The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,343

an apothecary, inspecting the leaves of several plants Teia didn’t know and numerous poppy bulbs. Then she began counting out the leaves into piles, rejecting those too old or dry, and cracking the poppy bulbs and collecting the brown seeds into cups. Leaves of three different kinds of plant went directly into the wine, each counted out, and then the poppy was ground with a mortar and pestle, added to the barrels, and stirred.

The woman tasted a tiny amount of the resulting drug cocktail. She cocked her head as if it tasted wretched but that that couldn’t be helped. She rinsed her mouth with water and then spat it out.

She looked like she was finished.

Now.

Teia ghosted across the floor and poured Murder Sharp’s lacrimae sanguinis into each of the barrels. She used it all.

She didn’t make a sound. She didn’t stumble. She didn’t scuff the floor. She didn’t pour that liquid death from enough of a height to make a splash. She didn’t even breathe.

But the apothecary paused. Sniffed.

Suddenly, Teia smelled it, too. A tangy-sour stench that would have been buried under the taste of the poppy or even the wine, but now, floating at the top, not stirred in, and with the container still in Teia’s hand, uncorked, it wafted through the room subtly.

Subtly, except to a trained apothecary.

The woman stepped close, sniffing again. “What is—by the old gods, is that lacrimae—”

Teia grabbed her spine in a paryl fist, then grabbed the woman’s head before she could tumble to the ground. Teia cracked the apothecary’s neck with a sharp twist.

She felt the breath sigh out of her.

Sometimes you can’t wait to see if your paryl knots hold.

“Ready?” a voice outside asked.

No time!

With strength she didn’t know she had, Teia heaved the woman up over her shoulder and dumped her into the half-empty barrel of water from which she’d drunk earlier.

Teia tore off the woman’s chainmail-lined cowl and pulled it on herself. She willed the master cloak to ape the woman’s white cloak, went visible, and heard the scuff behind her at the door. Without turning, Teia held up one finger. One minute, please.

She used her body to block the man’s view of the water barrel. Orholam have mercy, it had no lid!

Calmly, hoping the man had turned away or gone away—Teia couldn’t hear if he’d left over the sudden pounding of her own heart—she peeled the gloves off the woman’s hands, tucked her hands down, and put the gloves on. Checking that the cowl was firmly in place, she finally peeked over her shoulder.

The servants were standing there now, and Atevia Zelorn was coming.

Calmly, Teia grabbed the cloths that had been wrapped around the leaves and draped them over the water barrel, and the woman’s protruding shoe.

Then she bent and picked up the vial of poison she’d dropped earlier. She corked it and put it among the other vials and weights and alchemical accoutrements on the workbench.

Teia had never been so glad to be wearing a full-face covering. She was sweating. She didn’t sweat easily, but she was drenched now. She walked to the wine barrels, gave them each a few deep stirs, and then stepped back. She waved the men forward, hoping they knew what to do.

The woman she’d just murdered had seemed the quiet type, right?

The men affixed the lids, pounded them down with mallets, and then rolled them to another cart.

Atevia Zelorn climbed up into his seat. Teia gave a halfhearted little wave goodbye, nodding her head to him, and turning away.

“What the hell?” he asked. “Come on. You know how this goes, Muriel. You’re the cupbearer.”

Cupbearer. He meant poison tester, the one who had to drink the wine publicly first to certify it was safe.

“Makes no damn sense,” Teia muttered, but her stomach was knotting with fear. “Why would I taint the wine?”

Zelorn said, “What makes no sense is that the Old Man demanded I use my best Ambrosia Valley Barbera for the bloodwine. After you put all that shit in it, I might as well have used Bilgewater Red.”

“If I were going to poison the wine, wouldn’t I just prepare an antidote for myself beforehand?” Teia said. An antidote. Yeah, that would’ve been a good idea, wouldn’t it?

“It’s tradition. It doesn’t have to make sense. Now, get up here.”

Teia grumbled her assent and climbed up. Her heart was thudding.

How many poisons did Murder Sharp have in his lair? Why’d I have to pick the one with no antidote?

Chapter 102

There had to be a way