Chapter 41 #2
Feeling bold, I raise a hand to my lips and suck in two fingers. The challenge in his eyes leaves me shaken.
“Oh, ew, stop,” Fabia protests as she stands beside me.
Jerking my fingers out of my mouth, I snatch the napkins from her and bend over to grab the toy. As I crouch there on the floor, I really wish Niflhel would open up below me and swallow me whole. When it doesn’t, I slowly rise.
“Make sure it’s wrapped well,” she says.
“I’m going to need more serviettes,” I mumble beneath my breath.
“What?”
Squirming with embarrassment, I repeat it a bit louder.
Pretending to gag, she walks back to the table.
Oh my gods, I am going to have to ghost my best friend.
Move country.
Go into hiding.
Never come out again.
Or die.
That’ll work. And it doesn’t even seem that bad anymore.
When she comes back, I swap the wet serviettes over for dry ones, wrap it well, and then hand it to her. Shuddering, she opens a pocket in her suit bottoms, and I shove it in.
“You owe me your-first-born-child level of owing,” she says. Grabbing my arm, she pulls me away from everyone else. “Now tell me about the books,” she says softly. “First, why? I thought you liked him.” Dropping my arm, my bestie shakes her hand as if it’s dirty.
“I do.”
“But?”
I hesitate, not wanting to tell her. She’s really settled in here: joining the guard, making new friends, finally finding a home that accepts her for her. I don’t want to ruin that. And I don’t even want to kill him anymore.
“Arienna. I have your fucking toy in my pocket. You better start talking.”
Looking down at my feet, I mumble, “He’s planning on killing me.”
“What?”
Sighing, I pull her further away from the party and lower my voice. “According to Ajax, my execution is still going through. Richard didn’t cancel it because he doesn’t want to share the throne.”
Her face pales. Then it hardens. “For fuck’s sake, girl,” she growls, shaking her head. “Why in Hel’s name are you letting him shove toys up your vagina then?”
I wince, doubting she’ll take, ‘he’s really fucking hot’ as a good defence.
It sounds like a bad defence to me, and I’m the one enjoying it.
“Well…” I say, floundering. “Would you want to die with Karl’s dick being the last you’ve ever had?
” I grab her shoulders. “Fabia, he lasted four seconds and had my mum’s and my sister’s vaginas on it. ”
She shakes her head, but a tiny smile graces her lips. “So what’s your plan?”
Glancing around us, I lean in closer. Although I don’t have any more plans, I know she won’t drop it if she thinks I’m incapable of handling this myself. And at the very least, this will buy me some time to think of some other way to handle her.
“I’m going to poison him,” I say confidently. “It’s actually really clever. I baked him a regular cake and gave it to him the other day to get him to lower his guard. This way, by the time I give him the poisoned cake, he will eat it without question.”
“You do know he has a taster, right?”
“Yes,” I say, but I can’t tell her I had a new plan to poison my vagina.
She will absolutely just think I’m using that as an excuse to sit on his face.
“I’m not stupid. I have a plan for that.
” I think as I talk, hoping whatever words I say next will make sense.
“I’ll mix the poison on only one slice – the side facing me as Jace will most likely try from the side that’s facing him.
This will also let me eat it with Richard, so he won’t suspect it’s poisoned. ”
“And what poison are you using? Because it’ll need to be tasteless and odourless.”
“I know…”
“So what is it?”
I glance away. Bugger. Chillies are neither tasteless nor odourless.
“Arienna –”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Wait, you’re saying you don’t even have it yet?”
Exhaling in frustration, I say, “Well, it’s not like I can just waltz into a shop and ask for poison.” I glance at her. “Right?”
She gives me a deadpanned stare. “So let me get this straight. Your whole plan to stop yourself from dying is to poison him with a poison you don’t even have nor have any idea of how to get?”
“You’re making it sound dumb,” I grumble.
Her eyes are full of judgement. “Arienna, you are just feeding him cake with this plan. Regular-ass cake. How is that not dumb?”
“That’s not fair. You’re leaving out the poison.”
“No, you’re leaving out the poison.”
Before I can counter that, she adds, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Because I don’t want to ruin this for you.” Wrapping my arms around my waist, I hug myself. “You’re the happiest I’ve ever seen you, and I saw you the day you punched my sister in the face.”
“Your sister is a dick.”
“She’s…” I say, trying to defend her but coming up empty. “Whatever, that doesn’t matter. You’re happy here. I don’t want to ruin that.”
“How do you think I’m going to take it after I watch you get publicly executed?”
I glance away, my face heating. This sounded so much better in my head. “I’m going to ask Richard to kill me in a way that makes it look like an accident?”
She stares at me, gobsmacked. “An accident?”
“I figure that’s the least he can do…”
“How is he going to pass off pulling your intestines out of your ass as an accident? Oh, hey, Fabia, look at that, I forgot to use lube?”
Shaking her head, she takes a step away from me and then comes storming back. “You are – You are – Ugh.” She clenches her fists as she looks up at the ceiling, then back down at me. “I’ll get you the poison.”
“What?” No! “How?” I croak, hoping I can poke a hole in her plan.
She breathes out slowly, regaining control. “You know that chemistry set you got me?”
I nod.
“Yeah… Well, I haven’t actually been using it to create new drinks.”
“Fabia!”
“What? It’s for research for my books. I have to get the smells of my poison right.” She cocks her head to the side as she makes a little noise in her throat. “And the taste and the symptoms.”
“Fabia!” My jaw hits the floor. She’s going to be the death of me.
“What? I only eat a little. And look at me; I’m not dead. It’s fine.”
I shake my head at her. Aren’t I supposed to be the dumb one that needs looking after?
The heck that’s true now!
“When you came down with a bug on my birthday –” I say sternly.
“Yeah… that was antrix.”
I have no idea what that is, but it sounds bad. I place my hands on my hips.
She rolls her eyes. “Hey, you had wasps. You don’t get to get on to me about my dangerous hobbies. And it’s way less dangerous than yours.”
“You’re eating poison! On purpose.”
“And you lived with murderous wasps.”
“No, because Hyatt was the only one that murdered someone, and he left right after.”
She raises a brow as she crosses her arms. “You really want to argue technicalities? Because the wasps were not the first dangerous stunt you pulled.”
I open my mouth, then close it again. To be fair, she has me there.
“So when are we doing this?” she asks. The way she says it so flippantly, so assuredly makes my blood run cold.
When it was just me attempting this, I knew deep down, that it wouldn’t really work; I’d mess it up somehow, and he would live.
But it gave me the pretence of having at least some standards about who I slept with.
That way I could tell myself I wasn’t really having sex with my executioner; I was seducing my executioner to kill him, and that sounded infinitely better. Classier. Way less slutty.
And I really like him. I really, really like him.
“I think we should do it tonight,” Fabia says, cutting into my internal ramblings.
My chin jerks up as I stare at her. “Tonight?”
Tonight is too soon.
I need to think. I need to figure out a way to stop –
“Yes, tonight.” She nods firmly. “When everyone is down here and slightly buzzed rather than guarding his room. I’ll slip in there now to help you hide his body later.”
“But what about making the poison?” I ask desperately.
She waves a hand. “Oh, I already have loads to choose from.”
“But… I haven’t baked him a cake yet.”
“So grab one from here. Trust me, if he’s already putting toys inside you, he’s not going to care if the cake you bring him is one you made or not. He’s just going to want to eat it off you.”
Grabbing my hands, she gives them both a squeeze. “It’ll be okay,” she says. “I’ve already thought of a way to make it look like an accident. Once he’s dead, we’ll pour a bottle of ambrosia down his throat, then throw him out the window. They’ll think he fell, too drunk to fly. It’ll be fine.”
I look at her in horror. She came up with that way too fast.
“Trust me.” She releases my hands and nods. “I’ll see you there. Give me an hour or so before you come up.”
Before I can think of what to say, Fabia disappears into the crowd.
Only then do the words come to me.
One word, actually.
“Fuck.”