To Best the Boys(66)

A hand grabs mine, and Germaine’s eyes have grown wide with terror. He’s squeezing my fingers as if begging me to help him as his breathing becomes labored. “Vincent . . .,” he chokes out. “What’s he done?” Which is when I notice my own breathing feels funny and my throat is tightening. What did Vincent do?

Come on, think, Rhen. I lean down to sniff Germaine’s breath and catch the slight blue discoloration appearing around his mouth. Except now it’s edging the whites of his eyes as well.

Bloodberries?

The tingling in my fingers gets harder. It’s spreading up to my elbows.

Lute lets out a cough beside me and then gags, and he’s suddenly shaking too.

“Lute!”

I don’t know how Vincent did it, but he gave us a dose of bloodberry. I peer up at his passive face again, then at the table where noticeable purple streaks are beginning to appear. Right along the spots where he’d traced his gloved hands.

The gloves. The ones he’d been using have been discarded beside a pile of others—beside our gloves. And they have a purple stain on them.

The fact he brought a berry in here, broke it open, and spread it where he knew our hands would touch . . . It’s brilliant, and sick, and the thought that he was once my friend makes me want to retch. I turn back to Germaine, whom Lute’s still trying to help, and count his pulse again. Considering he’s not dead yet means the dose is diluted. Which would make sense if it was absorbed through us touching the wood.

“He used a bloodberry,” I say aloud. “The poison’s soaking in through our hands.”

Lute’s hands are trembling as he nods. “How bad?”

“Toxic enough that if we don’t counteract it, we’ll all be dead shortly.”

Lute bends over and pretends he’s not trembling, even as the blue stain is starting to edge his lips. “What do you need?”

I spiral back to my studies in the lab with Da. To the natural toxins and their opposites. I rise and look around for a vase of flowers. “I need piphonies.”

“Like the arrangements on the veranda?” Without waiting for a reply Lute shoves off the floor and half strides, half stumbles from the room—only to return thirty seconds later with an entire vase of blooms. His legs are shuddering so hard he can barely stand. So are mine. The poison’s hitting our lungs and nervous systems.

I help him set it down. There. Yellow buds as small as buttons. I ignore the quaking in my arms and torso and begin pulling the blossoms out by the handful. Lute strips the leaves off and drops them to the floor, and then he tips over with his hands clenched at his chest.

I don’t stop to help him—just reach up, grab a glass, and use the base of it to grind the petals right there on the marble. As soon as I’ve finished I grab a damp clump and shove it under Germaine’s tongue, then put a wad under Lute’s too, then mine, right as my breathing thickens and my vision starts fading.

Through the dimness I see Vincent set down the pitcher of mixture he’s just finished with. The liquid inside the glass lights up like a bright blue star.

I want to tell him to go to the underworld, except I don’t because my body’s suddenly exploding with agony, as parts of me begin quivering and breaking in an internal earthquake. And not just in my nerve endings and fading mind, but in the part of me that knows that Vincent’s win means I have failed.

My mum with her illness.

My belief that I could beat this test.

My flimsy hopes for my future.

And as much as I try to block it out, all I can hear in my head is my uncle’s suggestion that perhaps I am too much like my parents to become anything different.

The room begins to spin. The king and his friends, the cold marble floor—it all starts flickering, like a mirage brought on by the poison. I blink and grab Lute’s hand as the darkness encroaches and Vincent bolts for the marble-looking door.

The next second, Lute staggers to his feet, pulls me up with him, and pushes us toward where Vincent’s fumbling with the key and the lock. Except we only make it two paces when Lute falls. I try to drag him back up as his body starts to convulse like Germaine’s.

Lute grits his teeth as if it’s taking all his strength to hold on to his clarity and then tips his head toward Vincent. “Go.”

“I didn’t finish the experiment.”

“How do you know this wasn’t the experiment? Go.”

I yank his arm. “If I go, you go with me.”

Lute’s hands slide up and cup my face, his skin hot against mine. I can feel his heartpulse in his palms, pressing against my cheeks. “I’ve already won,” he whispers.

He pushes me away. “Now run.” And then his hands slip away and my sight is diminishing even as I hear him in my mind, in my ears, in my mouth, and his words are so strong that I shove the fear away and stumble forward.

The room morphs beneath each shaky step. I sprint and fall across space toward the door that Vincent is already tearing open. I lunge for his shirt and scrape my fingers across his back right before a blast of afternoon air throws him against me.

He turns in surprise, then chuckles and grabs my waist to steady me. “This is why I like you, Rhen.” He slips his hand to my chin and leans over my face until his lips are an inch away. “You’re a fighter. Take me up on my offer, and I’ll still give you the world.” His hand pinches harder, and with every ounce of rage I have, I jerk back and shove a hand beneath his ribs and into his diaphragm while my shaky knee jerks up to connect with his family jewels.