Page 53 of Faerie Fate
Poppy scooped a bit of the potion into a new vial and thrust it underneath my nose. “Drink.”
My anger wasn’t close to being spent but I did as she asked, daring to meet her eyes.
It wasn’t half bad. The liquid had taken on the slightly bluish hue of some tea I’d seen made with butterfly pea flower andit smelled like peppermint and a spring breeze. It slid a little viscously down my throat, settling low in my stomach.
“Who are you?” Poppy began.
The barriers around my mind and tongue both softened.
“Tavi Alderidge.” I answered her without hesitation. “Well, Octavia, but no one calls me that. Ever.”
“What are you doing in this place and time?”
Poppy stood at least a foot away from me, close enough to touch but far enough to keep me pinned in her sights.
“Mike can manipulate time. It’s his innate power. He brought me back to find a witch who can break the blood curse. We neededthistime because the flower we seek is extinct in our time.”
The words flowed out of me but it felt right to tell her. The last dregs of my hesitation melted away with the infusion of the potion.
I stared at her ambivalently, waiting for her to rapid-fire more questions at me.
Although her gaze remained narrowed, her brows drawn down, her expression barely changed. “What flower?”
“According to the witch in my time, it’s the morsana.”
Poppy smirked and asked, “Why didn’t you getyourwitch to break your blood curse, then?”
“Because she died.”
The admittance gave me no satisfaction, nor did Poppy’s widened lips at her surprise.
“Fine,” she said at last. “I’m appeased. You seem to be telling the truth.”
Even that wasn’t enough to change the blanket of neutrality covering my senses. I looked her dead in the eye and took her hand. “Do I know you?”
Poppy was clearly confused. “What do you mean?”
“You’re familiar. The way you talk, the way you act. Even the way you brew your potions. I feel like I know you.”
She adjusted her grip on my hand to link our fingers together, almost angrily. “That can be easily ascertained, girl.”
Why she’d be pissed at me I wasn’t sure. Poppy sent a wave of her magic outward, connecting us. Her consciousness became a slight brush against mine as though she and her spell were requesting permission to look into my head.
Under the influence of the truth potion, I let her in. I opened the door for her scrutiny whether it was the smart thing to do or not. Right now, with my emotions out of the way, I had no logical reason to stop her from seeing everything.
Her magic was a breeze through my memories rather than the battering ram it might have been. No time passed before Poppy saw Barbara in my memories.
The first time I’d met her, with a cigarette dangling from her thin lips.
The way I’d seen her the last time, on the chopping block.
Floored, Poppy withdrew from my head and dropped my hand. “That’s me,” she whispered. “Three hundred years from now.”
Chapter Fifteen
Istared at Poppy, still numb from the truth serum. “What do you mean, that’s you?”
She worked her jaw and struggled to answer as something scratched at the door. A plaintive growl followed the scratch. My direwolf. Checking to see that everything was on the up and up. Or did he feel the sickening kaleidoscope of emotions wreaking havoc with me?
