A Poison Dark and Drowning (Kingdom on Fire #2)(51)
And then the light flared brighter, and the shadows dispersed.
Rook brought his head up, massaging his forehead with the heel of his hand as if he were recovering from a night of drinking. He blinked at me. His left eye had returned to a pure sky blue.
“Has something good happened?” he asked as he stood, swaying only a little.
Maria beamed and went back to the fire to stir a pot hanging over it. “Very good,” she replied as I slid my arms around Rook, laying my head on his chest. He chuckled, the sound resonating against my cheek.
“If it makes you happy, I know it’s good,” he whispered into my hair. He made a startled but delighted noise when I kissed him. His lips tasted sweet from the honey. Last night hadn’t been a dream.
“Didn’t know I’d made a love potion as well,” Maria drawled.
Flushed with embarrassment, Rook and I stepped apart.
“What’s this?” Fenswick waddled into the room, and I lifted him onto the table at once so he could see. He fiddled with a button on his coat, marveling at Rook’s improvement. “I’ll be sold into the Hollow and made to dance,” he said in astonishment. I’d no idea what that meant, but I assumed he was pleased. He examined the dregs in Rook’s cup, pouring them into a glass bowl and adding some viscous pink syrup.
“Have you a moment?” Maria whispered to me as Fenswick examined Rook’s eyes. We ducked into the hallway.
“You’re a genius,” I said.
“Aye, that was a given.” Her pleased expression faded. “But there can be complications.” She curled a ringlet of hair around her finger. “The important thing now is that he remain calm. If his heart beats too fast,” she said, hammering her fist upon her chest, “the drug can weaken him. If he’s weak, the thing inside him’ll fight like the devil to take control.”
Sneaking around in the night would be absolutely out, to say nothing of fighting. Maria continued, “You’ll have to keep him from all excitement. I count the good kind as well as the bad.” Her pointed look made me pale. Rook and I had finally declared ourselves, and now we couldn’t act upon it? I had to keep from arguing.
“Can you give him something to make him tired?” I asked. At least that would calm him. What I was asking was little better than drugging him, but Maria nodded in agreement.
“I’ll slip something in with the doses. Hopefully, he won’t realize.”
“Thank you for all of this.” I’d pulled on my cloak and was fastening it. Already, the clocks were chiming the hour, and I was late.
Maria smiled. “Are you off to train, then?”
“Would you like to come and watch?” I brightened at the thought, wishing I could invite her to fight as well, but such a thing was impossible. The boys could handle only so many renegades in one week.
“I’d love it. I want to watch your magician in action. He’s funny,” she said. “I imagine we could take some sandwiches as well.”
—
MARIA GAPED AT AGRIPPA’S HOUSE AS we alighted from the carriage, nearly dropping the basket hooked over her arm. Her reaction was understandable. When I’d arrived months before, this place, with its white Grecian columns and its curling black iron gates, had been like something out of a fairy tale. Now it felt haunted, a memorial to happier times. The great windows on the uppermost floors resembled vacant eyes, gazing down at me in judgment.
“So this is where your great Master lived?” Maria’s voice shocked me from my remembrance. “Seems a fair place.”
Being here, I thought of Gwendolyn crawling toward us in her pitiful, shadowy rags. Maria noticed my shudder.
“Master Agrippa had a daughter,” I said by way of explanation. “They thought she was the prophesied one, you see, before she…well, before she went away. I can’t help but think of her.”
An even more unpleasant thought surfaced. Suppose Gwendolyn had been the prophesied girl. Perhaps she had been the one great hope for England…and had chosen the side of darkness. I’d worried that falsely accepting the title of England’s chosen one meant we were giving up on finding the right person, but what if the truth was even blacker? What if we’d already lost her?
“No sense dwelling on what’s past.” Maria nudged me from my thoughts. We walked down the path to the front door, where the iron hobgoblin knocker still grimaced. Magnus opened it for us, his coat already off.
“There you are.” His smile widened when he saw Maria. “Templeton! My dear, are those sandwiches?” He started poking around the basket at once.
“Count on you to remember what’s important.” She let him snag one, chopped egg and watercress. Taking a bite, Magnus led us down the hall.
I let them go ahead, chatting together, and gazed about the house. I stopped in the middle of the foyer, dropping the glove I’d just taken off. It felt like a dam bursting.
Memories shouted at me from every corner. This was the foyer where I’d first arrived, turning about in wonder. To my right, the staircase Agrippa had led me up in order to meet the boys on the second floor. To my left, the games room where Wolff had taught me to play billiards. I slowly followed Maria and Magnus, stopping to touch the banister or a framed painting on the wall, anything to rekindle another bittersweet memory.
Entering the library was like coming into the presence of a ghost. Agrippa had sat before the fire with me on several evenings, running over the day’s lessons or playing a game of chess with a cup of cocoa. He’d called that his last vice, grinning as he snatched one of my knights in a daring move.