Poison. Part 22

He wasn't going to figure this out.

She was going to be here forever.

"If I could just see around you, check for some signs of what kind of spell is doing this."

His hands touched her necklace.

Yes!

"I'm just borrowing this so I can see if there's anything on you that's causing this. Don't be mad, okay?"

Gently, he lifted the necklace from Kyra's chest. Sliding one hand beneath her leaden head, he strained to pull her head up and slide the chain under.

Kyra gasped.

The enormous weight had been lifted. She sat up. "Thank the G.o.ds. I thought you'd never figure it out!"

"You are always so gracious when rescued."

"Please, get rid of that thing." Kyra glared at the necklace. "I don't ever want to see it again. How did you find me?"

"I left Ari to explain things to the duke, and followed you to keep back any pursuers. I almost lost track of you, it was so dark! But then I saw a tiny, almost unnoticeable glow, and there you were. What happened to the fake princess?"

"There was some kind of spell on the necklace to stop me from hurting her. Once I dropped, she took off."

The tick, tick, tick of a lady's shoes sounded again on the stairs, causing them both to jump.

"Did you leave the door open?" Kyra whispered.

"Yes?"

"d.a.m.n."

A long line of cells was behind them, but there was no back exit. Kyra slid a needle from her holster and braced herself. Fred quietly raised his staff.

The light from a lantern threw shadows on the wall.

The beautiful face of the d.u.c.h.ess Genria appeared.

Kyra slumped down. "Hi, Mom."

WHY COULDN'T IT HAVE been anyone other than her mother? Fighting any one of the highly skilled guards at the castle would be preferable to dealing with the d.u.c.h.ess Genria.

The one nice thing Kyra could say about her mom was that she had forced her to become friends with her cousin Ariana-even if it was for a silly reason like sharing cosmetics charms.

Before that, Kyra hadn't been allowed to meet her cousin at all, even though her room in the palace was only three halls away. And two staircases, and a dumbwaiter.

But the queen hadn't wanted to take any chances with her daughter, so only her husband, her sister the d.u.c.h.ess, medical professionals, and Ariana's nurse were allowed to see the princess.

The young Kyra would sit hidden under a staircase just down the hall from the princess's room and wait to catch a glimpse of her.

More often than not, she heard only screeching and tantrums.

But who could blame her cousin for throwing tantrums when she was all locked up like that? Kyra was sure that if they met they'd be best friends. They were cousins, the same age, and they both lived in the palace. It was perfect.

So Kyra was forever grateful to her mother for helping her and the princess become best friends. But grat.i.tude wasn't the same as trust; she knew better than most that the d.u.c.h.ess Genria did nothing that didn't benefit herself in some way.

The d.u.c.h.ess descended the stairs to the dungeon slowly, each of her steps regal.

Fred b.u.mped his shoulder against Kyra's. "Did you just call the d.u.c.h.ess *Mom'?"

"Um, yeah."

The d.u.c.h.ess stepped off the last step and addressed Kyra. "Why do you insist on trying to kill your cousin?"

"I'm not trying to kill my cousin!"

The d.u.c.h.ess raised one fine eyebrow. "Just now you chased the princess through the hall. Don't tell me you weren't trying to kill her."

"Mother," Kyra said, "if you ever listened to me at all, you would know that something strange was going on with Ariana. That person I was chasing isn't my cousin. Didn't you notice that there was another Ariana who was WITH me?"

"Can we back up a minute?" Fred asked. "The d.u.c.h.ess is your mother? I thought you said you'd run away from home."

"You told him you ran away from home?" the d.u.c.h.ess said.

"I did!"

The d.u.c.h.ess chuckled. "Well, you didn't run very far, did you, dear? The Potions Academy is practically connected to the castle."

"You didn't talk to me for two years! Not until you thought I'd be useful to you by *socializing' Ariana."

"Pffft! You've always been so imaginative. Can't understand where you got that from. Probably your father. Do you have any idea what you've done to him? Our physician is upstairs with him right now trying to calm him down."

Fred interrupted. "And the princess is your cousin? Am I getting this right?"

"Yes, Fred," Kyra said. "Ariana is my cousin."

"Doesn't that make you...?"

"A princess," the d.u.c.h.ess said. "I was born a princess, so my daughter is a princess, as well. Of course, I prefer to go by d.u.c.h.ess, my married t.i.tle. Princess sounds so young. Fluffy." She shuddered. "Kyra has always eschewed proper t.i.tles. She could at least go by Lady Kyra, but no, not our Master Potioner." The d.u.c.h.ess snorted. "She not only insisted on blemis.h.i.+ng the family name by working, she had to go and claim the potioner t.i.tle." The d.u.c.h.ess clapped her hands together. "Enough. You're coming with me."

"You're going to turn me over to the king's soldiers?"

"We need to get things straightened out. Come along."

"No." Kyra took a step back, pulling Fred along beside her. "I'm not going anywhere with you. You'll have me hanged."

"Kyra," Fred said, exasperated, "she's your mom. She's not going to let them hang you."

"Look, Mother, I know that witch was working for you. You had her attack us-she was going to eat me. I'm not going anywhere with you."

"She tried to eat you?" The beautiful features of the d.u.c.h.ess twisted in disgust. "You must be mistaken. She was probably just trying to scare you."

"She was going to eat us. Before that, she tried to enslave us."

"That woman needs to learn some restraint. I told her to keep anyone unusual traveling through the forest until I got there. I shouldn't have had to specify that they should remain whole. I pay that witch good money, but she's always looking out for herself."

So intent was Kyra on her mother's blase rant about the witch that she didn't notice the soldier sneaking down the stairs behind her.

He appeared beside the d.u.c.h.ess, one of Kyra's own needles in his hand.

As Kyra went to lift the one she held, she felt a small p.r.i.c.k on her shoulder.

"That's not fair!" she protested, just as everything went black.

KYRA WOKE UP with a pounding headache.

They'd used her own sleeping draft against her. Those jerks.

She was cold too. And whatever she was lying on was hard.

She opened her eyes to find herself in one of the cells in the dungeon, lit by only a small torch that guttered on the wall outside the bars of her cell. She sat up and felt for her weapons-all gone. She'd been stripped of her needle holster, her knives, her powder pockets, everything.

This was so not how things were supposed to go.

What were Ariana and Fred doing? Were they in the dungeon too?

"h.e.l.lo?" Kyra called, her voice echoing off the walls. "h.e.l.lo?"

The only response was some intense squeaking and scurrying sounds. Her skin crawled.

What if they left her here to starve?

That would be worse than hanging.

By the time she heard the sound of someone coming down the dungeon steps, her body ached from her hunched-over position on the hard floor, she was freezing, and her head still hurt. She stood woozily, backing up into the far corner. Her head struck the wall, and something dug into her scalp.

They'd missed her hair stick.

Kyra drew it out, her long hair falling down her back, and pushed the b.u.t.ton to pop out the blade. She moved up beside the cell door.

When the door swung open, Kyra leaped out and grabbed the person, yanking him around so that he stood in front of her, her blade to his throat. Her other hand clasped rich velvet.

The d.u.c.h.ess.

"Kyra, this is ridiculous. Take your little blade away, dear. I've come to let you out."

"You're just going to march me right upstairs and let me go? I don't believe that. You tried to track me down for the king, you sent a witch after me, you're probably going to let me hang."

"Is that what you really think?"

Kyra didn't say anything. Of course it was what she really thought-but her mom made it sound stupid.

"I was trying to track you down," the d.u.c.h.ess said slowly, "because I was worried about you. I would never have let the king or his soldiers harm you. I'm your mother, Kyra, not a monster."

"Then why am I locked up in this dungeon?"

"I'm afraid the soldiers were a little overzealous. It has taken all of my diplomatic skills to sort this out. Your friends were absolutely no help. They have all the grace of a couple of angry bears. I don't know how they're to be expected to run a country someday."

"Is that what this is all about, Mother? Are you behind this? You don't think Ari should run the country?"

The d.u.c.h.ess made a tsking sound. "I'm not behind anything. Ariana will do a fine job, but she is definitely still in need of some serious training when it comes to dealing with people. Do you really think I would hurt my own niece?"

"You're using your gift on me, aren't you?" Kyra demanded. "Trying to charm me."

"I'm your mother, I don't need to charm you. Kyra, please put the blade down and come upstairs. Your cousin Ariana is currently chained to a table beside her double. Your bag is up there-you have a vial of your truth serum in it, don't you? Ariana said you did, but as we're taking the matter very seriously, we aren't trusting either one of them."

Kyra thought back to the creatures of Arlo Abbudato's she'd met in the woods. "These things don't react to potions the same way that people do, Mother-I don't even know if my serum will work."

"Well, then, we'll just have to hope that it does." The d.u.c.h.ess shook a vial in her hand. "I believe this is the antidote to the headache caused by your sleeping potion?"

Kyra popped her blade back into her holster and reached for the vial. "How'd you know?"

"I do pay attention sometimes. I found it in your room upstairs."

The d.u.c.h.ess turned to face Kyra, touching her throat where the blade had rested. "Don't think I'm going to forget this little incident. You are in serious trouble, young lady, for turning a weapon on your own mother."

Kyra wound her hair back up, replaced the stick, and swallowed hard. She would rather face another witch or a whole pack of Arlo Abbaduto's men than see the punishment her mother had in store for her.

"Sorry," she said.

But her mother only humphed and said, "Come along."

Kyra's mother brought her to her father's sitting room, which he used primarily for drinking spirits and gaming with his friends after dinner. The ducal palace didn't have a courtroom of any kind.

Today, instead of a stack of cards or a chessboard, the gaming table had shackles bolted to it. Side by side, their wrists cuffed to the table, were two Princess Arianas.

Kyra ignored the baby-blue-frocked Ariana and nodded to the Ariana dressed in Fred's clothes.

The room was filled with people-regular folk, soldiers, guards, and n.o.bles. Fred and Langley stood beside the duke's favorite stuffed chair, and the duke himself sat in it, a yellow handkerchief in one hand to mop his face, and a gla.s.s of amber-colored liquid in the other. The duke's eyes lit up at the sight of Kyra, but he suppressed the grin that threatened.

These were serious proceedings.

Dartagn greeted Kyra and pa.s.sed over her potions bag. The guard seemed to pop up everywhere she was.

Kyra took a seat across from the two princesses. Taking out the vials, she began her dilution of 07 211, Peccant Pentothal-the vial of poison she'd found carelessly thrown under Ellie's couch, the poison used to transform her friend, the poison with which she'd almost killed Arlo Abbaduto.

This time, there would be no mistakes.