Three
"Drink some tea, dear. It will help you feel better," a female voice crooned.
A warm cup touched Arwen's lips. Strong tea was the Scottish cure for everything. Not that weak English stuff. Well, that and whiskey, of course. So she drank down the particularly bitter brew, hoping it would work quickly. If only tea had been enough to save Da...
Arwen jerked up, then wished she hadn't.
Her whole body felt like a dead weight that had been hit by a high speed lorry.
She tried to lift a hand to her throbbing forehead, and even that felt like she was lifting bricks.
She blinked at something black on her wrist. On both wrists.
Black bracelets she'd never seen before that couldn't possibly weigh that much.
She pushed one off, and while the weight lessened, her arm still felt like lead.
"You should keep those on, dear. Your father swore by them. He said it improved his circulation. Pure, raw haematite." Ravenna set the cup and saucer on the bedside table, so she had both hands free to put the bracelet back on Arwen's wrist.
This time, it didn't feel like just her arm was heavier, but her whole body had doubled in weight. Maybe if she just finished her tea...
Arwen reached for the teacup with the nearest leaden arm, and forced herself to bring it to her lips.
She'd feel better soon, she was sure of it.
It tasted even more bitter now, like someone had boiled it for hours until the leaves turned into tar.
She peered into the dregs, expecting to see black on the bottom of the cup, but instead it was white. Powdery white.
"Let me take that for you, dear. You don't want to spill it on the bed," Ravenna said, snatching the cup and taking it over to the tea tray.
A tray that held a teapot and a familiar medicine bottle.
Her father had taken digoxin for as long as she could remember – he'd helped make it part of mainstream cardiac medicine, he'd said more than once.
The goddess only knew how long ago that had been.
Decades, or even centuries. She should ask him to tell her the tale again, so she could remember every detail.
She didn't want to forget...
Oh no. Da. He was gone. And it looked like Ravenna was dosing her with his heart medication, so Arwen would soon follow.
Digoxin, digoxin...it was the first poison she'd ever researched, back in high school, when she'd first become interested in forensic toxicology. Now she was about to graduate with a degree in that discipline, and she couldn't remember the first thing...
Nausea. Dizziness. Lethargy. Her heart fluttering...oh, fuck. How long had she been asleep? How much had Ravenna given her? She needed to get the antidote into her system and fast. Before her heart ended up as damaged as Da's had been.
She had to get up. Get to hospital. Even if she had to crawl out of here.
Off went the bracelets – permanently this time.
Every bit of weight counted. Her ball gown was gone, replaced by a very plain set of pyjamas that looked like hospital scrubs.
Those would do, with a big coat over the top.
She was going to hospital, anyway. She just had to get there.
Iselin would take her.
Arwen dug her phone out of the bag someone (Iselin?) had thoughtfully brought up to her bedroom. She tapped out a quick message, asking Iselin to meet her out the front as soon as possible. She just needed to make it downstairs.
Holding onto the bannisters for dear life, Arwen dragged her unwilling body down the stairs.
No, that wasn't right. Her body was willing to tumble down both flights of stairs, no worries.
What it didn't want to do was stay upright and walk in a wobbly, drunken fashion that seemed to be the most she was capable of doing without making any noise.
When she reached the ground, she just wanted to sort of slide down into a puddle at the bottom, but there was the matter of shoes. She crawled to the cupboard under the stairs, where all the shoes were kept, and barely pulled the door closed behind her before footsteps marched past.
Hardly daring to breathe, Arwen felt around for some shoes that might fit.
Even if the maids had unpacked her things, she had no idea where they'd put them...
and the total dark in here didn't help. In the end, she grabbed a pair of gumboots she hadn't worn since high school, and breathed a sigh of relief when they still fit.
"What are you doing here?" Ravenna snapped.
"Miss Snow ordered the car," Iselin said, calm as ever.
"Miss Snow did no such thing. She's very ill and asleep upstairs. Come with me and I'll show you." Ravenna's heels clicked up the steps, and Iselin followed her.
Oh, fuck. If Ravenna found the bed empty, she'd catch her for sure. Arwen eyed the Rolls. Da would never forgive her if she crashed it. Even if he wasn't alive to see it. Besides, she'd never needed to drive, so she'd never learned. Odds were, she wouldn't even get the car onto the road.
But if she managed to climb into the car and was still there when Iselin drove away...then maybe...
Breathing a sigh of relief that Iselin had left the front door open, Arwen sneaked outside as quietly as her clompy gumboots allowed.
Iselin had also left the car door open, ready for a passenger.
Which meant that even if Arwen hid in the footwell, Ravenna would see her the moment she came back.
And if she closed the door, she'd hear her.
Oh, goddess, if ever there was a time she needed help, it was now. What would Da do?
Da wouldn't have called for a car. His latest favourite toy was his souped-up electric scooter. Arwen had ridden it once last summer and it had definitely blown her hair back. Or it would have, if she hadn't been wearing a helmet. The same helmet that hung from the handlebars right now.
Arwen closed her eyes. Now or never.
The only thing that kept her upright was her iron grip on the handlebars and the icy Scottish breeze in her face the whole way to the hospital.
Prying her hands loose from the handlebars while her legs threatened to collapse beneath her like two lengths of jelly rubber was the next challenge. Luckily, someone saw her through the Emergency Department doors and somehow she made it onto a hospital gurney instead of the concrete outside.
Dizziness. Nausea. Had to stay awake. Tell them what happened.
"Digoxin. Swallowed digoxin. Need...antidote..." Arwen slurred as they wheeled her inside. "Digoxin. My Da's heart pills."
"How much digoxin did you take?" a nurse demanded.
"Don't know. Too much..."
"Get me three doses of digibind, and take a blood sample to the lab right away. Someone get me a heart monitor..."
Safe. She was safe. Arwen let her body sink into sleep.
"No, Mrs Snow. It's standard procedure to call the next of kin in a case of attempted suicide like this one. She said she'd taken her father's heart pills...ah, grief. Yes, that would explain it...yes, we'd really appreciate that. How soon can you get here?"
It had felt like only a second, but Arwen suspected it was longer.
Long enough that the heart monitor wasn't attached any more, though the sensors were still stuck all over her.
Long enough for the hospital staff to find her details and contact...
Ravenna was not her next of kin! She needed to get out of here before Ravenna arrived to finish her off. Suicide, her sweet arse. That bitch.
Arwen rolled out of bed, grabbing onto the frame to keep herself upright.
Still in the curtained Emergency Department cubicle.
With one dose left of the antidote. She pocketed the pills, shoved her feet back into her gumboots and kept her eyes on the glowing exit sign.
Hospital staff wouldn't question a woman in scrubs walking with purpose to where she needed to be.
Especially in a busy emergency department where it sounded like someone was screaming in pain.
The doors hissed open and her breath whooshed out in relief. Miracle of miracles, someone had propped Da's scooter up beside the door, with the helmet on the handlebars.
What would Da tell her to do now?
She couldn't go home. She wasn't safe here at the hospital. Ravenna would find her at the Academy, and with all her friends still at school until the end of semester, she could hardly go and stay with any of them.
She needed to go somewhere Ravenna couldn't reach her.
Da's final words had been to claim her fae...
what? Heritage? Inheritance? She knew Da had been important in the fae realm.
Royalty, even, from one of the courts. Which meant she probably had family over there, because fae lived for far longer than normal humans.
If they weren't poisoned by their crazy stepmothers, that is.
Arwen drew in a breath of the cold winter air. The two doses of antidote were definitely doing something. She felt a little better. Well enough to try something crazy.
The fae realm wasn't visible to anyone without fae blood in their veins. Her father had taken her to a fairy ring in the forest once, to show her the gate to the fae realm. He'd told her if anything happened to him, to seek out her kin through the gate.
And the inheritance that awaited her there, as his only child.
But where was the fairy ring? It had been years since she'd been there, about the time she'd started school. She may as well close her eyes and pick a random...
OH.
Power surged within her, more than she'd ever felt before.
This was like when Da had done magic in his greenhouse, transforming plants into more magical varieties to improve their healing properties, and help more people.
She was his only child – she knew that. And when a fae royal died, their power and property went to their heirs... but she'd gotten all of it.
The storm in his bedroom. That had been his power, coming to her. No wonder she'd fainted. Right now this was...almost more than she could take.
Arwen opened her eyes and took a shaky breath. Almost, but not quite. Especially now she knew exactly where the fairy ring was. Where she needed to go to claim whatever it was her father wanted her to have.
She dialled up the power on the scooter, and shot away. Out of the hospital car park, out of Glasgow and into the countryside. The forest was calling, and her heart sang in answer.