This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(8)

I couldn’t. I could not fathom that another plant existed that was deadlier than the piece of the Absyrtus Heart I had held in my own hands. Persephone set the chaise down in the next room.

I glanced down the hall. “Where’s Circe?”

“She’s in the garden. She took the other pieces out there last night.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the vial of Living Elixir. “I saw someone installed a safe in the turret. Was that you?”

“No,” I said. It had to have been Mrs. Redmond. “But I know the combination. Do you want me to put that in there?”

“If you don’t mind,” Persephone said. “It’s already been transfigured, and it’s so potent in this liquid form. Best to keep it locked up for now.”

She handed me the vial, and I went up to the little door at the end of the upstairs hallway. I climbed the stairs and turned on the single light in the center of the room, removed the painting of Medea to reveal the safe and turned the dial, 7-22-99. After I set the elixir inside I rehung the painting and took a minute to catch my breath. My family tree was intertwined with the fates of gods and demigods alike. It was a lot to take in.

Dust hung in the shafts of sunlight streaming through the window, illuminating the pages of the big book sitting on the pedestal in the middle of the cramped room. I flipped through its heavy pages to find the illustration of the Absyrtus Heart Selene had drawn in meticulous detail. The velvety black leaves, the pink lobes, the artery-like stalk. She’d perfectly captured how strange and impossible the plant was, and still the drawing didn’t do it justice. In the flesh, it was beautiful but equally terrifying.

I padded back down the stairs and peeked in on Mo. She was still asleep, and I didn’t want to bother Persephone anymore while she was moving furniture around, so I went downstairs, grabbed my sneakers, and left out the front door.

I circled around the house and cut through the sloping, overgrown rear yard. As I approached the lush curtain of ivy and stinging nettle that guarded the path to the Poison Garden, it pulled back and I ducked onto the hidden path.

I trudged through the forest as the plants rippled along the ground on either side of me. They seemed hyperaware of my presence. Ever since I’d called to them to help me wring the life from Mrs. Redmond as she threatened everyone I’d ever loved or cared about, it was like I couldn’t turn it off. I tried to push those thoughts aside and focus on what we had to do. The events of the days before were impossible to wrap my head around, and whatever was coming next felt equally unreal. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do other than make it through the next hour, the next minute, the next second, and still that felt like I wasn’t doing enough.

The path led to the glade of black bat flowers, which all perked up as I walked through. The trees guarding the iron gate on the opposite side of the meadow leaned away, and the bougainvillea pulled the metal bars open, allowing me to pass through. I entered the garden, holding my breath, feeling the ache of what had happened there the same way I felt the sting of toxins when I entered the Poison Garden, only I wasn’t immune to this pain. Mrs. Redmond had tainted this beautiful place, but the garden was already working hard to erase any sign that she had ever been there.

The acacia tree stood like a sentinel guarding the overflowing beds of everyday plants.

Hecate’s Garden had overtaken its wooden walls. Hellebore and velvet petunias climbed the wall closest to the plot. The hellebore’s yellow centers reminded me of watchful, protective eyes.

Calla lilies and dahlias spilled out and covered the patch of earth where my mom had lain unconscious. Her blood was spilled there. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there, and I felt an overwhelming rush of gratitude to the flowers who’d hid it from me. Did they know I wouldn’t be able to handle that? That seeing the patch of darkened earth might have been my breaking point?

Knowing I probably wouldn’t find Circe in the front part of the garden, I cut a path straight back to the moon gate and entered the Poison Garden with only the faintest flicker of cold in my throat as the airborne toxins invaded my nose and mouth. Circe wasn’t there either, but the hidden door in the back wall was sitting ajar and the rhythmic thumping of a heart echoed in my ears. My own pulse ticked up.

Ropes of Devil’s Pet unfurled from the tops of the walls and slithered across the ground, circling my feet. Any fear or hesitation I’d had was gone. I had leaned into this strange power and embraced it fully and there was no going back. I reached out and drew my finger along one of the small offshoots. Cold rippled through my palm and wrist as the deadly vine sprouted a triplet of serrated fuchsia leaves.

I went to the door and pulled it all the way open.

“Uh … Circe? You down there?”

The was a scuffling noise, the clink of something metal, maybe glass.

“I’m here,” she said, her voice rough.

I descended the stone steps into the dank space below. Sunlight filtered in from the cylindrical hole in the ceiling, but it was still mostly dark, still cold. Circe sat on the floor with her back to the wall. Her hair stuck out around her face in tight curls, her wrap halfway off her head. The two glass-paneled cages she’d brought with her stood against the opposite wall. I sat down on the floor next to her.

I looked around, unable to stop the replay of Mrs. Redmond slicing my hand open over the Absyrtus Heart, how she’d asked if I’d fed it. I hated the stuffy little chamber, and a flicker of anger sparked inside me but I couldn’t understand why. I reminded myself that it was Mrs. Redmond’s deception that led me here. Circe hadn’t written the letters. She didn’t have anything to do with the mess Mrs. Redmond and Karter had created. But something still didn’t sit right with me. After a moment I finally realized what was bothering me. If Circe hadn’t brought me here, it meant that the opposite might be true—she didn’t want me here, and that stung more than I expected it to.