The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(70)
“I’m sorry,” Blue said sincerely, though she had no idea what report Dinah was talking about.
“I’m not discussing any more of this with you.” Dinah’s tone was final, but she kept picking at the lace, shredding the edges into loose threads.
Blue took a deep breath, reaching for calm. Dinah was an awful woman. And if the guardianship document somehow proved false—a faint hope since Nell had already verified it—Dinah might have had a hand in Papa’s death. If that was true, Blue could give herself permission to hate Dinah. To work hard to make sure she was brought to justice as publicly as possible.
But until then, she was still a mother worried about her daughters. Blue was worried too. Not just for Jacinthe and Halette, but for all the other girls vying for Kellan’s hand. She might not be close to the members of the nine head families, but the idea of someone murdering girls her age because they wanted the throne made sickness crawl up the back of her throat.
She couldn’t hire guards to protect the girls, but she could still help. Yesterday, Maurice had finally delivered the pink sapphire she’d ordered. Blue had planned to use it in a complicated new potion meant to tremendously strengthen the lifespan of any potions created in the pot where the now-enchanted sapphire sat, but pink sapphire could also be used as a conduit to harness the qualities of certain herbs and minerals and transform them into a powerful protection charm that worked directly with the energy of the person it was meant to protect.
As they rode past the place where Papa had died, Blue sent a silent prayer that he could see her and was proud of her, and then said, “I’ll help your girls.”
She’d expected Dinah to laugh, to say something cruel and scornful. Instead, the older woman stopped tugging at the loose threads on her lace sleeves. “How?” There was caution in her voice, but there wasn’t disbelief.
“I’ll make a protection charm for each of them. I just got some pink sapphire. It will concentrate the potion, but I’ll need a strand of hair from each of them so I can personalize the potion.”
They turned into the business district in the Gaillard quarter, the road already full of wagons, carriages, and riders hurrying toward their destinations. The harsh clang of the smithy’s hammer striking molten metal filled the air, and the scent of freshly baked ginger pudding wafted out of the bakery. The slight wind that drifted in from the sea sent iron chimes hanging from balconies ringing merrily as Dinah and Blue rode past.
Finally, Dinah said, “Why are you offering to help me?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do. Papa taught me that I can’t help how people choose to treat me, but I can always control how I choose to respond.” Blue cut her gaze toward Dinah, but the woman’s expression looked carved from stone.
As they turned up the street that led to the shop, Dinah said quietly, “I’ll return to the house in a bit and get a strand of hair from each of them.”
When it became obvious that she would say no more, Blue sighed. Dismounting from the carriage, she unlocked the shop, flipped the sign from Closed to Open, and hurried back to her storeroom, leaving Dinah out front.
She wasn’t just going to make charms for Halette and Jacinthe. She was going to make them for every girl vying for the betrothal. And, she decided in a sudden burst of inspiration, she would make one each for Nessa and Kellan. That would take some of the weight off his shoulders and some of the worry out of Blue’s heart.
First, she’d need a sample of hair from each of them. Quickly, she jotted a note to Kellan, explaining what she was doing and asking him to help collect the strands and send them to her at the shop. Then she went into the alley and found Lucian waiting outside.
With Lucian running to the castle with the note for Kellan, a copper coin in his pocket for his troubles, Blue turned her attention to the basic ingredients she’d need for the charms. She pulled herbs from one shelf, dried leaves from another, and several strands of pure rose lead wire from the coil she kept by Mama’s old cauldron. Then she took the largest of the pink sapphires Maurice had brought her, fitted it into her rock splitter, applied pressure, and broke it into small shards.
“I’m leaving to get what you need from the farmhouse,” Dinah said from the doorway. Blue nodded, her attention on the potion she was devising.
Feeling sentimental, she pulled down Mama’s old cauldron. Setting aside her own copper pots, she lit the burner and placed the cauldron on top.
Yaeringlei oil went in first, then thresh moss, carpa leaf, yew, bolla root, and a dash of myrrh. Bringing the mixture to a boil, she added silver flakes to bond the ingredients, and then let it simmer.
While it cooked, Blue sat at the worktable, pulled the old pieces of parchment from her pocket, and grabbed a quill. She needed a potion that could look like something Mama would have used. Something with at least one rare ingredient.
Quickly she dashed off a recipe that was close to the one she’d just used, though she added more myrrh, required both gold and silver, and took out the carpa leaf. It would make for a decent protection potion, though without the pink sapphire to concentrate it, it wouldn’t last very long.
Now she needed a rare ingredient. Something hard to find. Something that would interest Dinah enough to hopefully convince her she had what she wanted and could leave Blue alone.
Should she use a stone? A rare mineral? Or something even more exotic?