I keep humming the song’s simple tune and take out my wand to cast the room with peace. Soon, Argos is snoring.
Although the situation is somewhat dire, I have to admit to myself that I like this moment in time. My workshop is filled with lovely herbal scents. The cauldron is bubbling properly. The small hearth crackles with fire. Light washes through the back window and spreads a veil of gold over herbs hung to dry, shelves stacked with colorful jars of ingredients, and Lady Owl’s lovely antlers. Argos’s large form in the cot gives me a strange feeling that isn’t at all unpleasant. I like taking care of him. It’s nearly the same way I felt caring for Laini when she was having trouble, but somehow, it’s different.
I go to the cot and sit on the edge. Careful not to wake the minotaur, I smooth his hair away from his damp forehead. All the sleepers affected by the mirror and stones are feverish like they’ve caught an ague. I don’t like it. Not one bit.
Argos’s eyelashes are a thick fringe of black on his smooth, warm skin. I touch the thin skin beneath his shuttered eyes. He’s so strong. It’s shocking that anything could take him down like this. I simultaneously want to comfort him and curl into his big arms to feel safe. It’s a lie—that idea of safety. No one can love me like that. I’m too prickly. Too cold. I’m not a good person most of the time. Argos is cocky, but he is incredibly kind andbrave. He deserves someone sweet like Kaya or Laini. Not this morally gray witch.
“Tully…” His lips move as he says my name again, but he’s sleeping, dreaming.
I touch his full mouth with my fingertip like a kiss. His lips part and I want to lean in to kiss him properly, but he needs rest right now, not a lover.
I stand and begin to pace. How exactly can I negate the power of the artifacts? The potion needs more time, so I hold out my arm for Lady Owl and she accompanies me for a walk in the nearby woods.
The tree branches shuffle against one another, sounding like younglings pretending to sword fight with twigs. The sky is a dark blue and I smell snow—normal snow—on the wind.
“Lady Owl, can you give me your advice?”
She hoots once, so I detail the special room that Argos and I plotted out.
“It should work, but the building of said room will need to happen very quickly. Once it’s ready, I’ll have to be inside to work the magic, to urge the khymeia’s desire to drain toward the mirror, and then perhaps double that back so they’re draining one another. I’m not certain that’s possible. I have no real idea how to manage it. Maybe I should just focus on using the khymeia to drain the mirror. I don’t want too many things going on at once.”
Lady Owl trills. She agrees with simplifying the process.
“All right then. That’s what I’ll do. Argos will try to go into that room with me. He’s smart, but he is also determined to be in the middle of things.”
“Hooooo…”
“Yes. He really is a bit of a genius. I like him more than I want to.”
My face heats like I’m a schoolgirl from one of Laini’s tales about the human world. I shake my head and laugh at myself. Perhaps I don’t care if he deserves better. Maybe I will just take this minotaur to be my own.
If he survives the dark magic he has brought into the light…
Chapter 22
Argos
Iwake to the taste of berries and some foul metallic thing. Sputtering, I open my eyes to see Tully glaring at me and holding a vial of purple potion. The stuff steams and bubbles like it’s alive.
“You must finish drinking it,” she says. “I thought you were brave. Let’s prove it, shall we?”
“For the draining defense, I guess?”
“That, and to heal you. I’m not actually sure it will keep the mirror and stones from sucking the life from you again. But I’m hopeful. We will do this dill oil thing with you too before we try anything.” She shakes her wrist and the bracelet I made for her clicks. The scent of the herb wafts across my face.
I take the vial from her cool fingers and drink it down fast.
“Ah, that’s very good.” She stands.
“It burns like fire. You could have just poisoned me, my scary, lovely rival.”
She crosses her arms and shrugs a shoulder. With the movement, her breasts lift deliciously at her neckline. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
“You’d be bored without me around to ruffle your feathers.”
The corner of her red lips quirk upward and she glares again. “Perhaps.”
I slide a hand up her skirts until my fingers are curled against the warmth at the back of her knee. She watches me as I do it, a strange glint in her eyes.
