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Andras’s head almost felt normal again, which was a surprise. When he had first looked up and seen the sunlight stabbing at him through the blinds, he had seriously considered staying in bed all day. But then the earl and four servants had arrived and set up the breakfast table in the garden right outside his bungalow door, and he couldn’t resist the smell of coffee and bacon.
“I don’t mean to pry,” said the earl, pouring him another cup, “but how did things go yesterday at the spring?”
Andras paused, mid-bite in his scone. He had barely been able to sleep after what had happened. First embarrassment and frustration with Elwyn, then the astonishing revelation of Donella, followed by the most amazing hour of his entire life. He had fallen asleep afterward and woken up, still drunkenly happy, only to find her half-finished note and have it all come crashing down in despair.
The earl cleared his throat. “I gather things didn’t go as well as we had hoped, did they?”
“Um, maybe not,” agreed Andras, and he pushed his plate of curried omelet away, feeling ill again.
“I suspected as much. My dear niece came back three hours before you did, and she didn’t look very happy when she got here.” The earl speared a sausage with his fork. “It was rather unladylike of her to leave you there. Why, anyone could have simply wandered in there while you were asleep.”
Andras looked up and saw that the earl was glaring at him, eyebrow raised. Oh, Earstien. He knew. Somehow he knew about Donella. Andras had burned her letter, but one of the servants must have peeked in while they were together.
He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. Best to face up to it. “Sir, I regret to say that something unfortunate happened at the spring once your niece left.”
“Yes, I know,” said the earl. Then, to Andras’s shock, he smiled. “Not to worry, my dear boy. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Not my fault?” Andras shook his head. The earl wasn’t going to try to blame this on Elwyn or the wine, was he? Or on Donella and her masculine wiles?
“Of course it wasn’t your fault. You and...the other person involved were under the influence of a powerful magysk potion in your wine. It’s called, if I’m remembering this correctly, ‘Garm Kamar.’ That translates as ‘The heat of the loins,’ if you can believe it.”
“Some sort of love potion?”
“In layman’s terms, yes.”
Andras’s whole body seemed to go numb for a second. He thought of how he had felt the previous morning. He had literally been unable to stop himself from touching Donella, and she had clearly felt the same. He thought of what she had written in her note, how she had felt she was, “driven to this by some evil force,” and how she would “live for the rest of my life with the shame of having surrendered to this sudden and inexplicable feeling.”
“How on earth did it get in the wine?” Andras demanded.
His lordship gave a guilty little smile, like a schoolboy caught in a harmless prank. “I put it there.”
Andras nearly smacked the stupid man across the breakfast table. He jumped out of his chair, and his hand went to the gloves in his belt, ready to issue a challenge on the spot.
But the earl said, “Please don’t bother with the theatrics. I’m not going to fight you, no matter what you say. It’s in the past, and now we have to—”
“How could you?” cried Andras. “You can’t do that—using magy to force people to do things against their will.”
“Oh, stop being such a baby. I’m reliably informed that the potion can’t make you do something you didn’t already, secretly want to do. It wasn’t like this other person was being held down and forced to fuck you.” The earl took a deep breath, and some of the crimson faded from his fat cheeks. “Now, as I say, the important thing is to move on. We have to keep sight of our goal. You’re still here with the intention of marrying my niece, right?”
After a few wavering moments, debating whether he should go home, Andras settled back into his chair. “Right.”
“Right. To that end, we’re going to try this again. My niece has promised to be back at the Garam Hot Springs by 10:00, and if she tries to get out of it, her guards are going to pick her up and carry her there.”
Andras cringed. “Please don’t. If she doesn’t want to go, don’t....”
His voice trailed off as he remembered Elwyn at the spring the day before. She had been angry, which was hardly a surprise. But it had been more than her usual, surly resentment of the whole courtship. No, she had been specifically angry about the food and wine. “I bet you’d like me to eat that,” she had said. “I bet you’d like me to drink that.”
“Oh, holy fucking Finster,” thought Andras. “She knew! She knew and she didn’t tell me!”
He stood up from the table and bowed to the earl. “Pardon me, but I think I need to have a word with Elwyn.”
She wasn’t in her room, though, and the servants said she had gone into the old town to look at a new saddle, so it turned out he didn’t see her until 10:00, right back at the same hot spring where they had met before. The tent was still there, and the camp furniture, and the lute, and the writing desk where he’d found poor Donella’s letter.
Elwyn was there, too, arms crossed, scowling at him as he strode up the lawn. “People say persistence is a virtue,” she said, “but in your case, it’s becoming an illness. I really wish you’d take a hint.”
Pushing past her, he went to the sideboard, picked up the wine bottle, and held it out at her. “Did you know yesterday this shit had a love potion in it?”
The furrows in her brow deepened. “Of course I knew. But I only found out by accident. Are you going to pretend my uncle didn’t tell you?”
“No! Well, I mean, yes, he told me, but only this morning. I had no idea. But you...you knew! Why in the Void didn’t you say something?”
“Don’t make me laugh. You and my uncle planned this little rendezvous down to the last detail. How could he not have mentioned it? I bet the two of you had a real laugh over it, didn’t you? ‘Oh, won’t it be fun to have her be all docile and compliant for once’?”
“You should have told me,” he said, shaking the bottle at her. “I would have told you.”
She grabbed the bottle by the neck, turned, and hurled it with all her might. It hit a mossy little outcrop of rocks on the far side of the pool and shattered. “Don’t blame me for what you did,” she said.
“How is any of this my fault?” he snapped. “I came here in good faith, willing to make this work.”
“Did that include cooking up a rape potion with my uncle?”
“How do I know you weren’t the one who made it?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She stamped her foot. “Why would I? Do you think I’m so eager to hop in bed with you that I’d poison myself to do it?”
“And yet, I’m the one who ended up drinking it. Do you have any idea how that felt?”
She leaned against the central pole of the tent. “Did it get you all hot and bothered? Did you have to go jerk off a few times to clear your head?” She ran a hand up and down the pole, grinning.
“Someone else came by the spring after you left. She drank the wine, too. How do you think she feels now?”
“I wasn’t even here when it happened. How is this supposed to be my fault?”
She walked out of the tent, and he thought she was leaving for good, but a minute later, when he went to the flap and checked, she was standing at the edge of the water, frowning at the broken bottle on the other side of the pool.
“Fuck off,” she said.
That would probably have been a good idea, but there was something about how she was standing there, hip cocked, shoulders back, that made her seem so blasted self-righteous. Her eyebrows arched, her sharp jaw set. So perfectly cold and cruel. He couldn’t walk away and not let her know, once and for all, what he thought of her.
“You’re a terrible person,” he said. “I never wanted to be here. I came because your uncle and my mother thought it would help win the war. Now, I was willing to give it a shot. But not you. No one’s going to make you do one damned thing you don’t want to do. Because Earstien forbid you ever make the slightest sacrifice for anyone.”
She rushed at him, seizing him by the collar. “You have no idea what I’ve sacrificed. How dare you assume you know me!”
He grabbed her wrists. “Oh, I’m sorry. You have a room in a palace in Briddobad, instead of a room in a palace in Formacaster. You’ve lost so much.”
Her chest heaved. “Why are you such a prick?”
“Why are you so blasted angry all the time?” he said, shaking her by the arms.
“I’ve earned the right,” she said, pulling loose one hand and slapping him. Then she moved in again, lips quivering, eyes wide, skin glistening with the steam from the pool. Her hot breath in his mouth.
His heart was slamming in his chest, and she was right up against him. Right up against his body. He started to stiffen, entirely against his will. Oh Earstien. She kissed him so hard he thought his teeth would break, and then she pulled away, biting his lip until he cried out.
“Fuck, Andras,” she gasped. “I hate you so much, but take off your pants right now.”
And, oh holy Finster, he really wanted to. But at the same time, there was something oddly, dangerously familiar about this feeling. He wasn’t just aroused. He was almost bursting and aching with the need for...someone. It wasn’t even about Elwyn. He could see that now, because he’d felt the exact same thing the day before with Donella.
He broke Elwyn’s grip and staggered away, looking frantically around. They hadn’t drunk the wine. They hadn’t eaten anything here. Yes, he’d eaten with the earl, but that had been more than an hour ago. And Elwyn had been out of the compound even longer. What could have done this?
Then his eyes fell on the rocks at the far side of the pool, and the jagged shards of the bottle still sitting there. The bottle. And the wine that had run down the rocks and into the water. The hot, steaming water.
Elwyn had her arms around him now again, but he shook her off and cried, “Stop! Stop. Look, the bottle.” He pointed, and she turned to look at it, confused. “Elwyn, the wine had more of the potion in it. And now it’s in the steam of the pool. We’re breathing it in.”
She glared at him, panting, her chest straining the velvet of her bodice. Then she rubbed her eyes with her fists and gave out a long howl of frustration. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh, blast it all, you’re right.” She paced around the green, shaking her head, periodically slapping herself in the face. “Oh, Earstien. I think one of us needs to leave. Right now. Before I do something really stupid.” She walked stiffly toward the trees.
“Do you want me to—?”
“No. You stay there,” she said, her voice high and strained. “And you can come along later. For now, pardon me, but...I need to be alone for a while!”