Another customer, pimple-faced and gangly, slides me a sideways glance before deciding he can finish his business later. The shop bell clangs behind him.
“Have those Graces sent you again?”
“No.” I pass her the rumpled list of what I need, written so hastily the ink is smeared. “I’m here for my own enhancements.”
Hilde peers at the list, fishing out dingy spectacles from an apron pocket. “Trying to make me go blind, I see.” She points. “Is this bogswort or beetle brains?”
“Bogswort,” I answer, reddening. “Obviously.” I’ve never heard of beetle brains being used as an enhancement.
“Don’t sass me, little miss.” She slaps the list down and sets to work filling my order. “Keeping busy, I take it.”
“Extremely.”
“That nasty turn at the castle didn’t keep ’em away for long, eh?”
At the mention of the Weltross incident, I squirm, becoming suddenly fascinated with a selection of peacock feathers Hilde has displayed on the counter. “No.”
“Oh, don’t mind me.” Hilde chuckles. “I don’t hold it against you. Anyone who comes knocking on your door deserves what they ask for. And not in a pretty-wrapped silk package.”
I forgot how much I appreciate Hilde’s wisdom.
“But tell me.” She returns from the back of the shop, passing over three jars filled with various shades of powder. “Is that all the Dark Grace has brewing?” The wrinkles on her brow deepen. “You look like a sailor blown in by a hurricane, but there’s still a spark in those eyes.”
I look away, at anything but her knowing honey-brown gaze.
“Has my Alyce found a special someone?”
“Absolutely not.” I busy myself with stuffing the jars into my sack, fire bursting from the tips of my toes and lifting the roots of my hair. “Don’t be daft. It isn’t allowed.”
“Daft am I?” Hilde’s voice curves. My pulse rockets up my throat. The last thing I need is a rumor like that to get started. Rose would give me no peace. “I must be mistaken,” she says at last, sly as a cat. “You don’t have to share your secrets with old Hilde.”
She stops me from shoving the last jar into my sack with one tawny, scarred hand over mine. “But you do know, Alyce.” Her tone is soft. Almost motherly. “If there is someone, I hope they deserve you.”
From anyone else, I would expect that comment to be cruel. That the apothecary means she hopes the object of my affection is as wicked and hated as I am. But there’s an openness in Hilde’s features. The pressure on my hand is reassuring. Safe.
“Don’t let them make you into their monster. Not the Graces. Not anyone.”
“There’s no one.” The lie is salty.
“Very well.” Hilde sighs, pulling on her familiar mask of indifference. She reexamines the list. The corners of her mouth turn down. “Deathknot? Why do you want a thing like that?”
I rearrange the jars in the sack. “Do you really want to know?”
She watches me for a moment. “It’s not your usual sort of thing. Deathknot gets people into trouble, to my knowledge.”
“Trouble doesn’t sound like the Dark Grace’s area of expertise?”
The moment hums between us. Hilde rubs her thumb along the edge of the list. And I’m worried she might refuse me. But then she turns on her heel and stalks back into her stores. Muffled grunts and curses fill the room, and she re-emerges with a fat glass container in both hands. The lid is covered with dust. Inside is the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen. Like a black root of some huge, deadly plant. Knotted, as the name suggests, and riddled with green, furry scabs. Tiny white hairy things poke through the leathery skin and writhe in the fluid.
Glass scrapes against the worn wood of the counter as the apothecary slides the deathknot over to me. But she doesn’t let go immediately.
“Remember what I said, Alyce. About monsters.” The words are low, spoken in a tone that wakes something deep in my core. “Take care you don’t become what they think you are.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
My deadline for the king’s commission looms like a storm, and I still have no idea how to manage it. I’ve thought of coating the chalice in an elixir—like how the innovation Graces use their elixirs to create enchanted fabrics and ornaments and flowers. But even if it worked, the effects of such an elixir would eventually wear off.
Kal would know what to do.