Chapter Nine
In Which Unpleasant Revelations Are Made
The following week was uncomfortable for Mitch on multiple levels.
He knew that Tasia was holding back, and that stung more than he wanted it to.
The fact that that wretched story was circulating this far from where it originated was another thorn in his side.
One slip-up on his part, and it wouldn’t take long for the villagers to put two and two together and come up with pitchforks and torches.
The weather conspired to make him miserable, as well.
The thick clouds had vanished, leaving behind clear, cold skies.
The muddy ruts froze into ankle-turning nightmare paths, and icicles lurked on every eave, hanging in wait for unsuspecting, stab-able passersby.
Depending on the heat fastness of his lodgings, in the past Mitch had preferred to spend cooler nights curled up on the bed in his wolf form.
His current paranoia meant he spent the full week colder than he liked to be and jumping at every sound.
By the time the next rest day begrudgingly arrived, he was ready to crawl out of his skin.
Tasia met him outside the village, a spot of color against the increasingly dreary woods.
A few stubborn trees held onto their brilliantly hued leaves, though not many.
Her cloak shifted as she waved, and he saw that she was wearing many more layers than usual, which explained the slight waddle and stiff arm movements.
“Think you’ll be warm enough?” he said with a smirk.
She beamed back at him. “Yes, thank you!”
“Good. Let’s go.”
Tasia started their walk with an amusing story about mistakenly freezing the laundry she hung out to dry.
Mitch chuckled in the right places and managed to make encouraging noises so she would know he was listening, when in reality, he was caught up in the sound of her voice and how pleasant he found it.
She could have been reciting the alphabet or math facts and he would have been as enthralled.
An easy-to-ignore voice in the back of his mind noted that this was a bad sign.
When they crossed over the log bridge a good while later thanks to slippery patches of ice, Mitch determined that they were sufficiently far from civilization.
“Do you mind if I assume my wolf form?” he asked. “It’s warmer, and I’m steadier on four feet.”
“I don’t mind,” Tasia chirped. “As long as I can use you for balance when needed.”
“Fine by me.” Mitch allowed himself the grin trying to break through because he knew his transformation would hide it in seconds.
“I can still see you smiling, you know.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Your whole body gives you away.”
Fully wolf, Mitch playfully nipped at the hem of her cloak. She laughed and darted to the side. When she slipped on the frozen path, he hurried to put his bulk between her and the ground. She thanked him after catching herself on his back.
Then something tickled his nose. Something he had only smelled once or twice before. Concern led him to sniff her basket. The slippery aroma traveled up his nose and lured his mind toward sleep. He jerked his head back and sneezed, desperate to get the scent out of his system.
Confusion, with a growing dash of alarm, lined Tasia’s face as she watched him regain the human shape he had discarded only moments before.
Mitch’s words were harsh. “Why are you delivering filemu?!” He knew he was scowling, but his disgust and fear were holding the reins.
The sweet-tempered gal looked down at the innocuous-looking basket in her hands. “I don’t know what that is?”
She didn’t protest as he all but snatched the basket from her hands and dug under the cloth cover.
The undignified yelp that left his mouth was only slightly less embarrassing than the way he flung the basket away from them both.
The pair stared at the offending parcel where it lay on its side next to the path.
“There’s enough filemu in there to drug half the village inn!”
Tasia hunched in on herself; then the meaning of his words seemed to register. “Wait, drug? What do you mean?”
“Filemu is a rare plant that grows wild,” he started explaining. He scrubbed his hands up and down his jacket. “I think dryads use it to sooth their young.”
“We’re not baby dryads.”
He shook his head and looked at her, feeling more grounded as she stared back. “Human healers have tried to use it to calm people with really bad injuries. But it’s hard to find, and the side effects aren’t . . . great.”
As he was coming to expect, Tasia didn’t let it go there. Her forehead creased. “Does it kill people?”
Mitch set a hand on her shoulder, wanting to reassure her yet knowing the subject matter wasn’t soft and straightforward. She leaned into his touch and his mind blanked for a moment.
“What does it do?”
He dropped his hand so he could stay present. “It does create the illusion of calm, or downright shuts off the user’s brain while it’s in their system, but it also makes them very suggestible.”
Tasia opened her mouth, then paused like she wasn’t sure what to ask first. After working her lips in a couple inaudible words, she asked, “Shutting off their brain, like dying?”
“Not at first.” He shook his head. “It’s more that they don’t think for themselves. If it’s for a short while, under a healer’s care, that’s not so bad. But long-term use leads to death because the patient doesn’t feed themselves or drink or move out of the way.”
“That sounds really bad.” A grimace marred her delicate features. “What was the suggestibility part?”
This was the part that really bothered Mitch. “With the right dose, filemu users will do whatever you tell them to do.” He tilted his head from side to side. “As long as they know how to do it. You can’t ask them to cook a souffle if they never learned how, or fly like a bird.”
“That sounds like a bad tool in the hands of a nefarious person,” she said slowly. Her pretty blue eyes pierced him through the heart. “How do you know this?”
Mitch crunched his toes up inside his boots. “I’ve worked for a lot of different people over the years. Not all were good—most of them,” he corrected himself, “were not good guys. By any stretch of the imagination.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you saying that that”—one gloved finger pointed to the overturned basket—“is well-known and commonly used?”
“No!” he hastened to assure her. “I only worked for one person that advocated using filemu that way. And I left his employ as soon as I could.” For that and other reasons, he added to himself.
“Just to clarify: Filemu is not something that Grandmother could use as a medication for herself?”
A derisive snort got away from him. “No. Especially not in that amount, every single week.”
Something resolved itself in Tasia’s mind; he could see it in the way she pulled herself up and nodded sharply.
“So what do we do now?”
They both turned to stare at the basket again. For a long moment, neither of them said anything.
“You suspect Grandmother of wrongdoing, yes? That’s why you called her ‘Granny’ in such a snotty voice,” Tasia observed.
A flash of heat painted his cheekbones. “Uh, yeah. She just gives off a bad vibe. And she’s really rude, making you wait outside her door until she feels like talking to you.”
“Are you sure that isn’t because she’s old and slow?”
“She sneers at you when you aren’t looking.”
“Oh.” Tasia took a couple steps toward the basket and used her toe to nudge it upright. “So it would be safest to assume she has bad plans for this stuff.” She looked at him. “I don’t want to give it to her now.”
“I don’t want you to deal with her at all, but I’m worried about how she will retaliate if you fail her.”
She winced. “Blunt and to the point. Thank you.”
“Sor—”
“Don’t be sorry,” she interrupted. “I need that right now.”
After a few more minutes of useless staring, Mitch picked up the basket. “We can’t linger forever. The ice gives you an excuse for being later than normal, but it won’t cover too much time.”
A sigh inflated, then deflated Tasia’s form. “We will have to figure out what to do while we walk.”
And so they did.
The pair quickly determined that more information was needed.
Mitch would use his wolf form to spy on Granny’s cottage after the delivery.
If they were lucky, the crone talked to herself loudly and they could learn everything they needed to know in a few minutes.
He doubted it would work that way, but Tasia needed to hope.
Mitch didn’t want her anywhere near the cottage while he was sniffing out information, but her ability to get lost faster than rabbits reproduce made him hesitate.
Tasia, naturally, had full confidence in her abilities to get most of—if not all of—the way home.
The eventual compromise was that Tasia would stop and find a safe place to hole up as soon as she didn’t recognize her surroundings.
In his wolf form, Mitch could track her with ease, and he promised to come for her before full dark.
At the cottage of the gray-haired evil one, they split.
Tasia flounced her way to the front while a wolfed-out Mitch slunk around to the back.
Moments after getting into position, the wind shifted.
Every bit of his hair stood on end before his mind caught up and recognized the new scent: Olev Rebane was nearby.
Everything in Mitch screamed at him to remove Tasia from the premises, but it was too late.
He could hear the front door opening and just make out the pleasantries the two ladies exchanged.
Or rather, Tasia maintained her usual cheer, greeting the old lady, who did little more than grunt.
Pride for Tasia’s coolheadedness swelled in his chest, fighting for space with the growing fear.
“Who’s at the door?” an unseen man demanded. The grim voice confirmed what Mitch’s nose already knew. Rebane.