The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(46)
“I don’t generally like to gossip,” the woman said, “but I had a gentleman come in two weeks ago who was insistent on taking home a jar of white baneberry. Thought he knew a spell that allowed him to substitute it for imported cerbera.” The shopkeeper finally turned from her unpacking, shaking her head as she set down a brass urn of dried poppy seeds. “Poor fellow, he’ll damage his reputation by diluting the potency, but the baneberry is half the cost, so . . .”
It was then Elena let her eye travel over the entire store and found it wasn’t merely a shop for dried botanicals. All the bins and baskets were topped up with nature’s deadliest offerings—laburnum, larkspur, foxglove, and even satin gift bags stuffed with dried death-cap mushrooms. She’d heard of the city’s apothicaires toxiques, but Grand-Mère had never allowed her to go near one—for fear her parents’ toxic blood would surface while in proximity to so many deadly ingredients, no doubt. And perhaps Grand-Mère had been right. Her blood did swim faster through her veins the longer she perused the shop’s offerings.
“Any particular plant you specialize in?” the woman asked.
Elena hardly knew how to answer. A week ago, she would have claimed to know the grapevine as well as or better than anyone, but now she fumbled for how to answer. “I . . . I’ve always had an affinity with wolfsbane,” she said, and a rush of adrenaline flooded her limbs.
The woman smiled. “Very practical. Though I’ve been overexposed to it myself, working in the shop as I do,” she said, gesturing to the sunglasses. “Permanently dilated my pupils from so much handling. A hazard of the work. May I wrap up a bundle for you?”
Without thinking, Elena agreed to a small packet wrapped in waxed paper and threw in three small red feathers kept in a sealed jar on the counter, which the shopkeeper retrieved with a pair of tweezers and a stiff warning. Elena set down her coins, then shoved the purchase in her purse beside Minister Durant’s bruised business card.
“Don’t forget your dragon flower skull.” The woman slipped one into Elena’s palm. “A little curative with every poison, my store motto,” she said and wished Elena a nice day.
A little poison with every cure it seems as well, Elena thought as the sting on her neck flared again. She’d let herself succumb to the energy calling her to this place, but it was answered with the equal energy of resistance. The prospect of so many ingredients colliding into powerful yet deadly elixirs thrilled her. She couldn’t deny it. Poison had always intrigued her, but it was not—could not—be her calling in this life. It simply couldn’t.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
For so long Yvette had clung to the shadows, lingered in the dark, and tucked herself under the eaves. Out of sight, out of trouble, and out of jail. But today, wearing her borrowed jade-green dress and head scarf—and Sidra’s bottle tucked just between her breasts for safekeeping now that so many artists freely wandered in and out of her room—she stepped out of the dank hallway and into the afternoon sun that filtered through the trees. Nearly weeping at the lightness of her being, she felt like a frilly yellow flower bouncing on a tall green stem as she skipped over the flowing wastewater that dribbled down the lane from the boardinghouse at the top of the hill. Whatever magic this was oozing through her, making her feel light and free, she wanted more of it.
To think that single jagged scar had been cursing her all her life, denying her this brilliant effervescence. If she ever learned who had put that cork in her magic, she’d be highly tempted to scratch their eyes out. A man passed her on the sidewalk and tipped his straw hat, as if she were a proper lady worthy of sincere attention. She forgot her pique after the exchange. Gone in a wisp. Replaced with a buzzy sort of curiosity about how it would feel to be kissed by the hatted stranger. But then she reminded herself of her purpose in crossing the courtyard in broad daylight. She smiled and turned the corner, passing one of those rag-and-bone man wagons led by a single straggly horse, eager to sit with Henri in the café and share a coffee. Oh, and a lemon tart! She had such a craving for the custardy filling with a sprinkle of sugar on top, she swore she could almost smell the scent of the flaky crust floating on the air. She still had the two coins she’d saved from the day before, and now she planned to splurge.
She saw him then, sitting at the corner table, his hair hanging slightly in his eyes as he guided a stick of charcoal over the page of a notebook while he waited. With a sudden pang of longing, Yvette wanted desperately to be the subject of Henri’s art. She straightened her head scarf, pressed her lips together to bring on some color, and managed to take three steps toward the café before she was yanked off her feet. A clammy hand cupped tight over her mouth, gagging her with a rag doused in something sickeningly sweet. She fought for breath as her head became woozy, and the next thing she knew she was being dragged into the back of a wagon. A halo of stars painted themselves across the insides of her eyelids just as she was buried beneath a blanket.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A rag-and-bone man led an old nag and wagon down the narrow lane, lugging his heap of goods out for sale. Shutting the door to the apothicaire toxique behind her, Elena followed him a little way, noting with curiosity the many rings on his fingers, until her eye drifted to an idle dove perched under the eaves of the building across the lane. It cooed at her, making her stop in her tracks. She had the minister’s address. It was there on the business card. All she had to do was call the bird to her and send it on its way. She’d be free of her dilemma by dinnertime. Free of Yvette. Free of this affair of poison and the cunning inclinations running rampant through her blood.