Page 41 of Poison Nights & Twilight Alchemy

“Oh! Sorry!” Dulce scrambled off him as though he’d scalded her. She’d gotten married less than a fortnight ago, and already she had begun to think of Reed in a way she had never thought of her dead husband. It was the strenuous journey was all—must be…

But the memory of Vesta’s fortune for Dulce drifted into her thoughts once more. A most unfortunate and muddy circumstance had certainly led to her meeting Reed. Though as the days passed, Dulce was more and more certain that having him by her side was the farthest thing from unfortunate.

They left the room and descended the stairs to find that every single animal head was turned in their direction. Dulce’s breath caught, her throat dry as she swallowed deeply.

“I think it’s time for a little fresh air before we finish searching,” Reed suggested, his jaw clenched.

Something wasn’t quite right here in the least. “Lovely idea.”

The castle doors, which they had left open, were now closed. Her heart pounded so hard she expected it to break free from her chest.

Approaching them with exaggerated calm, Reed and then Dulce tried to open one, but the doors remained sealed.

He surveyed the room, trying a window, to no avail. “A spell, I assume?”

Creaks echoed and Dulce whirled around to find that two taxidermy horses blocked the staircase.

A low growl reverberated from the corner where a deceased leopard lingered, slinking a step closer. Dulce and Reed could handle the rabbits, the birds, or the small critters, provided they didn’t all attack at once, but the larger animals...

Reed unsheathed the sword at his hip, only it turned to ash, falling in a cloud of dusty gray to the floor before he could wield it.

“Come on!” he shouted, grasping Dulce by the hand and tugging her down the hall. “There’s bound to be a room we can hide in to think!”

As though her mother were bestowing her a gift from somewhere otherworldly, another old spell she’d learned came to her. It had to be performed within an enclosed space where wind wouldn’t stir. She ripped a white baneberry from her pouch, then a strand of hair from her head, and spoke the incantation, the one her mother had taught her to win against Vesta in marbles.

Everyone froze, including Reed. Speaking two magical words within her mind—solanum dulcamara—she touched his hand, freeing him.

Reed jolted forward, his chest heaving. “That felt … very strange, Highness. I would be much obliged if you never do that again.”

Inches from his ankle, a snake sat reared to strike, unmoving, its mouth opened wide, exposing poisonous fangs.

“On second thought, much obliged.” Reed chuckled, though fear shone in his eyes, fear matching Dulce’s own because she knew they didn’t have much time.

“This spell won’t hold them long.” She fled toward a dark brown door near the end of the hallway just past a dining room, Reed’s hand in hers. “Let’s hope that’s the cellar with a way out of this cursed place.”

As the door closed behind them, its bolt driven securely into place, dire growls and groaning pierced the air. Dulce trailed Reed down a shadowy narrow staircase, and when bodies suddenly slammed into the door, she jerked.

“At least we’re safe.” She sighed, her heart slowing afraction.

“A more polite word fortrapped.”

“Or that.”

“But alive.” He glanced back over his shoulder at her with a wink.

Yet for how long? If they didn’t die within this castle’s walls, then they would surely perish away with the remainder of the land if they didn’t stop La Bisou Morte. Dulce didn’t understand why anyone would do this. Once the world was nothing but darkness, where would the witch go? Wouldn’t she die too?

They reached the bottom of the cellar, lighting candles by the dim light of a window barely large enough for a person to fit through. A spark of hope ignited in Dulce’s chest. The place must’ve been a spell room once. Flowers rested withered in their vases, a cauldron hung in a corner, unfilled. A shelf where books might’ve once lingered stood without a single tome, abandoned cobwebs its only decoration now. Jars lined another, mostly empty or broken. Dulce could use some of the dried herbs for spells, but she didn’t think any would help them escape the castle.

Reed opened the window. “Seems we have our escape route, if we want it.”

Night was falling beyond the castle as a wolf howled in the distance. Dulce worried for Toffee, left outside to graze, knowing she would have fled by now.

“We might as well stay the night down here,” Dulce decided. “Perhaps this room holds something the witch valued enough that it will lead us to her.”

“We could go back to our original plan and question the Duke directly if we have nothing else to go on,” Reedsuggested.

“You would risk that?”

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