“Well, there you are.” She smiles sweetly, but there’s a bead of sweat on her brow.
“I wasn’t almost eaten this time,” I say, hiding how proud I am at my lack of fear. My lungs are still tight, though, and I force long, even breaths.
“Great job.” She rolls her eyes and then grabs my hand, pulling me into the shadowed cave ahead. My knees wobble, but my steps somehow remain steady.
“Where are we, by the way?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” She winks, waving to the same seat I took the last time around. “Just kidding. Jarron would be able to find me if you told him about the portal in my old room, so I’m dead the moment you decide I’m not worth your time. We’re in the Karinch mountains, a good thousand miles from the capital.” She smiles.
I plop into the stone seat, hands in my lap awkwardly. “Why are you doing this, then?” I ask. “You’ve never struck me as the kind of person who would put their life at risk to help someone else.”
“Because my choice now is to live a half-life as a betrayer who harmed not only innocent people but ruined her family name and possibly our world world or do everything in my power to undo the damage and gain it all back. I’d rather die trying to fix it than accept who I’ve become.”
She creates another tonic draft for me. Even though I didn’t have that same nightmare run-in, my body is tense from entering this alien world. The tonic helps relieve the tightness in my lungs, and I gulp down the Orizian air much easier after a few sips.
“You know, I always liked you,” she says, “but I never got the impression the feeling was mutual.”
“Really?” I blurt out. “On Myre Island, you avoided me and Liz. You didn’t even talk directly to us.”
She sighs. “Yeah, well, back then, I was a bitch.”
I snort. “But you’re not now?”
Her glare is lethal, but then she shakes her head and loosens her expression into one of subtle amusement. “I supposed that depends on your perspective. I understand a lot more. And when I said always… well, I suppose I don’t meanalways. I was threatened by you two back then.”
“Threatened by two magicless humans?”
“Two beautiful, capable humans who had the attention of Jarron. I was afraid you’d take Trevor’s attention too.” She shrugs.
“So, you were an insecure bitch.” I nod slowly.
She barks out a laugh. “I suppose so.”
I take a long sip of the tonic.
She settles into the seat across of me and sips on her own steaming beverage. “So, you’ve decided to take my deal?”
I nod. “I think we can help each other. I’d like that to be true, at least.”
“If things go well, we could be sisters one day.” Her beautiful brown eyes dart to the table and remain on her hands clinging to the mug.
“I’d like that,” I say in an attempt to ease the tension. “But mostly, I’d like to get my real sister out of the hands of those assholes.”
“And I’d like to see them all suffer.” She flicks a brow. “I’m so ready to end this.”
I swallow but keep my chin high. “How are we going to do it?”
She stands and grabs a rolled parchment from a shelf against the wall. “In three weeks, we have a tentative meeting set between all the members of the council. These kinds of meetings are rare, so it’s important we’re prepared. It might be months before we get another chance like this.” She opens the parchment to reveal beautiful calligraphy handwriting that I can’t even pretend to read. Not only is it in High Orizian, but it’s in the native lettering. I’m not nearly fluent enough for this.
She points to a specific line. “I know the time and place. And most importantly, I’ll know if anything changes. We’ll work together to kill them all before that meeting is finished.”
This could be a soup recipe for all I know. Still, I keep my gaze focused on the gibberish below, pretending I know exactly what I’m looking at.
“Do you have a plan for that?” I ask, finally pulling my gaze away from the parchment.
“Not particularly, but considering you’re a potions prodigy, I assume you can come up with something along that line.”
“Poison?”
