Page 59 of Courting War
Morrigan let out a mumbled curse from beneath her gag.
“We need to create the final two piles.” Emmett ran a hand through his hair, a nervous tic.
“If I'm eventually going to feed one of them to her, then itneeds to be survivable,” Cecile said. “So we must split up the most dangerous ones and disperse them.”
“Right.” Emmett grabbed one jar from the bad pile and one from the good pile and started a new pile. One by one, he alternated mixing the most and least toxic into two evenly distributed piles, leaving the three unknown pots in the middle of the table.
Cecile picked up one and scrutinized it. “This is the least offensive . . . I think . . . but which pile do I place it in? In the chosen seven? Or the remaining seven?”
Emmett bit his lip. “I guess we assume that the ones we choose will stay?”
“Ten seconds.”
Emmett randomly moved the remaining three from the middle into place, but Cecile stood frozen, with the only non-toxic pot resting between her fingertips.
“I don’t know.” Her voice cracked from the stress of it.
“It’s impossible to know. You have to choose one.”
With a small squeak, Cecile chose the pile on the right of the seven she was supposed to select.
“Time’s up.”
The words gnawed at Kellyn’s insides, and a haze of stillness churned through the room. A stroke of energy crooned and set an uneasy tenor. It felt like the moments before a rat was lured into a trap.
It felt like a harbinger of bad news.
With a pop, a hiss, and a rattle, the seven jars in the chosen pile burst into liquid hellfire and vaporized into nothingness.
“Holy nymphs,” Emmett hissed, jumping back.
The only non-toxic plant was off the table. Disintegrated.
Kellyn’s heart quivered.
The remaining jars glimmered in the fluorescent light like shiny sharp shark teeth preparing to devour her.
“Choose three,” Poison’s voice mushroomed, sliding along their skin like pestering fleas. “You have one minute.”
Cecile and Emmett didn’t move. They were frozen likea jackal caught in an eagle’s gaze. They stood fixated, not knowing what to do.
With a mixture of a moan and a groan, Morrigan told themto get back to work. At the noise, their eyes flicked to her, and they snapped out of their daze, rearranging the jars once more.
“The last pile we chose was discarded,” Cecile said. “Do we continue that pattern? Or change it?”
Watching and being able to contribute nothing nettled Kellyn. He hated not being able to help. It felt horrible. Being helpful was who he was.
“What do you want to do?” Emmett asked. They held a jar each as they stared at their arrangement on the table.
Cecile bit her lip nervously. “I think we have to stick with the pattern.”
“Ten seconds.”
They placed their jars down in opposite piles. Emmett put the second-best option in the unselected pile—on the left.
“Time’s up.”
This time, the left pile exploded into a kaleidoscope of color and sound. Poison floating down in a cloud, spelled to miss the mortals. As the particles touched the floor, they dyed it with various shades of green and the colors of vibrant toxic flowers.
