Chapter 4
Delphi's head throbbed with an unrelenting migraine. She woke with her sheets soaked in sweat, her mouth dry, and a deep pain behind her eyes.
The sun was making a valiant effort to break through the clouds, and Delphi knew she had overslept. She fumbled for the cup of water by her bed, knocking over her stub of candle from the night before.
"Dark hells," she muttered and drained the water.
Delphi's neck ached. She moved to refill her basin and stripped out of her sodden night gown.
The icy cold water made her face burn, but it helped with the headache.
She didn't bother to use magic to heat the water as she washed the sweat from her body.
Her skin was hot and too tight, as if she were running a fever.
Had she used too much magic yesterday? It didn't seem like much at the time, just a simple transmutation for her father. She was hollowed out and drained.
Delphi brushed and braided her hair before checking it in her cracked hand mirror. She froze, her eyes staring in disbelief at the long red scratch that ran from under her ear to her shoulder.
The dream... She dropped the mirror, her hands shaking.
"Deep breaths. This is impossible. Dreams can't hurt you, just like they can't give mind-altering orgasms," she told herself. Maybe a bug had bitten her, and she had scratched herself in her sleep? That made more sense.
Delphi pulled on a fresh pair of leather leggings and a linen tunic, then loosely laced her bodice over it. She needed to eat and make tea to alleviate her throbbing headache.
Stumbling into the kitchen, she risked making her headache worse by placing her hand on the tea kettle and heating the water. With well-practiced ease, she mixed dried feverfew, peppermint leaves, and ginger into a cup and poured the hot water over it.
Delphi noted that the soup she had left for her father had been eaten. She cocked her head, listening, but couldn't hear his usual snores. That was strange. Even when he went out to the tavern, he always managed to make it back home again.
Delphi ate the heel of yesterday's bread and sipped her tea. Her stomach clenched, but she managed to keep it down. She found her small jar of healing balm and rubbed it over the scratch on her neck. It burned for a few moments before a cooling sensation moved over it.
The dream had felt so real. It had been clearer than ever before, too. Had she somehow used her magic in it? Her pussy felt sensitive and a little sore. Light had filled her, and she had glowed as she came hard for her shadow man.
Delphi cringed. Maybe she had used magic in her sleep. She would have to go through her books and try to find any reference to dream magic in them. She would ask Narcisse if she had to. She couldn't have her magic leaking when she was asleep.
"Just what you need." Delphi rubbed her temples and the knots in her jaw. Would a charm or talisman work? She had used them before when she was younger and had struggled with her magic manifesting when she got angry. She had been angry a lot as a teenager.
Taking her tea, Delphi stepped outside into her garden. On one half of the small plot, she grew vegetables, and on the other side were herbs, medicinal plants, and flowers.
When she could get the seeds, she grew delphinium, the deadly blue flowers she was named after.
When ingested, it could kill beasts and humans alike.
She had only ever distilled one batch of poison from it, and it had never been used.
Mostly, she made her own ink from the blue petals and would pick bunches to brighten up her room.
Delphi's eye snagged on the crumbling stone wall.
The loose stone she used to hide her money was upside down.
She had been in a rush to get inside the night before.
Maybe she had put it in wrong? Her heart in her throat, Delphi pulled out the stone and felt around behind it. Empty. Her money was gone.
Delphi dropped to her knees, blood rushing from her head. "Narcisse..."
It had to have been him. How had he known about it? She had always been so careful with her hiding places. She suspected he would go through her rooms, so she had never left her money in the house.
A hot, angry sob broke free from her chest, her fingers gripping the dirt. She tried to take some deep breaths all the way into her stomach to try and calm down. She had to find him before there was nothing left.
Delphi went inside to grab her bag and locked the cottage before heading toward the village. She half expected to find Narcisse passed out in a ditch, but all she saw was the mangled remains of a deer on the edge of the forest. The kill looked fresh, but she saw no other creatures about.
Delphi cringed and picked up her pace, the uneasy feeling in her stomach growing with every step.
The village should have been busy at that time of day, but the streets were empty.
The bakery tables hadn't been put out for customers either.
She wanted to go in and ask what was happening, but kept walking.
The sooner she found Narcisse, the better.
The tavern was always open, and Delphi spotted horses in its stables. They didn't look like the usual country nags. Occasionally, they had travelers, but they usually came later in the summer. Spring in Grisvallon was still dreary.
Delphi pushed open the tavern doors and approached the bar, where the owner was wiping down the counter.
"Hey, Alain. I don't suppose you have seen my good-for-nothing father anywhere?" Delphi asked, sliding onto a barstool.
Alain didn't stop cleaning. "He was here last night. Seemed to be in a good mood because he had come into some money. Don't ask me how."
"He fucking stole it from me," Delphi said and put her head in her hands. "I'm going to murder him."
"You might have to get in line," Alain replied. Something in his tone made her lift her head. He was looking at a space just past her right shoulder. Delphi opened her mouth to ask what he meant by that when a smooth voice broke the silence first.
"Delphinium, it has been too long."
Hot panic dumped down her spine, and she slowly turned around. A group of three men stood behind her. Two brawny bodyguards flanked a lean, well-dressed man carrying a rapier.
Louis Boudon was the son of Rodolphe, Lord of Bellemere. Technically, Grisvallon was still a part of his father's territory, but in the two years since they had lived there, Delphi had never seen a trace of their overlords.
"Lord Boudon," she said politely. She glanced toward the door, and one of the guards moved in front of it. She searched past Alain to the door behind the bar. Another man was now filling it with his arms crossed. She was absolutely fucked.
"What's going on?" she asked, going for naive. "I didn't think they would send you personally to collect any taxes."
"Let's sit and have a talk like civilized people," he replied, with a charming smile. His eyes were looking at her like she was dinner.
The few times they had met during her father's tenure with Lord Boudon, Delphi had read the desire in his expression and done her best to never be alone with him. Lord's sons didn't ask women for permission. And when the lord was a favorite of the king of Chantelun? Nothing was off limits for them.
Louis had made his desires known to Delphi more than once, and she had always managed to avoid him, thinking that he would soon move on. The look he was giving her said that he hadn't. He was like a child who had been denied a coveted toy. If she had fucked him, he wouldn't have been there at all.
Delphi knew that trying to fight or run was pointless for the moment, so she obediently sat in a booth opposite Louis. If she pretended to be meek and mild, maybe they would drop their guard at some point, and she would escape then.
"I don't suppose you know where Narcisse is?" she asked, already dreading the answer.
"Yes. He's passed out in one of the rooms upstairs, being watched over in case he tries to do anything stupid like run away," Louis replied, his eyes narrowing. "Again."
Delphi made her eyes go big. "He told me that his commission with your family was finished, and we were moving to the country."
"It wouldn't surprise me if he lied to you, but even you must have noticed that he was carrying some sacks that didn't belong to him when you scurried away in the middle of the night.
" Louis's pale blue eyes turned icy. "My father doesn't like thieves, Delphi.
Almost as much as he doesn't like men who pretend to be someone else… and witches."
"Witches?" she asked.
He tossed a folded-up piece of paper at her.
Delphi's hands were damp with sweat as she smoothed the paper out.
It was a wanted poster for L'Alchimiste Infernal, and a well drawn picture of Narcisse.
Amongst the listed crimes was his harboring of a woman who was a suspected witch.
The smell of burning flesh filled Delphi's nose again.
"Is this some kind of joke? If so, it's very poor taste," she said, hiding the tremor in her voice.
Louis smiled, and it was like a wolf had cornered her.
"Not a joke. Imagine my surprise seeing your father's face on a poster while I was in the capital recently.
I knew he was a thief, but to learn that he was the infamous L'Alchimiste, the most notorious and hated alchemist in all of Chantelun, was quite the blow.
I knew of him, of course, but I never would have connected him to the washed-up mess Narcisse has become if not for how good the drawing is. "
"My father is everything you claim and worse, but I'm not a witch," Delphi said and licked her lips. "If I were that powerful, don't you think I would be living somewhere other than this hellhole?"
Louis reached across the table and took her hand. "I want to believe you, Delphi. I can see you are a good, obedient girl, but the charges against your father are severe. He made off with a set of my mother's favorite silverware, and she was very displeased about it."
If it were only the silverware they noticed gone, they clearly weren't paying close enough attention to all the other things Narcisse had taken. Delphi did her best to look innocent and upset.
"My lord, I had no idea. If I knew, I would have forced him to take it back. Your family was so good to us. I never wanted to leave Bellemere," she said, with a sniffle. "You have to believe me."
Louis's fingers lightly traced over the skin on the back of her wrist, and she struggled to hide her revulsion. "There are ways you can make it up to me."
"There are?" Delphi knew what he would ask, and she would give it to him to save herself from the pyre.
Louis hummed thoughtfully. "You see, knowing Narcisse is a thief isn't my father's biggest concern right now.
He was making medicine for my mother during his tenure with us.
Her condition has worsened without him. My father is willing to forget the theft if Narcisse becomes indentured to him and starts making medicine for my mother again.
He will be under house arrest and will have to work off the value of the silver. "
"That… That seems very fair to me," Delphi replied. Considering that Louis had every right to cut off body parts and hang her father.
"There is also a small condition concerning you," Louis said and tapped the wanted poster. "You have been labeled a witch, Delphi. The truth won't matter. Any person in Chantelun will see you dead when they learn of your identity. They will hate and fear you much more than your father."
Delphi thought about the vial of delphinium poison she had made and kept safe with her books. She had distilled it one day when the fear of being discovered had overwhelmed her.
Was it too much to hope that Louis would let her collect her things before she was arrested? It would be the only way to get to it.
"Please…" she whispered, her tears real now as terror overwhelmed her.
"I have a plan to save you, Delphi. I can protect you," Louis said softly.
"Why would you help me?"
"Do you not know? I want you, and I'm going to marry you."
Delphi stared up at him in surprise. "What?"
"Agree to marry me, Delphi, and I will save you from the pyre." His fingers tightened around her wrist, and she fought not to pull away. "If you don't, I will light the torches myself."