Chapter Forty-One #3
“My lord,” Eleanor said again, her words cleaving the air like a sword. “Enough.”
With a snorting breath, the man relented, gritting his teeth.
“Where?” he asked me again.
“Beneath his nose and where you feel the pulse on his neck,” I supplied, matching his disdain with my own. “It may be hours
before you see a result—”
“Not even instantaneous,” the physician sneered to himself. “Bloody fairy magic.”
On that, at least, we were in accord.
I tried to resist my body’s natural pull toward the door, feeling Brighten’s eyes on me as the royal physician knelt on the
edge of the bed.
“Should we leave?” Eleanor asked. “Will the perfume affect us?”
“No,” I heard myself answer, as if from the other side of the room. Sweat drenched my back now, making my hair cling to my
neck. “It contains his blood. The magic should only affect him.”
Eleanor moved to the King’s side, her hand dwarfing his shrunken shoulder. I couldn’t stop staring at the King, at his pitiful
appearance. But . . .
I didn’t feel sorry. Not truly. This man had stolen the lives of an untold number of children to keep himself in good health
for decades.
Death is natural and beautiful, Mama had told me as she lay in bed, too weak to take more than a sip of broth. And like the shadows that give a painting depth, or the animalic notes we use to enhance our florals, it cannot and should
not be avoided. Not if life is to have any meaning at all.
The physician was still darkly muttering to himself as he dabbed the perfume onto two fingers and applied it above the King’s
top lip and over his pulse point, as I’d instructed.
I wished, then, I had thought to bring a handkerchief to cover my mouth and nose. The soft florals in the perfume sharpened
viciously as they met the doctor’s acerbic essence, turning the rose rancid.
I jolted as a log on the fire popped, firing sparks into the air.
“I need to . . .” I began.
The shift was subtle at first. The King’s breathing had been shallow before, but as his lips parted and released the scent
of his rotting teeth, its whistle grew ragged. It smelled almost like burnt flesh—though that might have been the good physician’s
annoyance singeing my nostrils.
Unable to tolerate it a moment longer, my hand rose to cover my mouth and nose.
“Are you well?” Eleanor asked, wide-eyed—but not to me. To the stone-still physician, whose face had gone as pale as chalk.
A high, keening noise filled the air, only to become a bloodcurdling scream. It was a noise like nothing I had heard before—a
raw, animal sound. The physician wrenched around, his body contorting as he gasped and sobbed, clutching at his hand. His
glasses were knocked askew as he lifted it before his face.
“My God!” Brighten’s voice choked off in horror.
At first, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Not the clumps of red that slid wetly from his fingers to the floor, splattering
the air with blood. Not the small lengths of white that appeared, only to crumble as if devoured. The physician dropped to
the floor in a dead faint.
This time, it was my turn to scream.
The King had turned his face toward me, his eyes open and bulging with agony and accusation. His upper lip disintegrated like
ash, crumbling to reveal the bone below. And on his neck—
The skin there burned away. Burned down to the artery. Through it.
Blood spurted into the air, spraying the bed, the canopy, the headboard, painting the King’s face crimson.
“Uncle?” Eleanor choked with terror as she tried to apply pressure to the wound. Her dress and gloves were drenched with gore
in an instant. “Uncle—Brighten, help me! Help me!”
But the shocked guard was only staring at me. One hand reached for the sword at his hip, his fist closing around the hilt
as he advanced toward me.
The perfume, the perfume—I backed away, horror ripping me open from the inside. It couldn’t be. It was only oils. I had blended them myself. I had . . .
There was a terrible gargle as the King stretched a grasping hand in my direction. His signet ring, with its enormous yellow
diamond, slid from his finger and clattered onto the floor. I saw the moment the last gasp of life left him. His sightless
eyes bore into mine, his ruined face slackening.
Inside my mind, a sharp, piercing wail began, drowning out even my confusion and terror.
Dead. The King was . . .
“Uncle!” Eleanor sobbed. “Oh, God—”
A movement at my right slammed me back into the moment like a fist to the cheek. I pivoted, my feet stumbling over the hem
of my dress.
“Lady Foxcourt,” Brighten snarled, his face livid. “What is the meaning of this?”
“I didn’t—” I gasped, holding out my hands between us. “I didn’t—this—”
The guard lunged for me. I couldn’t say what made me do it. Reflex, mindless fear, desperation—it was all the same. All of it made me pick up the nearest side table and fling it at the guard, forcing him to bat it away.
And that instinct I’d had since coming here, since stepping into the cursed room, was finally answered. Suffocated by the
stench of death and roses, I turned and fled.