Strike at Midnight(83)

“Is this the girl?” she asked in a voice that would have been welcome in my worst nightmares. Piper ushered her over.

“That it is.”

“She’ll do, I suppose,” she said, licking her lips as if she were about to eat me.

“I suggest you sort your potion-making out first, grandma,” I said, getting in touch with my inner bitch so she wouldn’t smell my fear. “The potion only copies the outside of the person, so I’m sure the prince will know it’s not me when those saggy tits start swinging in his face.”

“How dare—” Piper went to say, but Amana just patted his shoulder to shut him up. She let out a large cackle at my words and shook a long and disjointed finger at me.

“I save the best potions for me, my dear.” She grinned to show a set of yellow, tiny fangs. “The others got what they paid for.”

“He’ll know,” I said, wriggling hard against the ropes to try and get free. “He’ll know from the moment you open your mouth.”

She took out a small vial from her cloak and emptied a small part of its contents onto her tongue. She coughed a few times and then fluttered her hand in front of her face. “He’ll know from the moment you open your mouth,” she said in the exact tone of my own vocal chords, and I couldn’t stop my mouth from dropping open.

I knew Helena had taken on the duke’s voice when she had been changed, but it was still a shock to hear the witch speaking with my own voice.

“The rest of the potion is nearly complete,” she said to Piper while keeping her eyes on me. Then she let out another cackle. “Keep her warm for me.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Now I'm the Damsel in Distress?





How the hell was I going to get out of this?

I could see through the curtains that it was still dark, and part of me hoped that they would wait for another nightfall to complete their plan. But even as I thought it, I knew it wouldn’t be happening.

Why would they wait and risk someone coming to the rescue? And why would they linger any longer when they knew that we were onto them? They wouldn’t, and I knew the time was coming when they would pour a potion down my throat and take my memories away.

The hurt from the thought of never seeing the prince again hit me. And I couldn’t deny the regret I felt at this moment of not being able to see him one last time. He kept on peeking into my thoughts as strategies eluded me, and I would have cursed out loud if it wouldn’t have brought unwanted attention to myself.

I suppose there would be benefits to having a new memory if it made me forget about my love for him. But there was Rem to consider, and the fact that they could make my memories worse than the ones I already had. What if they decided to make me believe I was a whore or something? Or worse, an actual lady?

No way was I putting my fate in the hands of these two assholes if I could help it. Not even forgetting about the prince was worth that. I needed to distract Piper and to try to bide some time while I came up with a plan.

“How did you know to approach those specific people?” I asked after a period of silence. He stopped twirling the point of the dagger on his finger and looked at me.

“We have someone who was invested in our project from the inside,” he said, then he went back to the twirling.

“Who?”

“A gentleman who goes by the name of Lord Peacock,” he said, giving me a wink. “I understand you’ve met up with him a few times recently.”

Lord Peacock. What an absolute dickshit. I should have damn well known with all of his innocent chitchat and reluctance to speak about Helena Heartworthy. He had also been certain to spill wine into Dumpty’s breeches when he became too chatty about sharing something with the duke. Winnings, my ass. More like Peacock had been sharing too much wine to make sure the duke was well into his cups and too sloshed to argue against Billy taking him into the woods. Then there was Lord Havenly. They moved in the same circles, and it would have been easy enough for him to have eavesdropped on Lord Havenly’s conversation when he asked Lady Camembert to leave her husband. It may have been a lucky break for him, or maybe the snake was just watching out for vulnerable candidates for identity theft. Who knew?

“I take it you paid him for his trouble?” I asked, needing to keep the conversation going. The longer I could keep Piper distracted, the more chance I had of someone coming after me. It was a weak hope, but all other ideas were eluding me. The only thing I could grasp on to was kicking the shit out of them with my free legs if they came near me with the potion. Then it would just be a case of getting out of a closed door with no free hands and a chair wrapped around my back. Not the best plan in the world but it wasn’t like I had a lot of options at the moment.

“He got paid enough,” he sneered. “It helps that the man likes to gamble to keep his purse heavy, and he fell into quite a bit of debt. He likes to use his gold to fund his lover’s lavish wardrobe because he, and I quote, ‘has expensive tastes.’”

“He?” I asked.

“Lord Dumpty,” he said with a smirk on his face. “He is Lord Peacock’s lover and likes to be a kept man, seeing as he really isn’t a lord. They just fake it for the pretense of them being able to go out in public together. Pathetic, if you think about it, but then that’s the nobility for you.”