Page 78 of The Last Wish of Bristol Keats
Bristol smiled. “I’ll make sure the council knows what you did too. Almost an accessory to the crime. As you said, they’re a powerful lot.”
Color blazed across Kasta’s cheekbones. “You conniving little bitch. I helped your father once, and now you’re going to turn on me?”
“Life stinks, doesn’t it, Kasta? But what did you expect? That I would play nice after you imprisoned him in a block of marble? You made a choice. Now I’m making one. All you need to do right now is help me save him again. One last time. You can do that, can’t you?”
Kasta didn’t budge, her dark eyes lethal, like she was planning Bristol’s demise. At best, it was a stalemate.
“Come on, we can both win at this game,” Bristol said softly. “You help me release my father, and no one will know your secret. You can go on with your precious life as a noble knight, and I will be able to save a man who doesn’t deserve a thousand years of hell.”
Kasta leapt, slamming Bristol against the bookcase, her grip fierce around Bristol’s throat. “How can you say what he deserves?” she hissed between gritted teeth. “You barely know him! You barely know me!” Her fingers dug into Bristol’s skin. “Did you know that, besides summoning water from the air, I can also draw every last drop of it out of your body? Every drop, until all that’s left is your dried up leather carcass. How does it feel?”
Bristol was already feeling the effects, the weakening of her knees, her arms unable to push Kasta away. The muscles of her throat grew taut. “Go ahead, kill me,” she choked out. “You’ll become the new scourge of Danu, a traitor worse than my father.” She coughed, her tongue and lips dry. “Elphame needs me. Commit your last traitorous act and doom it forever. Just think of it, Kasta. Your disgrace will be legend.”
Kasta squeezed harder, her eyes wild, but then suddenly let go and stepped away.
Bristol rubbed her throat, coughing as moisture returned to her mouth. “How do I get him out?” she asked. “That’s all you have to tell me. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Kasta glanced at a small golden bottle on her bookshelf. It was like one of the many potion bottles from Madame Chastain’s workshop.
“That?” Bristol asked.
Kasta’s jaw was razor sharp as she gave a single nod. “Four drops on the pillar imprisoned him. Four more drops, with the commandaira mathemis, will release him.”
“Are you sure that’s it? I’ll go straight to Tyghan with what I know if it doesn’t work.”
“That’s it. Now get out of my sight. And make sure he stays out of sight too. If anyone spots him, he’s a dead man.”
CHAPTER 58
Bristol ran with her cloak and sword in one hand and a pack with food and water in the other. The potion was secure in her pocket, and she repeated the spell,aira mathemis, over and over in her head so she wouldn’t forget it. She glanced over her shoulder as she ran, afraid Kasta might change her mind and come after her. But there were no footsteps, no surprises, even when she made it to Judge’s Walk.
She ran up the steps, her chest burning, and took in the two long rows of columns. Terror struck her. Which one? The column was somewhere in the middle on the right side, but now she wasn’t sure which one. They all looked alike.The wine bottle, she remembered.It was near the wine bottle. She hurried to the middle section, searching for it and found the bottle on its side—it had rolled to the edge of the walkway. She must have knocked it over in the shock of finding her father there.
“Daddy?” she whispered, hoping for a response, but there was nothing.
That one, she thought, staring at one of the pillars, a vein in the marble familiar, the white line that ran across her father’s face when he pressed forward. “That’s it.”
She dropped her gear to the ground and pulled the potion from her vest pocket. Her hand shook as she pulled the dropper from the bottle, and then she was uncertain where to put the drops. Every step was overwhelming. Her father’s life was at stake. She squeezed the dropper, and one glistening bead slid onto the pillar. She put three more drops near it and said, “Aira mathemis.”
The drops began smoking and spreading, and she let out a shaky breath.It’s working. The marble undulated, like it was alive, and then it rumbled, the low groaning sound of someone waking. She stepped back, uncertain what would happen next, wondering if the whole pillar would collapse.
She saw a marbled elbow, a hand, a back, all trying to emerge like a moth from a cocoon.
“You can do it,” she said. “Press harder.”
And he did. Then a knee. A shoulder. Finally, a man broke free and tumbled out. A tall man like her father.
But it wasn’t him.
She had freed the wrong person.
The man got his bearings, straightening, standing tall, and studied her. He was a striking figure and wore a long black velvet coat that matched his coal-black hair. “Ah, Miss Keats, the king’s paramour.” His arm swept to his middle, and he bowed. “Pengary, in your debt, my lady.”
Bristol stared at him, horrified and speechless. What had she done? “First, I am not the king’s paramour, and second, how do you know my name?”
“On the first point, I’m pleased to learn I was wrong, and on the second point, here I have nothing but time to listen, and your name comes up in passing conversations frequently.” He smiled. “Besides, I knew you’d come back. There are so few of us, and our kind always stick together.”
Her horror turned to fury. “Me?I am not one of your kind! I am nothing like you. I don’t burn queens and children to death and then eat them.”
