Chapter 8: Two Years of Tea

My father slid out of his chair and I caught him before his head hit the floor.

"Dad. Dad, look at me."

His lips were blue. He was breathing in short, wet pulls.

"Healer!" Dane shouted from the dais. "Somebody get the healer!"

Nobody moved for a second.

Then Soren was kneeling on my father's other side, one hand under his neck, the other pressed flat on his chest.

"Emmett. The cup."

Emmett had it already. He held it under his nose and grimaced.

"Wolfsbane," he said. "Not a drop. A lot of it."

"He drank half," I said. "He's drunk it every morning."

I heard my own voice go high and thin.

The pack healer shoved through the crowd with her bag, a short woman with grey braids, and dropped beside us.

She took one look at my father's eyes and cursed.

"Get him flat. Raise his feet. Somebody open a window."

She jabbed a needle into his arm.

"What did you give him?" she snapped at Soren.

"Nothing. I smelled it in the cup."

"That cup was brewed in this kitchen." The healer looked up at the room. "Who made it?"

Sydney put her hand over her mouth.

"I did," she said. "It was the chamomile. The same chamomile I've given him every morning for two years. I swear on the Moon."

Her eyes were huge and wet.

My father coughed, and his chest jerked, and the healer said, "Good, good, there you go, Anders, breathe."

His eyes opened.

He looked at me. He didn't say anything, but his fingers closed on my sleeve.