Chapter 28
“But if one put a slight upon them, or in any way incurred their displeasure, they were not slow in taking revenge.”
The cost of spending the night hunting the beast is that I sleep longer than I intend, and when I wake, Isabeau is staring back at me with something like wonder on her face. She takes my mouth in a kiss that threatens to roll toward more, but I pull away.
Gently, I remind her, “I have a monster to hunt.”
I sit upright and stretch. Resting on the soft cushion of half-opened bales of hay made for deep sleep, and that has left me clearer of mind. So, too, has talking to Isabeau—but it has also left me with questions. “Do you have more of your current tonic?”
Isabeau frowns. “Why?”
“I want to see what’s in it.” I roll my shoulders. A few hours of rest don’t replace a full night’s sleep, although I need far less rest as the Hunter than I have for most of my life. “I want to go into the village and consult my physician.”
“About my tonic?”
“I’m not convinced you’re truly cursed,” I say carefully.
“I am unconscious as soon as darkness falls.”
“What if that’s because of the tonic? Perhaps one of the new ingredients makes you sleep.
Perhaps something in it disagrees with you, and that’s why you think you are cursed.
” I sigh at the expression she has now, confusion and doubt vying in her features.
“Curses are rare, Isabeau. If you are truly cursed, the timing matches when the monster started attacking. I need to know more.”
“That first death was also the same day my father died,” Isabeau points out. “His death is a more likely reason for my curse. Curses are often familial. The dowager duchess explained it to me. Perhaps it only afflicts some family members, and when he died, it fell to me.”
“Was he cursed? His sister? Your cousin Alaric?” I fire questions at her. Then I gently remind her, “This is who I am, Isabeau. I figure out mysteries tied to the faeries, and I stop the faeries who are hurting people.”
“My father did not have this curse. Nor does my mother. Or the queen.” Isabeau frowns.
“So why do you?” I am careful in my questions, but I do not see how she’s not asked these same things—unless it’s a function of the curse itself.
Faeries are treacherous beasts, so it is not impossible that they’ve woven something into the framework of the curse to stop questions.
The magic around the Hunter prevents many questions, I think.
That magic was written by faeries as part of the treaty.
“Do you feel different since the curse?” I prod. “What if you miss your tonic?”
“I do not miss it.” Isabeau shakes her head, but her expression makes her opinion on skipping it exceedingly clear. “I have never. I must drink it.”
More magic? Or addiction to something in the tonic?
Compulsion magic is treacherous stuff, but so is poppy juice.
Is that what’s in her tonic? Is her curse actually simple medicine?
I ponder what it means as we walk together to the manor and go inside, where my mother and sister are waiting.
They have books in hand, but their expressions are expectant.
“Am I to finally begin planning your wedding?” Mother asks.
“Eventually,” I allow. “The mission . . .”
“. . . comes first,” Mother and Rylan both finish. They are smiling, though, and I feel a bit awkward that we are all discussing my romantic life. Fortunately, Isabeau looks happy, rather than put off by their involvement.
“Welcome to our family, Your Grace,” Mother says, coming to her feet. “I shall speak to Cook about the midday meal. Come. Let her know your opinions.”
“Mother.” I shake my head. “I must go to the village. I need to see Maria.”
“You seem uninjured,” Mother says, studying me. “And you have no need of a birth inhibitor.”
The thought of discussing pregnancy is not welcome, but I add, “There are other areas Maria can address. I want to know what’s in Isabeau’s tonic. Nothing in the journals says that any curse is altered by tonics.”
Isabeau frowns at this.
“I want to speak to Henry, Polly, and Nolan, as well as Anders.” I would’ve already shared my recent conversation with them if not for my distraction with the woman who holds my heart. “They have been parsing evidence with me.”
Rylan joins our conversation with, “Anders stops by at midday after her morning patrol. She ought to be here soon.”
“You know her schedule well.” I focus on my sister’s burning cheeks. I will have questions for her later.
“The soldiers can escort you to the village,” Rylan adds as she closes her book. “Although I suppose you aren’t yet bound by the Hunter’s draconian restrictions, Your Grace. Some of us have to ask permission to leave the manor.”
After Rylan leaves to check for the soldiers, I pull Isabeau aside and lead her to the guest room where she slept last night.
I have a plan, and I know she’s not going to like it.
“Give me one of your vials, Isabeau. I want to take it to Maria. If it was the beast that cursed you, this might give me a clue.”
Isabeau frowns. “I want to help you.”
“Then give me the tonic,” I ask again.
“If I do, I must stay here rather than go to the village. If I am near you, I will take it from you or the physician.” Isabeau looks embarrassed. “I cannot stop the compulsion to drink it.”
“You looked as if you would lift the partial vial from the dung,” I say, my tone half asking whether that was true.
“I was waiting for you to look away. I know that the thought of lifting it from horse shit and putting that container to my lips is foul. I know it.” Isabeau looks at me in alarm. “I would’ve, though. Why?”
“Curses are a sort of magic, possibly similar to the magic that prevents people from guessing the Hunter’s name.
People willingly ignore the evidence that would have them guess the Hunter’s name.
My family has always been the Hunter, yet the secret remains.
Magic is powerful.” I take her hand in mine.
“Tell me where it is, and I will take the vial and go. I’ll be back by evening. You’ll be safe here.”
She nods. “In my pocket.”
“Of?”
“My breeches.” She trembles, and I recognize it as a mix of fear and compulsion. “These breeches.”
Quickly I step closer and kiss her. At the same time, I dart a hand into her pocket and steal the vials.
As I pull away, she grabs my wrist. “Both? You took both?”
“I’ll bring the second one back if I can,” I promise. With the arm she’s not holding, I make a fist and press that arm sideways across her chest like a bar. I push her backward. “Release my arm, my love.”
“I am trying,” she whispers.
I toss the vials behind me into the hallway, where they land with a clatter, and Isabeau tries to dash past me after them. I grab her and kiss her forcefully, walking her backward toward the bed.
When I pull back, I say, “I love you. I’ll be back. Please try to stay here until I leave the manor. This magic is stronger than I expected.”
I run out of the room and pull the door shut with a loud bang. Holding it closed, I calmly say, “Close the bar on the door, Your Grace. You don’t want to chase me.”
I hear the metal fall in place, but I also hear her say, “I do. I do want to chase you.”
“You will not. Not if you want me to be your bride,” I say steadily. “Do you want to marry me, Isabeau?”
“Yes.” Her voice is breaking on that one word. “I do.”
“Then do not chase me.” I scoop up the vials and race down the stairs and outside, where a startled Rylan stands with Anders. “Guard the house. No patrols this evening. I’ll send the rest of the unit to the house.”
Then I’m off to the stable and on my way to the village to see Maria.
Uncharacteristically, Maria is sitting outside when I walk toward her cottage. Her sun-browned face is tilted upward, and she’s barefoot. Eyes still closed, she greets as I approach, “Hunter.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“No one else would approach me so quietly.” One eye opens and takes me in. “How is Her Grace?”
My mouth gapes open. “How . . .”
Maria cackles joyously. “Girard told me she was here, Hunter.”
I hold out the two vials I carried here. “This is her tonic. I need to know what it is.”
“She gave that to you?” Maria pushes to standing and shoves her feet into her worn brown brogues.
“More or less,” I hedge. “She allowed me to take it after I shared my doubts on her curse.”
Maria nods and leads me inside. I sit while she sets up a microscope and a few glass tubes. She’s quiet as she sniffs, separates samples, and tests.
“Saint-John’s-wort.” She lifts one glass. “Smell. The orange fragrance.”
I lean in. “I guess. I mostly smell the dirty-feet smell.”
“Valerian root.”
“Two sleeping herbs?” I ask.
“Three. Poppy extract.” She gestures to a tube that’s turned a different color. “I had to use a bit of magic to separate and find the pieces. Purchased magic.”
“I was afraid it was poppy,” I admit with a sigh. “Send the bill and your list to replace over to the manor. We’ll replace whatever you need.”
Maria starts to dispose of the samples and tests as I try not to think about why a mother would drug her child. Unless she doesn’t know? That is the best hope. Why, then, would the Maudite physician? Why make Isabeau think she’s cursed? Why drug her?
“Fire?” Maria asks, gesturing at the pile of chemicals and remains of the tonic in the belly of her unlit firebox.
I hold my hand out, palm down, and set fire to the mess. Maria seals the firebox. The smoke from the noxious mess will be carried away on the breeze; it’s safer than discarding the poison nearby where children or animals could get exposed to it.
“Did Father ever use any other Hunter’s magic for your work? Or just fire?” I ask.
“When your mother was ill after the last pair of babes. He stopped her bleeding,” Maria says quietly. “She’d have died if not.”
“Oh.”
“They were too small to survive, but he tried to save them, too.” Maria stares at the compounds in her tubes.
“Your duke is trusting. The tonic is good for easing stomach complaints. I presume that was the original reason for it—strengthen and easing digestion—but most of the rest is to keep her calm or make her sleep. The ingredients are as addictive as liquor, more so the longer she drinks it.”
I feel my shoulders slump, thinking about her urge to take the vial even after it was covered in excrement. Addictive poison. I must tell Isabeau that her mother lied to her, and I don’t relish the thought. At all.
I ask, to be sure I understand, “So there’s no curse?”
“That’s not for me to say.” Maria dumps the first vial.
“What I can share is that this is to keep her from waking. Beyond that . . .” She shrugs.
“The duke is drinking medicine, dangerous medicine. If you were to drink this, I suspect you’d be fine.
If I did? My heart would slow and eventually stop. ”
I shiver. There are a lot of poisons I hold in the manor, but each has an antidote. I thank Maria and rush home to tell Isabeau she is not cursed. What the dowager duchess knows is still a mystery, but this, at the least, is good news.
Inside the manor I don’t pause to speak to anyone. I rush upstairs to see my love. I push open the unbarred door, and I call out, “Isabeau?”
The casement is flung open, and the cold night air flows into the room. The bed is empty, but her things are still in the room. I walk around the bed, thinking she could have fallen or . . . whatever foolish explanation I can muster to explain why she’s missing.
“Isabeau?” I stare out the window into the darkened wood.
She is not there. Did the addiction to the tonic make her go to the village? Was she passing there as I was coming home? Or is she simply enjoying the stars now that she’s awake?
I return to the main level of the manor. “Mother? Have you seen Isabeau?”
“She was agitated after our evening meal and went to her room early,” Mother says with a frown. “I expect she’s in her bed by now. The curse—”
“Is a lie. The reason she sleeps at night is the new tonic. It’s not her herbs that she used to take as a child.
It now has several powerful sleeping medicines.
Without it, tonight, she’s awake. The curse was supposedly the reason she was sleeping, but without the tonic, she’s not sleeping. She’s not there.”
We enlist Rylan and the staff. Together, we search the house and the stable, and I am left with no recourse but to take Imp into the forest. People don’t vanish, not like this.
Two thoughts wrestle in my mind: Is Isabeau in danger from the Beast of Brimmond?
Or a very bizarre thought strikes me: Could she somehow be the Beast? Both thoughts fill me with fear.
“Does she have sleep-wandering troubles that the Maudite physician strives to treat with the new version of her tonic?” Mother asks carefully as she follows me to the stable. “Could this be a case of someone trying to poison her? Some people do not like that she is a woman and a duke . . .”
“Perhaps.” I feel like poisoning is the least deadly possibility.
“If so, if she walks in her sleep, she’s in peril now.
We know there’s something in the night.” The saddle is now on Imp, and I am ready to find Isabeau.
“I need to . . .” My gaze finds Mother’s.
“There is another reason she might be in the woods at night, a valid reason to drug her if she . . . if Isa . . .”
“You aren’t hunting her, Gabri,” Mother says gently. “Don’t let fears cloud your mind, child.”
I nod, but I feel like my world is collapsing. My voice is a fragment of a whisper as I ask, “Do any curses turn people into beasts?”
“Yes, but—”
“Perhaps the curse isn’t that she sleeps. Perhaps the curse is transformation.” I think of my difficulty identifying the creature. Could it be because it was hiding under the human face of my beloved?
The possibility is too horrific to imagine.
Is my lover, my intended, the creature that killed my father?
Is she the murderer in the night? Or is she out there, staring at the stars or insensible in the pains of missing her tonic?
Is my beloved easy prey for the Beast of Brimmond? Or is she my quarry?