitely displeased with this state of affairs.
"Pyjamas?" asked Julian, looking in their ridiculous trunk.
"Yes, please," said Alex. They'd only brought two sets each, as the trunk had a freshening charm, so Julian brought out the same ones they'd worn last night.
They both got changed into the soft silks and their respective dressing gowns, Alex's a ridiculous paisley in warm wool and Julian's a more respectable pattern of green vines on a darker green.
They got wrapped up and Alex settled under the covers, and Julian went to coax the cats out of their nap and onto their human.
Horace chose to perch on his head and preen at his hair, making a little bird's nest of his own out of the tumbled curls.
"He's not feeling well, he needs some love," said Julian.
They yawned and meeped and stretched ostentatiously as they made their slow way over to the bed and draped themselves over Alex.
"I suppose this is your way of keeping me from exerting myself?" said Alex, hands busy petting as demanded, first Nightshade and then Cinnamon, and then Cinnamon and Sage, and back to Nightshade.
"Nightshade, someone fed our Alex your namesake," said Julian, ignoring the question. "It didn't agree with him."
She let out an offended meow and snuggled up closer, shoving her little face up under his chin to huff and then relax over his entire left side.
This was followed by the other kittens finding very in-the-way ways to cuddle him, trapping his arms and keeping him still unless he wanted to dislodge a determined creature with five pointy ends.
"That is one way of making you rest," added Julian, trying not to laugh.
'"I guess," said Alex, giving in and relaxing back into the pillows. "I'm not sure this is how I envisioned being tied to my bed."
"Good thing it's not your bed," replied Julian tartly. "Besides we both know you're too controlling for that."
Alex chuckled, making all three cats jiggle. "You're not wrong. And it's not as if our very magical sex life needs spicing up."
"That, we can agree on," said Julian. He scooted onto the bed next to Alex, staying on top of the covers in anticipation of food. "We'll have to examine all the food and drink, and hope our murderess hasn't made it down to the kitchens."
"They'd kick her out," said Alex. "Chudleigh's staff is quite offended by the whole thing at this point, and are confining us all to our rooms for more than one reason. Any nobles caught wandering will get ratted out to the cops, I bet."
"Let's hope McGuinness and Gallowglass are smart enough to leave off for the moment, then," said Julian with a giggle. "I don't think anyone else was feeling frisky at this point, but you never know."
"Even I'm not feeling frisky anymore," said Alex dolefully. The cats grumbled at him and shifted, weighing him down even further.
Julian couldn't help but laugh.
"The lot of you are absurd," Alex protested, getting more grumbles as he shifted again. "I'm going to have to move to eat, you know."
Cinnamon yawned with all her teeth.
Julian snuggled in closer and started petting the cats, his head on Alex's shoulder. "They just want you to rest, love. As do I."
"Well, I don't want to rest," said Alex, sulky and contrary now that he was being properly coddled. "I want to ward this room and go hunting for our murderess."
"We're both pretty sure it's a woman now?" said Julian. "Mainly because we're pretty sure it's not Smithson."
"It's not Smithson," agreed Alex.
His phone rang over in his jacket, and Julian jumped up to retrieve and answer it. "Hello, Murielle. Alex is trapped under the cats, so I'm putting you on speaker."
"Hello to Alex and the cats, then," said Lapointe, sounding amused. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," said Alex. "My eyes are almost back to normal, the poison dilated them and that was weird."
"So, update me on how things are going," said Murielle. "Let's start with a description of all three events?"
"We weren't there for the second one," said Julian, "but we have the gist from the gossips."
He and Alex tag-team explained all three incidents, then, not just from their perspective but including some things other people had observed, appropriately credited for more than one reason.
"In the end, our murderess is very good at flying under the radar," said Alex with a huff. "You won't want to let anyone leave until you've figured out which of our suspects it is."
"So you've eliminated Smithson," she said.
"Yeah, he just didn't do it," said Julian. "He wasn't near the second incident, and he's just, I don't know. I don't feel like he's a person who would risk his entire future to off some noble he didn't like."
"Julian's right," said Alex. "Plus, he never pings me as the least bit magical, and the other servants say he has no interest in the gardens."
"Someone could theoretically sneak some magical belladonna into the flowers and plants here, though there's nothing indoors," said Julian. "I'd have noticed."
"All right, and we're pretty sure Winterson didn't poison herself, nor you while unconscious," said Murielle, "which leaves us with Knapweed, Halliwell, Periwig, and Berkelshire."
"All of whom you will have to address as Miss to keep from offending, though Knapweed uses Lady or Sir," warned Julian.
"Don't worry, it's not my first rodeo," said Lapointe. "Any thoughts on the remaining four?"
"I don't like any of them, really," said Alex with an amused huff.
"Periwig seemed sensible enough until she decided it was ghosts.
Halliwell is too easy to offend. Knapweed has that air of superiority some nobles get, along with a sense that she knows things we don't but not necessarily about this.
Berkelshire, well, honestly she's also pretty easily offended but otherwise inoffensive herself. "
"I keep half-forgetting her," admitted Julian, "which doesn't mean she didn't do it, just that she's good at avoiding our attention."
"Which actually might mean she did do it," said Lapointe. "What about the one with the poison garden, Gallowglass?"
"She wasn't in the room for the first one," said Alex. "She also seems more the stabbing sort, to be honest, or possibly a duel."
"Definitely a duel," said Julian. "She'd find the whole thing a great lark."
Lapointe sighed. "However, we should ask her if she'd brought anything with her."
Alex made a dubious nose.
"Belladonna can be used recreationally in very small doses, but you have to control for it and expect it, and I think there's some measures you can take not to throw up afterward," said Julian thoughtfully.
"Since I'm not into the ritual stuff, spiritual hallucinations and all that, I don't know that well, but one of my books was talking about people using it. "
"She doesn't seem the prophetic type, either, though," said Alex. "I don't know, maybe her hallucinations are more fun than one impatient elf in the woods."
"Is that what you saw?" said Julian, trying not to giggle over the image of it.
"They told me they wouldn't answer anything about the murders, so I asked about our magic thing," said Alex. "My dream was very straightforward."
"Possibly to do with your personality as much as the low dose," said Julian. "You never did put up with a lot of symbolic faff if you didn't have to."
"And yet, my whole career has been about figuring out obscure symbolism," said Alex dryly. "Maybe my spirit guide or whatever took pity on me."
"At least you didn't have to read runes in the tree leaves or whatever," agreed Julian.
"If you two are done," said Lapointe, reminding them she was still waiting on the other end of the phone call, "is there anything else important I should know?"
"Bring your own thermos and don't let anyone touch it," said Alex. "Or even near it."
"Warn everyone only to accept food or drinks from staff," said Julian. "They'll do what they can to keep people away, but they can only do so much if a noble bullies them about it."
"Of course, if someone was bullied, Chudleigh's staff would immediately snitch," said Alex approvingly. "They're still kind of upset that no one saw who got to the snake."
"That does seem to be a crime of opportunity," said Lapointe. "If we can figure out where these new poisons are coming from, maybe we can find our culprit."
"I believe in you," said Alex tiredly. "I am so terrible at all of this, but I believe in your ability to untangle it."
"I believe in Alex's ability to annoy the culprit until they make a mistake," said Julian cheerfully.
"We all believe in that," said Lapointe dryly. Even Horace chirped his agreement.
"I do what I can," said Alex, sarcasm dripping from his tone. "Now, are you done with me or what?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'll come wake you tomorrow if you're not around whenever we can finally show up." Lapointe hung up on them, as was her wont, and Julian put the phone on the bedside table.
"At least there will be food soon," said Julian, curling back up into Alex.
"The cuddles are nice," said Alex, "but I am starving."
"Yeah, I bet," said Julian. "Oh, we have some of the snacks we packed!
" He went and rummaged, coming up with a small tin of the high-energy oatcakes that Jacques and Alys had been working on.
They were a little dry without tea, but they'd finally managed to make them taste like food and not just something you ate because it was good for you.
Not as delicious as some things, but decent.
They were still munching on those when a knock came at the door, and Julian opened it to find Smithson himself with a big tray of food and two whole pots of tea. Horace flew over to sit on the tray and make a show of looking everything over, as if he knew the first thing about poison.
"I wanted to bring things down personally, and thank you two for not accusing me," said Smithson, chuckling at the bird's antics. "It'd be easy, you know, for them to pin it on the working guy."
"But it wouldn't be right," said Julian, helping Alex extricate himself and sit up so the bed tray could go across his lap. It was nearly big enough for them both to fit beneath it, but Julian planned to hover, as befit a worried husband and his ailing darling.
"It wouldn't, but that doesn't always matter," said Smithson, pulling the tea leaves and pouring for them both.
Julian felt Alex's magic riding their bond, looking for strange botanicals, but it was just good black tea with no flavourings or poisons whatsoever.
The cats sniffed both him and the cups, but otherwise were cooperative for once.
"It matters to us," said Alex. "Besides, you brought us poison-free tea. You're our hero."
"Not to mention the food," said Julian.
Smithson looked over the arrangement and nodded. "You call me up if you need anything, me and Alice got assigned to you two special now."
"We will," said Julian. "We're planning to hide in here all evening, anyway, so no one should be able to poison us."
"We hope all the nobles do, but it seems unlikely," said Smithson, rolling his eyes. "Sir's going to make a rule about no food or drink if people still want dancing or cards, anyway."
"Smart rule," said Julian, sipping his wonderfully unadulterated tea, taking it black just this once.
Smithson bowed and left, closing the door which Julian locked behind him.
Horace hopped over to the sugar bowl and clinked his beak against it as if to remind Julian that he needn't suffer black tea if he didn't want to.
"We really need to do something about poison with our amulets," said Julian wryly, sitting on the edge of the bed and stealing a little tea sandwich to nibble on.
Beef and tomato and cream cheese made a nice combination, nothing fancy but good and filling.
"It may have helped some," admitted Alex. "You know, the fancy one's almost got its many strange pathways filled up with power, and there's a bit about toxins in there somewhere, though I think I intended it for things like smoke inhalation."
"I hope it did help," said Julian, taking another sandwich and nudging Alex's foot. "Eat, hungry man."
"Right, sorry," said Alex. He took a big swig of his own tea, which he'd fiddled around with adding sugar and milk to, and then set it down in favour of some of the little savoury tartlets piled up on another of the plates. "Stomach's still a little gun-shy, I guess."
Julian gave him a fond smile and a wave of sympathy through their bond, glad that he hadn't been taken out by the waves of strangeness that had come across while Alex was under.
They'd broken up on the shores of Julian's self, though, so he'd managed to keep his head and stay upright and in control.
"Just eat slowly," said Julian, nudging his foot again, and Horace chirruped his agreement. "We have all night."
"Yeah," said Alex with a wry laugh, "I guess we do."