Chapter 11
By now, Magdala was not surprised to find her father’s treasured garden a brilliant cacophony of flowers and herbs and fat green pumpkins. Briars grew over trellises beside wild grapes, green beans tangled with honeysuckle.
Gathering her courage, Magdala paused on the threshold of the long glass greenhouse.
This place was special. She had hidden under the herb table with a box of biscuits, grinning at her cleverness and unaware that her mouth and fingers were smeared with chocolate.
Her tutor had winked at her when she walked past, but her father had dragged her out and forbade her from eating sweets for a week.
He relented, though, when she cried on his shoulder.
In her father’s day, it had been as orderly as the rest of the house and grounds, but now, of course, it was cluttered and chaotic.
No herbs or dainty roses or sweet lavender grew in this greenhouse.
The walls and tables were lined with venomous, poisonous, and carnivorous plants, some as tall as a grown man, others taking root in teacups.
A venus fly trap slowly digested a wasp from inside a piece of Magdala’s great-grandmother’s china set.
The prince sat on a stool at a tall table, leaning over a mound of soil.
A hairy stalk was unfurling slowly from the dirt, reaching out a green bud the size of a walnut.
The bud trembled once, then split down the sides, baring a set of sharp white teeth absurdly large for its little jaws.
They jutted over its gums, like a bulldog's.
Asherton’s face lit with wonder, and Magdala forgot all about stolen inheritances and stepped forward eagerly, her curiosity piqued.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know, exactly,” Asherton said, darting his fingers forward and dropping a beetle onto the soil. “I dug it out of my mother’s garden bed in Largotia. The gardener was going to spray him down with vinegar. I’m working on a name for him. Alonso? Alistair? Anton? What do you think, Zeph?”
Zephyr leaned against a table behind Asherton, his arms crossed over his broad chest. “I think you should wear gloves,” he said flatly.
As if the plant meant to prove Zephyr right, Alonso or Alistair or Anton sprang out and clamped its teeth on Asherton’s hand. Asherton hissed. With a shout of alarm, Zephyr gripped the plant’s mouth and tried to pry it open, but its jaws were locked.
“Miss Devney, please assist,” Zephyr ordered.
Magdala drew her knife, and both Asherton and Zephyr gasped and shouted together, “What are you doing?”
“You said to assist.”
Asherton looked incredulously at Zephyr. “Gracious, where did Mother get her? She’s vicious.”
“Stingdrops, child!” Zephyr said, as if everyone knew what stingdrops were from birth.
“Just get it yourself, Zeph,” Asherton said calmly. “It’s starting to hurt.”
“Good grief, Ash!” Zephyr roared. “Why don’t you ever listen to me?”
Asherton sighed. “What was it you said? I was distracted.”
“I SAID TO WEAR GLOVES!” Zephyr stormed out of the greenhouse in a thundercloud of angry muttering, leaving Asherton and Magdala alone.
Asherton tilted his head, his eyes narrowed, watching with interest as the plant growled and worried his fingers. Its teeth were large for its head, but too small to do any serious damage. Still, a thin line of blood trickled over his knuckles.
“No need to retreat to the rearguard, Miss Devney,” Asherton said with a hint of condescension. “It can’t bite us both, so until Zephyr gets back, you’re safe.”
Cold metal bit Magdala’s hip, and she realized she had backed against a table, gripping it so tightly her knuckles had locked.
“I think it’s safe to say he’s a carnivore,” the prince mused, unperturbed.
“Does it not hurt?” Magdala asked in astonishment.
“What?” He dragged his attention from the plant. “Oh, the bite? Some, yes. If Zephyr doesn’t hurry, the venom will set in.”
“The venom?”
“Don’t worry, once he grows a little bigger, he won’t be venomous anymore.
Isn’t that fascinating? The venom won’t set in for a few minutes, though I admit, I’m beginning to lose feeling in my fingers.
” He flexed his free hand, shrugged, and returned to studying the plant.
“Now, if it were Lewis”—he jerked his thumb at a carnivorous gawper tuber taller than Magdala, watching them from the far corner of the greenhouse—“then I would be in trouble.”
Magdala shuddered. “And what’s keeping Lewis from eating us now?”
“The copper pot. He won’t leave it. Most gawper tubers are rooted, but his genus is ambulatory. Oh, and never, ever”—he looked at her with sudden gravity—“come in with sap from a Lucent Pine on your clothes. Even the copper won’t prevent him from eating you whole.”
Magdala couldn’t imagine how she would get Lucent Pine sap on her clothes, whatever that was. But in this place, anything seemed possible.
“Do you want a tour before my arms and legs turn to jelly?” he asked.
“Not really,” Magala said.
He either didn’t hear her or didn’t care, because he said cheerfully, “Perfect! Come on, then.”
With the plant still clamped to his hand, Asherton stood and strolled from pot to pot. “My brother and I started propagating carnivorous plants a few years ago. They’re being hunted on the mainland, and we wanted to preserve the species …”
Magdala frowned at an enormous hairy-jawed purple flytrap and wondered why anyone would want to preserve it. But Asherton gazed around with the pride of a museum curator.
“I really should wear gloves,” he said absently, tipping his head to the side to observe the purple flytrap’s leaves. “But I forget. I forget everything.”
She glanced at his feet. He was barefoot again. “Did you also forget your shoes?”
“No point in wearing shoes on this island,” he said. “It’s too soggy. You’ll be barefoot, too, soon, after you’ve had one or two fungal infections.”
Magdala’s stomach twisted. Her socks were already sodden from the rain-dampened grass.
“Do you really not remember me?” she asked.
For the first time since she’d arrived, he looked directly at her.
His eyes were more green than gold in the foggy light filtering through the steamed glass.
He was unshaven, as before, his fingernails caked with dirt.
He was absurdly beautiful, but not because of his sun-tanned skin or his full lips or the sharp cut of his jaw, but Magdala refused to acknowledge what exactly kept lighting that bright spark inside her.
The more it burned, the angrier she grew.
Asherton fought a smile. “I could never forget Magdala Devney, the Russuli guard with impulse control problems. No, I remember you very well.”
She drew her head back, her eyebrows pinching. “Are we going to talk about it?”
His eyes sparkling, he leaned toward her and tilted up his chin so she could see the light scratch left by her knife. “Both Zephyr and I are staunchly against my mother’s decision to give me a bodyguard. Do you know why?”
Wary, Magdala shook her head.
“Because my mother wants my newborn brother on the throne, and Huxley thinks I killed Julian. Still, the Only must have smiled on me because, of all the people they could have sent, you are the best.”
“But I gave you that.” She brushed her finger over the shiny pink skin.
“Yes, but you didn’t slice my throat, so as I see it, you’re the most trustworthy person on the royal guard. Which isn’t saying much. Zephyr doesn’t know about our little flirtation at the ball, and so he will expect you to do your job. As for me, I don’t trust you.”
“Then why don’t you send me home?”
“Because my mother will send someone else. And if I’m going to be murdered in my sleep, at least the last person I see will be … ” His eyes fixed on her lips. “… very pretty.”
He was too close. She could feel his electricity. Two warring instincts rose within her, one to step away from him, the other was something more primal that flooded her with panic.
Zephyr pounded through the greenhouse door and Asherton straightened. Magdala stood rigid, her cheeks flaming.
Zephyr slid beside Magdala, puffing, his arms laden with floral kitchen towels full of oozing red flowers. Magdala bit her tongue, resisting the urge to scold him for using good kitchen linens.
“I told you to wear gloves—why won’t you ever wear gloves? Merciful heavens, the messes you make me clean up,” Zephyr complained.
“I think it is male,” Asherton said, considering the plant still biting him. His speech slurred. “From the shape of the head and its leaves. I think Anton is a good name for it. Also, I think it prefers human blood.”
“Perfect,” Magdala added. “I had hoped my new employer would have a pet that wants to eat me.”
Asherton made a disapproving clicking sound with his tongue. “He isn't big enough …”
Magdala crossed her arms and said primly, “Good.”
Asherton cast her another sparkling glance. “...Yet.”
Taking a chipped earthenware pot from a table, Zephyr poured the stingdrops in and ground them with a pestle. “Let me apply this, and he’ll let go.”
“Not yet. I need Anton to imprint on me,” Asherton said.
“You have about a minute and a half before the venom sets in.”
Asherton scratched Anton’s chin. “Zeph, wasn’t there something in the floristora about how their first scent of blood attaches them to their father and then their second …”
“Attaches them to their mother,” Zephyr replied. “If this is the hematopic species, then yes. That would be accurate.”
“Do these plants have blood like humans?” Magdala asked.
“Their sap is rich in iron,” Asherton replied. “Plants with both maternal and paternal connections are very rare.”
“So where are its parents?” she asked.
“Wilted as pests …” His voice trailed off and he sagged sideways.
“There’s the venom!” Zephyr barked. “Catch him!”
Magdala lunged out and caught Asherton as he sank to the floor. His body was rag-limp, but he was conscious and seemed only vaguely inconvenienced by his sudden paralysis. Magdala supported his shoulders, his head in the crook of her arm.
“Isn’t this romantic?” he slurred.
She fought the urge to drop him on the floor.
Puffing, Zephyr knelt beside them and rubbed the stingdrops on Asherton’s hand. Anton released him, retching, and sneezed three times through little slits in his eyeless green head.
“How do you feel?” Zephyr asked.
Asherton raised his eyebrows—the only movement he could manage—and said, “A little venom never killed anyone.”
“Yes, it has. Quite often, actually.” The circles under Zephyr’s eyes deepened. “Miss Devney, once he can stand, bring him inside. I'm late for my nap.”
And with that, he strode out of the greenhouse and they were alone again. Uncomfortable, Magdala laid Asherton on the tile and leaned against the glass wall, her arms resting on her updrawn knees.
“I don’t see why people say you’re strange,” she said wryly. “This is all perfectly normal.”
Asherton watched her with palpable mistrust. With a newly functioning finger, he tickled Anton’s lightly furred green jaw, clucking softly like it was a newborn foal or a runt puppy abandoned by its mother.
Magdala was astonished when the plant stopped snapping its teeth at him and thrust its head into his palm, cooing.
The prince was unsettling—raw and irreverent. Wealthy people were supposed to be snobbish and similar, all popped out of the same plaster cast. But Magdala had never met anyone like Asherton, not even in the Wildlands.
“There now,” Asherton murmured to Anton. “Now you know me.”
Magdala wrinkled her nose.
“What do you like to eat, beautiful?” he asked Anton.
“Hands,” Magdala interjected dryly.
Asherton snorted. “I can’t spare any more, unfortunately."
She caught him gazing thoughtfully at her hands, and she thrust them into her pockets. “I’m not donating any fingers to your wretched man-eating daisy!” she cried.
“I wasn’t going to ask you to,” he said, but he sounded unconvincing.
“Can I speed this process along?” Magdala asked. “Pour water on you or …” She noticed a tray of mushrooms flickering with blue squiggles of electricity. “Or shock you with a fizzlecap … actually, that’s a good idea.”
Asherton’s eyes widened. “What is?”
“Don’t go anywhere.”
“Must I?” he asked, droll. “I was hoping, in my present state, to go for a swim.”
On riot duty, Magdala often used a stick with a fizzle-cap mushroom stuffed in the end to subdue the crowd. A pair of rubber gloves lay nearby, and Magdala slid them on her hand, then plucked one of the mushrooms. It crackled.
“No,” Asherton ordered, his eyes widening. “Don’t even think about …”
Magdala touched the mushroom to his arm and his body seized.
“MISS DEVNEY, WHAT THE HELL!” he shrieked.
Remembering the river closing over her head, Magdala sat back on her heels, turning the mushroom between her thumb and forefinger. When he’d stopped twitching, she tapped it against his arm a second time, and he yelled, but this time he rolled away from her.
Glowering, Asherton sat up. “You’re a sadist.”
She smiled. “But it worked.”
He rubbed his arm. “I would have come around on my own in an hour or two.”
“Yes, but, as your bodyguard, I couldn’t let you remain in such a vulnerable state. It’s not safe.”
Asherton stumbled to his feet and scooped Anton into a discarded teapot. Blood oozed down his hand from a pattern of small punctures.
“You’re bleeding,” Magdala observed.
“And you’re unhinged.”
Magdala chuffed. Being called unhinged by the strangest man she’d ever met—well, that was a fine accomplishment.