Chapter 4: The Tea

I poured the tea into the washbasin and watched the green flecks swirl down the drain.

By the second night I only ate what I had watched the cook taste first.

The dining room glittered again.

Linden sat at the foot with his gold watch beside his plate.

Imogen sat in the window chair, and every time I lifted my fork she watched me.

Soren came in last.

He took the head of the table, and he looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.

His eyes found mine across the candles and slid off.

I told myself I was glad.

"A toast," Linden said, rising. "To a new year in the house."

He lifted a decanter and walked the length of the table himself, pouring as he went.

I noticed it because he never poured.

A cousin or a servant always poured.

He stopped at Soren's shoulder and filled his glass to the lip.

"To the nephew who carries us all," Linden said warmly.

Soren drank.

I saw his throat move.

I smelled it from where I sat, faint and green and bitter under the wine.

Foxglove.

My stomach dropped through the floor.

"Soren," I said.

Nobody heard me over the clink of glasses.

The cousins were laughing at something Imogen had said.

Soren set down his glass and gripped the edge of the table.

His knuckles went white.

He drew a long ragged breath, and his shoulders began to shake.

"Lord MacMahon?" one of the cousins said, still smiling. "Are you well?"

Soren lifted his head.

His eyes had gone yellow all the way through.

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