Why does magic always smell so awful?” Poppy lifted the lid of the pot and then dropped it back with a clatter. “This is making my eyes water!”
“Then stop lifting the lid!” Roger, in shirtsleeves, frowned at her. Or perhaps he was just frowning at the book propped open before him. He picked up a bundle of herbs, pulled off three leaves, and lifted the lid himself to throw them in.
Holding her nose when the steam wafted toward her, Poppy watched him with watering eyes. They were in the still-room at the Thwaites’ manor, using an ancient text Roger had picked up on his travels to concoct a potion that would release the drinker from the Corley’s spell.
Or so they hoped.
Roger’s grasp of Shijn, the language of the text, was fairly good, but he was by no means fluent. And there was no guarantee that this would work on the Corley’s specific enchantment. It was meant to be a cure for love sickness, which was the nearest thing they could find to the Ella obsession that their friends suffered from. Even now, Dickon was upstairs, writing sonnets to his new love, while back at Seadown House, Marianne was writing “Ella” on scraps of paper and then burning them.
Catching herself reaching for the lid again, Poppy retreated to the far side of the room and took up her knitting. She was doing her own little spell, knitting unbleached wool into bands that could be worn as bracelets. She wore garters of a similar make, and, itchy as they were, she had slept in them the last few nights to quell her nightmares. It had helped, and she hoped she could protect her friends in the same way.
“Another one done,” she announced, casting off the end of the bracelet and cutting the dangling tail of yarn.
She dropped the strip of knitted wool into a pot of rainwater that contained three others. Measuring the remaining yarn, she saw she had enough left for one more bracelet, but only if she knitted so tightly her needles would squeak.
Roger stopped frowning over the Shijn text and frowned at her pot of bracelets and rainwater instead. It looked like eel stew, Poppy thought, and she didn’t blame him for frowning. However, if he said anything disparaging …
“Now I add basil and nightshade and mint,” she told him. “Which is another ghastly combination of odors certain to put me off dinner.”
“Where did you learn about this?” He gave her a sidelong look. “I assume it was part of your family’s defense against the King Under Stone, but how did you come by the knowledge?”
“Walter Vogel, one of our gardeners, was a white magician,” Poppy said. “He told Galen, who is married to Rose now, about basil being good for protection, and nightshade for warding off enchantments. Galen read about adding mint later. It gives you clarity of mind.”
“Interesting.” Roger prodded the mint leaves on the table next to the pot. “So this Galen has continued studying magic?”
She moved the mint away with the tip of one needle. “Yes,” she said. “Walter disappeared after Galen and Rose got married, but we found a trunk full of spell books in one of the garden sheds.” She set aside her knitting. Trying to make the stitches tight enough that she wouldn’t run out of yarn was tiring, and she wanted to get the other bands done as soon as she could.
Commandeering another of the small spirit burners, she put her pot of rainwater and knitting over it and began adding liberal bunches of mint, basil, and nightshade. It hadn’t been easy finding nightshade in Castleraugh. For one thing, it had taken Poppy an hour and several dictionaries to figure out the Bretoner word for it, since her governess had never taught her to translate the names of deadly poisons. Then she’d had to find an apothecary that would sell it to her.
Many carried it, but only one would hand it over to the princess, who had been on the verge of hiring a thief to get her some by the time she found a shop seedy enough. The one-eyed shopkeeper had laughed during the entire transaction, as though delighted at the idea of her poisoning someone. When she’d assured him that she only wanted it for medicinal purposes, he’d blinked at her in a way that she guessed passed for a wink, and laughed even harder.
“How much of that are you supposed to put in?” Roger watched her throwing in the herbs with narrowed eyes.
“I really don’t think there’s a mearurement,” Poppy said breezily. “We usually just toss some in. It’s also good to keep fresh nightshade and basil with you, in your pockets maybe. Although you smell like an herb garden if you do.”
“Interesting,” Roger said again.
But Poppy could tell that he didn’t think it interesting so much as dubious. He was so precise about everything that she knew watching her throw her herbs in willy-nilly was making him twitch. She added the last of the basil and put a lid on the pot.
“How is yours coming?” She nodded at his concoction.
Roger ponderously checked his pocket watch, then took the lid off the pot and stirred it with a long silver spoon. He sniffed the horrid stuff, checked with the text one last time, then took the pot off the burner.
“It should be ready,” he said.
“How do we test it?”
Poppy’s voice was high and nasal, since she had pinched her nose when he took the lid off the pot. The reek of it was really terrible, like unwashed feet, mushrooms, and cinnamon mixed together. Combined with the basil and mint from her pot, she had to fight to keep from gagging, and thanked the heavens that the nightshade, at least, was odorless.
“I’ll give some to Dickon,” Roger said. He wasn’t holding his nose, but his face was rather greenish.
“If the ingredients are wrong, it won’t kill him, will it?”
“It shouldn’t; none of the ingredients are harmful.”
“Other than the smell,” she quipped.
“This should simmer overnight,” she went on, indicating her pot. “I need some fresh air.”
“Agreed,” Roger said.
They both stumbled out of the stillroom and took great gulps of laundry-scented air in the adjacent drying room. When the potion had cooled, Roger went back into the still-room and poured it into a glass for Dickon.
“Will he drink it?”
“I’ll tell him it’s Lady Ella’s favorite tea,” Roger said.
Poppy laughed, and was still laughing when they went into the library. Dickon was awash in crumpled paper, and looked up with a dazed expression as they came in.
“Can you think of a rhyme for ‘Ella’ other than ‘fella’?” he asked.
Poppy put one hand over her eyes. She could think of a number of things, like “yella,” that would rhyme, but none of them made for good poetry. She didn’t even want to know what was on the crumpled papers littering the table and floor.
“Poetry isn’t really my strong suit,” Roger said blandly. “Have a drink to refresh yourself, why don’t you?”
“Ah, yes! Just the thing!”
Dickon reached for the tumbler eagerly enough, but when the odor reached his nostrils he recoiled, nearly spilling it. Roger grabbed the glass back just in time.
“I say! It smells like an old boot!”
Roger started to say something about Lady Ella, but Poppy stopped him with a hand on his sleeve.
“Dickon,” she said with a smile, “it’s a love potion.”
“Pardon?” the brothers said together.
“It will make you irresistible to Lady Ella.”
“Really?” Dickon licked his lips, then shuddered. “Do you think I need it? I would much rather woo her with my poems.”
Poppy felt her nostrils flare and she bit back a giggle. “Well, in case you can’t find a rhyme for ‘Ella’…” She took the glass from Roger and held it out to Dickon.
“Are you certain it will work?” He stopped with one hand outstretched. “Why does it smell so ghastly?”
“Because it only works on Lady Ella,” Poppy improvised. “We strained it through one of her stockings.”
“How did you get one of Lady Ella’s stockings?”
“We bribed her maid. Now drink!”
Dickon hesitated only a second more, then he snatched the glass, gulped it down, and gagged. He fumbled the glass to the tabletop, holding his throat with his free hand.
“Oh! You’ve poisoned me!”
“Nonsense,” Roger said in a worried voice. “You just have to, um, twist the glass.” He made a wringing motion.
“Twist the glass?” Now it was Poppy and Dickon who spoke at the same time. Dickon, still retching, obediently turned the glass around on the table.
“That’s doing nothing,” Poppy reported, twisting her own hands in the skirt of her gown.
“Din yun, din yun … ?” Roger pulled at his lower lip. “Oh!” He shook his head. “Throw the glass!”
“With pleasure,” Dickon choked, and tossed the tumbler into the hearth.
The glass shattered into tiny diamonds, which smoked and disappeared with a gentle chiming sound. Poppy closed her mouth, and looked to Dickon, who all at once sat up in his chair and looked around as if he’d just awakened.
“What was that for?”
“So you’d stop making a fool of yourself with Lady Ella,” Poppy said, carefully watching for his reaction.
“Lady Ella? That strange girl who kept hitting Christian with her fan?” Dickon shook his head and turned back to his papers and pen. “Don’t know what you mean. Now kindly leave me in peace while I compose a letter to Marianne. Her birthday is tomorrow, you know.”
Roger and Poppy fled to the hallway where they stood, looking stunned, for a moment.
“Goodness,” Poppy said at last. “That seemed too easy.”