Foxglove (Belladonna, #2)(81)
Aris’s laughter ceased. “Of course they do,” he said with the utmost defensiveness. “That’s because this was not a kiss.”
Blythe only shrugged, hoping she didn’t look like she was sweating as much as she was. “If you don’t mind, I need to deliver this to Eliza.”
“By all means, don’t let me stop you.”
She didn’t intend to. Before she let herself get any more distracted, she shoved past him and hurried toward Eliza’s room, knocking on the door once, then twice when no response came.
“Open up, Auntie!” she called, knocking again. Still there was no answer. Blythe’s heart was racing, lodged in her throat as she opened the door and prepared herself for the worst.
Fortunately, Eliza had not suffocated, nor had she died in a mess of her own vomit like Blythe had once nearly done. Instead, she was asleep on her bed, above the sheets and still fully dressed. On the nightstand sat a small jar of laudanum.
Blythe let herself feel the weight of her exhale leaving her chest. Eliza wasn’t dead or poisoned; the laudanum had just put her to sleep. Perhaps it truly was a passing illness; something entirely unrelated to poison. Blythe set the tea down on a table as something gave her pause.
Clutched in Eliza’s hand, barely visible, was a tiny vial of half-consumed herbs. Not the kind prescribed by doctors, but the kind found in the very apothecaries that Eliza had always claimed to hate. Blythe reached for it, trying to get a better look. The moment her hand brushed against Eliza’s, however, it was as though Blythe were thrust back weeks into the past, when she’d stared at Elaine’s skeletal reflection in the mirror.
The Eliza before her was little more than a corpse of withered skin taut against sharpened bones. Blythe could do nothing but stare as a maggot curled over one of Eliza’s hollow eye sockets, through her nose, then disappeared back into the corpse whose cheekbones were too gaunt and whose neck was twisted at an impossible angle. There was something stirring within the depths of her body; a sickly and consuming presence that Blythe shut her eyes against.
It was a hallucination. It had to be. Eliza had been asleep, breathing contentedly only seconds before—
“Miss Hawthorne?” The prince’s voice cut through her thoughts, and her eyes fluttered open. “Miss Hawthorne, are you well?”
Blythe forced herself to look at the bed, where Eliza was curled and resting peacefully. No bones. No hollow eyes or dark presence. Just a young woman in an enviously deep sleep.
Blythe gave herself fifteen seconds to memorize what the contents of the vial looked like, and then she stepped away from Eliza and took the prince by the wrist.
“Come on,” she whispered, not daring to spare Eliza so much as another glance before hurrying from the room. “Let’s get out of here.”
THIRTY-ONE
EVEN WITH THE SKY AS GRIM AS IT WAS, THE TOWN AT THE BASE OF Foxglove’s cliffs, Fiore, was busier than Celadon had ever been.
Men strolled the streets with faces less severe than those that Signa had grown accustomed to, untroubled by the business that awaited their return in the city. Courting couples out for a seaside promenade stopped to enjoy slices of sunshine that cut through the gray clouds, their voices jovial.
For all the doom and gloom of Signa’s arrival, Fiore was truly lovely. Not even the unsettled sea was enough to dissuade those who hurried down the street to the pier, eager to soak up their trip for every ounce of its worth. Signa had spent a solid ten minutes standing on the pier herself, staring at the ocean but not daring to venture onto the sand for fear that a wave might whisk her away. Perhaps she’d visit the water in the summer calm; for now, though, she wasn’t foolish enough to venture close.
Fishermen were coming in from the docks, their heads bowed as they spoke softly to one another. Signa caught snippets of their conversation.
“She’s out there on the beach again…”
“… doesn’t understand he’s not coming back.”
“Poor thing. My son knew him. I couldn’t imagine…”
Signa pulled her attention away from the conversation as curiosity began to fester. She didn’t need to muddy her mind with anything more than what was already going on. And so she focused her thoughts on how beautiful this beach would be come wintertime, so cold that the buildings themselves would quiver. A pleasant buzz warmed her skin as she pictured nights spent lounging by the hearth with a book and a mulled cider.
Her parents had been wise to put down roots in such a place—twenty years later the town was magnificent. She’d never been seaside before, and there was an indescribable charm to having one’s hair tousled by the wind and every sound dampened by the rush of waves and the wind in her ears. Every moment she spent here, it felt more like home. So far that day, she’d managed to go an entire hour without thinking of Thorn Grove and wondering how Blythe was faring.
From the pier Signa had only to cross the street to arrive at her destination—a tiny printing press in a building of dark green, where a man was hard at work behind a window. Smoke from a cigar the man had tipped precariously in his mouth plumed the air, and she tried not to cough as she stepped inside.
The man’s eyes barely lifted. “We’re out of papers for the day, come back tomorrow.” His voice was brisk as he rolled fresh ink over blocks of letters. Signa couldn’t help but stare as he worked.