Page 15 of Poison Nights & Twilight Alchemy

CHAPTER SEVEN

DULCE

Dulce sighed, ridding herself of the corpse spell she’d played on Cornelius by pressing three sage flowers into her mouth, their pungent flavor unpleasant against her tongue. “Dead by your own cowardice before I got the chance to kill you myself, dearest husband.”

She took in her surroundings—Cornelius’s broken body, his chest pierced by the iron spikes of the fence guarding the cemetery, his crimson blood gathering below him, shining like a thousand rubies beneath the silvery moonlight. The manor loomed behind her, empty as a mausoleum.

Dulce stepped toward Cornelius’s suspended body—his expression no longer twisted in fear but blank, his eyes devoid of life. Leaving him there to rot was not an option, and she could never hope to dislodge him herself. Besides the stench and unhygienic consequences his decaying corpse would soon invite, someone was bound to take notice of the master of the manor splayed atop a fence like a stuck pig at a carnival.

She remembered Cornelius telling the witch that the servants were still at the inn. Thankfully, the establishment wasn’t dreadfully far. She would let them sleep through the night, then find them at dawn.

Until she discovered precisely who this witch was and what danger she posed, Dulce would continue to remain a dead bride to all but those she trusted most.

Turning her back on Cornelius’s gruesome remains, she entered her home and went into the kitchens, where she found an abundance of what must’ve been a leftover funeral feast Vesta had made in Dulce’s honor. She fell to devouring roast capon, croquettes of fowl, asparagus, wild rice, and fresh berries—including a single mistletoe berry, promising herself to not miss her daily dose of poison again—in an untidy manner until she was full to bursting. The poison she barely felt, only a slight blurring of the room for a moment before everything was as it should be.

Boiling water in a large basin, she next filled a hot bath, and, discarding her destroyed gown into the fireplace where it shriveled into flames, she washed away the mud caking her skin, luxuriating in the lavender water until it turned cold.

When at last Dulce wound up one of her music boxes and lay down on her freshly made bed, sleep didn’t comefor her. Perhaps after too many hours of unconsciousness, she simply wasn’t tired. So she went downstairs and sat at her piano, playing a haunted melody over and over until just before the sun rose.

She slipped on a simple deep maroon dress, then grabbed a vial from the conservatory and disguised herself with the contents, changing her hair from black to a mousy brown, her nose slightly misshapen, her eyes shrunk, and her jawline squared. Her mother would’ve been proud that she was finding her way back to magic. It only took a near-death experience to reclaim her witch, to realize how much she missed alchemy.

Dulce hitched a plain mare to the carriage and drove to the inn. She might be the mistress of the manor, but once her parents passed, Sylvan had taught her many things in case she was ever to need the knowledge. Even as a child, she would often ride beside Sylvan in the front when he went into town on errands.

The sun was hidden behind thick clouds, the sky streaked with gray, the perfect dreary morning Dulce loved. She passed the market shops where, at this hour, only servants milled about on the day’s business, the shops’ owners preparing for early customers.

Near the end of the town’s square, beyond a park, the Royal Lion slipped into view. Turrets, mirroring the hue of pearls brushed the sky, and burgundy curtains hung in the windows. Dulce drew the horse to a halt near the inn’s entrance and fiddled with her brown braid while slumping her shoulders forward, trying to appear anything but an heiress.

The scent of cinnamon cigars encompassed her as she stepped over the threshold and into the opulent lobby.Clearly Cornelius had been trying to keep up the appearance of a generous lord by continuing the staff’s stay here. Dulce smiled knowing Sylvan would feel most uncomfortable sleeping in such pompous surroundings. A young couple sat at one of the dining tables, eating a hearty breakfast in silence while a woman stood behind a tall desk of carved mahogany, her face absent of the smile she’d had when Dulce last visited to have tea with some of her mother’s friends. When she’d looked like a well-dressed heiress and not a servant.

“Morning, Miss,” Dulce greeted the older woman, producing a letter in her husband’s hand on her stationery. It was simple to use alchemy to do the trick when she already had a letter in his handwriting. “I’m here to retrieve Mr. Cornelius’s staff on his request.”

The woman peered at her as if she smelled something foul, but Dulce placed three gold coins on the desk, and she perked up, eagerly snatching them.

“They are in rooms twenty-two and twenty-seven on the second floor,” the woman said, adding, “And tell Mr. Cornelius I’m extremely sorry for his loss.”

Dulce nodded solemnly and hurried to ascend the marble staircase at the end of the hallway. Paintings of musical instruments encircled by fruit on thick velvet lined the corridor in dark frames. Voices arguing could be heard behind one of the doors she passed.

Near the end of the hall, she knocked on room twenty-two and waited until the door swung open to reveal Sylvan, a line forming between his thick gray brows as his red-rimmed eyes met hers. “Yes?”

“Gather your things at once and meet me downstairs,” she instructed in a high voice through hernose. “Mr. Cornelius requires you and the others to return to the manor with me.”

He hesitated until he read the note she handed him, then nodded. “Of course.”

Telling herself not to run, she did the same at Vesta’s room, nearly hugging the woman the instant she saw her pale, grief-stricken face.

In case there were any prying ears about, and to avoid a public outbreak at the shock of it, Dulce would wait to reveal her identity to them until they were safely back at the manor.

It didn’t take long for Sylvan, his grandson Lucas, and Vesta to join her outside, almost as if they too knew they would not stay at the Royal Lion long. Their expressions remained melancholic, dark circles rimming their eyes as Dulce held the carriage door open for them and drove them home, her heart pounding anxiously. She was impatient to tell them she was alive and ease their sorrow, though she held her tongue.

Sylvan’s wife had passed, Lucas’s parents succumbed to illness shortly after his birth, and Vesta had become a kind of second mother to the orphan, who was still an adolescent.

Reaching the manor, Dulce waited for her passengers to alight and face her.

“I need to tell you all something,” she said, her own voice coming out strange, sudden tears threatening to spill from her eyes. “I’m not a servant. It’s me. Dulce.”

Vesta frowned. “That is a wickedly cruel thing to say.”

Dulce ate a few sage blossoms, the spell dissolving, her face and hair becoming her own, and the three of them gasped. Besides her parents, they were the only oneswho knew she was a witch like her mother.

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