Chapter 12: Wolfsbane

I stepped back behind the bins before she turned.

Lucinda's mother walked out of the kitchen yard and down the service road, swinging her empty hands.

I stood there among the rubbish with my heart going.

In my first life, Lucinda had come down to the east wing on my third night.

She'd brought a candle and sat on the bottom step outside my cell in a fur coat.

She'd been in the mood to talk.

"Mother's crates went into the King's kitchen for a whole year before," she'd told me. "Bitters for his heart. Every week. Nobody ever opened one."

She'd smiled at me through the bars.

"So on the Harvest Moon, nobody opened that one either."

She'd been so proud of it.

The old King had died at the Harvest Moon dinner two years after my Claiming.

Wolfsbane in his wine. The court called it heart failure.

The crates came a year before that.

A year after the Claiming.

And the Claiming hadn't happened yet.

I walked into the kitchen.

The cook was a big, red-armed woman unpacking the crate onto the long table. She looked up and smiled.

"Miss Fairlie. Lost?"

"I'm looking for something for Prince Auden's arm. Is that from the apothecary in town?"

"The King's bitters. Lucinda's mother brings them every week."

"Since when?"

The cook thought about it.

"Since the spring, I'd say. The young lady recommended them. Miss Lucinda. She said they'd do wonders for His Majesty's heart."

There were six small brown bottles in the crate, packed in straw.

"He has them in his wine," the cook said fondly. "Ten drops, every night. Swears by them."

I picked one up.

The label had the mortar and the crescent moon.

"May I take one for the infirmary? Prince Auden wants to know what's in them, for his notes."

"Help yourself, love. There's plenty."

I took two.

I found Auden in the break room with his arm in the sling, eating a sandwich one-handed.

Keep reading free with an account. Start This Time, I Accept Your Brother's Claim from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.