The South Amaris Spider #2
Esme rolled her eyes. “You’re a paragon of kindness,” she said. Karin was one of the twin owners of Amaris’s largest and most exclusive pleasure house, the Den. Of course, she and Isla were friends.
The antidote to liars’ nectar was even more well guarded than the poison.
The only people in the city with access were the Hidden Mothers in the Lap of Virya, who’d only grant it to a person who truly deserved it.
Isla had snagged it thanks to her quick glamours and sticky fingers, often bragging that it had been her easiest job.
Probably so, but she was, after all, a magic thief raised by Wraiths. To her, any thievery would be easy.
“The only side-effect is that it is intensely hallucinogenic in large quantities,” she said, “so don’t go sipping it unless you want the trip of your life.
Other than that, the only thing you need to worry about is the smell.
It seeps into skin, so wash off after.” She pushed the bottles towards Esme.
“I don’t need both,” Esme said. “I’m planning to poison him for real, not for fake.”
“I know, but it might still be helpful to have.” Isla twisted her lips. “Besides, if Isobel already has a bottle, so should you.”
“So, this is what she commissioned from you?” Esme asked, remembering the serving notes from a few nights ago. Isobel had been in the Foot doing something with “wine.”
“Isobel said she needed a perfect stand-in for liars’ nectar mixed into a wine. It was a rushed bit of work, but I came up with this in about a week. Her deadline for the completed product was tomorrow.”
“Did she make any other requests?” Esme asked, taking both bottles.
“None,” Isla said. “But now you have all of her weapons in your arsenal.”
“I’m going to give you a title.” Isla definitely deserved it. “How much?”
Isla raised her brows. “Now, why would I make you pay me?”
“Because I’m a customer.”
“Hmm, my oldest one,” Isla said, and smiled fondly.
“You are about to rewrite the history of the country. I think it’s very funny that I get to play a part in it.
That amusement is enough.” She leaned on her counter.
“Though maybe you could convince your general to start regulating medicine prices once he’s crowned.
I used to sell to seedy brothel owners. Now mothers bring me their sick children because the chemists’ prices are too high.
” You’d think Isla would be jumping for joy at Micrea’s unregulated drug market, but she wasn’t in this business to scalp mothers.
“I can bring it up with Bal,” Esme said, looking down at Isla with an overwhelming sense of pride.
“You call him Bal?” Isla tried and failed to flatten her smile. “You have your eyes on a crown of your own?”
“It wouldn’t fit over my hair.”
“Are you sure? It would be very helpful for me to have a relative on the throne.” A relative. She had relatives.
Esme used to have siblings—ten of them, ranging in age.
She had sisters who braided her hair, and brothers to get dead drunk with.
She had friends to sneak down into dances with, and a mother to fight with.
A father to comfort her. She used to have so much.
Isla reminded her of Kidra, her next-youngest sister, tall and full-bodied, with brown skin splattered with darker freckles.
Kidra did the family’s hair, not just because she was best at it but because she enjoyed testing out her new styles on heads that couldn’t refuse her.
She was witty and sharp and a perfect foil to Neme, her twin.
Ojalla alive, if anything, Isla was the melding of Kidra and Neme together.
Neme followed Esme into her religious studies, but never stayed out of the family doctor’s labs.
She once brewed a potion that turned their eldest sibling, Sek, into a hog for an hour.
To make up for it, she concocted Sek a perfume for her birthday that also perfectly curled her hair.
Song’s breath, Neme would be… ninety-five. She and Kidra would be ninety-five now…
Had Nemesis taken over performing Harwa services after Esme was stolen? Did Kidra still braid their hair? And Sek, with whom Esme had had a falling-out with right before she was taken… was she still their mother’s favorite?
She wiped her tears and the agony of her siblings away. She missed them more than anything.
“You’re reminiscing,” Isla said, turning slightly, as if to chase the sadness Esme tucked away.
“How do you know?”
“You are loud because you do not like to hear yourself think. When you are quiet, you’re thinking. And when you’re thinking, you’re reminiscing.”
Esme sniffled through a laugh. “You know me too well.”
“You are easy and nice to know,” Isla said, and Esme’s heart swelled. She wrapped her arms around Isla’s neck and squeezed just tight enough not to hurt her. She was soft and warm and—
And if Esme closed her eyes, she could still feel the last time she hugged Kidra, the night before her wedding. The night before Omniel dragged her to Micrea.
But for the short duration of this hug, Esme was home, in the silent second before the end of her life, clutching her sister.
She wished for nothing more than to live in that second forever.