Page 57 of What did you do?

I grabbed for the doorknob as I heard the large animal rush closer. I got the sense that he wasn’t going to hurt me. It felt like he was coming to help me. Still, I couldn’t be one hundred percent certain, and I wasn’t ready to risk my and Eli’s lives on a feeling.

The knob jangled, but I finally managed to turn it and fall out into the dimly lit space from before. And then I ran, following the light until I almost tripped over the gray-haired woman sitting on an old wooden chair at a small table.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” said the woman with an unvexed expression. Her wise eyes held mine, giving the impression she knew a lot more than she was letting on.

Still panting, I took in her and the store with fresh eyes. We were closer to a door at the back, but I could see the front of her shop. It was filled with women. Glass jars of every shape and size with worn paper labels lined the walls. The strong smell of florals and spice returned to me as my breathing slowed.

“This is the apothecary. You run the apothecary,” I said, putting the pieces all together.

“What gave it away? The large sign or the herbs?” she asked sarcastically. She nodded at the plethora of amber-glass jars on the table next to where she stood and lazily scratched her arm.

I moved toward the exit, still panicked. “I need to find Prince Aurelius,” I mumbled, touching the side of my face.

I could still feel Mendax’s mouth on my skin.

“I fucking knew it!” she shouted at me. All of the women in the store snapped their heads to us briefly.

“What?” I asked in alarm.

“How have you stayed hidden? I can barely pick it up from you. If I didn’t know better, which I damn well do, I’d believe you to be a human,” she laughed, a deep rasp that sent her into a coughing fit. She wheezed before taking a drink from the teacup in her hand and scowling.

The tea smelled familiar. I winced from the pungent floral aroma before my eyes widened in shock.

“Ricinus communis,” I stated. “Castor bean.”

Her gray eyes stilled before she canted her head, giving me her full attention. “How?—”

“It’s in your tea. I can smell it,” I said, watching her movements.

“Does it taste familiar, Artemi?” She was taunting me.

Every muscle in my body stilled.

What was I supposed to do now? My gut told me to kill her, but I needed to know how she knew first. I needed Eli.

“You drink a lot of poison?” I asked, moving to sit in the wooden chair next to her. I needed to know what all she knew.

The woman raised her teacup as she eyed me. “Business is bad, and unwanted fae keep breaking into my wolf’s bedroom. Can’t take it anymore,” she said sarcastically.

Wolf’sroom? That hadn’t sounded like any wolf I’d ever heard. I looked around the shop at the faces of the shoppers as they read labels and darted sideways glances at the front door.

“Business doesn’t look bad. I wonder, do fae have morgues? If so, you should warn them that a large number of husbands and lovers are about to be dead.” I turned back to her. “How did you know what I am?”

She wrinkled her brow at me before the lines softened and her eyes grew sad. “I’ve been around,” she answered.

I watched the crowd filter through the shop, noticing a younger woman with the same complexion and dorsal hump in the structure of her nose as the old woman. She wore an apron and walked around, talking to the women, measuring out their purchases, and taking their money.

“You’re over-steeping your castor beans. I guess probably the aconite as well,” I said as I leaned back, getting a little more comfortable. I needed to gauge her reaction.

“You don’t know shit about sh?—”

“I’m guessing that you’re practicing mithridatism: self-administering small amounts of the poisons you’re selling in an effort to develop immunity in case one of the many enemies you or your clients have tries to poison you,” I stated. My terrified and chaotic nerves were settling with the calm distraction of something I knew and knew well.

The woman’s face creased with a small smile.

“You’ve been over-steeping your herbs while doing so though and giving yourself liver damage.” I paused to look at her arms. “From my guess, it’s probably pretty severe. Your body is unable to develop a metabolic tolerance, so it’s causing cirrhosis of the liver.”

Her smile fell as she stared at me with glittering eyes, absently scratching her arm.

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