I turn the cold brass knob on the door the apothecary indicated and the hinges whine as it opens. Intermittent oil lamps made of stained glass hang from the ceiling alongside drying herbs and flowers, some of which I recognize from my plant obsession as a kid. The walls are lined with wrought-iron shelves overflowing with glass vials and jars. A deeply set fireplace blazes and a series of small pots hang within it. Gnarled wooden tables are covered with every type of wonder, from crystals to ornate daggers.
For a brief moment my fear is eclipsed by amazement and I can absolutely see why Ines would want to learn this trade. But my awe is short-lived because the apothecary brushes past me, her long blue skirt grazing my leg, and that simple contact nearly sends me shooting into the air.
The apothecary moves to one of the tables, which is laden with half-filled glass bottles and piles of herbs. She busies herself with some kind of sorting process and doesn’t say a word.
I walk up to the table, standing on the opposite side of it, careful not to touch anything. She looks up, and the moment we make eye contact, I swallow.
“I’d love to purchase a few products from you,” I say, and my voice feels out of place in the quiet isolated room.
She doesn’t say a word.
“Uh…something to disorient, if you have it, and a strong poison,” I say, and my tone winds up sounding more like a question than a request.
She doesn’t move; in fact she’s so still that she appears frozen. I take a breath. Ash, Aarya, and Ines told me to keep it simple, to make my request and to be gracious.
Seconds tick by, and my instinct is to talk, to fill the quiet with anything other than this anxiety-inducing silence.
“I would really appreciate it,” I finally say, hoping that the sound of my voice will snap her out of her creepily still posture. But my words seem to disappear into the stillness.
And again, the seconds tick by.
“Is there something you want me to say that I’m not saying?” I ask, and clamp my mouth shut. What in the heck was that? It came out before I could even consider it. “I have money. A stupid amount, really, and I was told to give you as much as you want, promise you more if you need it. Speaking of stupid amounts, have you taken a taxi recently? Cool experience, I’ll grant you that, but my god is it pricey.”
My hand flies to my mouth. Holy hell, what nonsense is spewing from my face? I try to back up, but I stumble, and the floor sloshes below me like it was made of liquid instead of wood.
“Oh no.” Panic grips my stomach and I look up at the apothecary. “What did you do to me?” I demand.
A smile appears on her previously unmoving face. “Interesting,” she says to herself, and makes her way around the table toward me. I grab at my pocket, my motor control almost nonexistent, and on my third try I manage to get my hand in it. But to my great dismay, nothing is inside. I pull my hand out, examining my empty palm, and there on my wrist is a smear of something oily. When she brushed past me…she must have…how did I not notice? I rub clumsily at the oil, but the swimming feeling only worsens.
I turn toward the door, my balance off, and I stumble into another one of her tables, banging my knee into the leg. I right myself, my head bobbling into an upright position. Between me and the door is the apothecary.
“You’re either dim-witted to think you could come to my shop and use a private Family code, or you’re desperate. Which one are you? Dim-witted or desperate?” She looks at me like she might eat me.
I grip the table. Matteo told me she might be willing to help me if she thought I was some distant Bear cousin, but that’s clearly not the case. She knows I’m an outsider.
“Desperate,” I say, my mouth once again moving without my permission. Why would I tell her that? “I need your help to find my dad.” Oh god. Oh god. What am I saying? Did she give me some kind of a truth serum? I look again at the door, considering making a run for it, but I don’t know if my legs will carry me, much less if I can maneuver around her to reach the door.
She raises an eyebrow. “I would forget about leaving if I were you. You will be here as long as I so choose—if you leave at all, that is.”
My eyes widen, my heart racing. I’m trapped behind two heavy doors at the end of a long hallway, incapacitated and spouting secrets, with no phone. No one is coming to help me because no one knows where I am, and I doubt anyone would hear me if I screamed.
“Now tell me,” she says as I struggle to maintain my balance and my hold on the table. “Who is your father?”
I fight as hard as I can, resisting her and the awful drug she’s given me.
My dad laughs, which only makes me scowl harder at the ground where he knocked my wooden practice sword out of my hands.
“Want to go again?” he asks.
“Whatever,” I grumble under my breath, and pick up my sword with a huff.
My dad gives me a knowing look. “If you don’t like losing, then fencing isn’t for you. Because you’re never going to win all the time. And needing to win is only going to make you unhappy…like right now.”
“Your sword is bigger than mine,” I say, and stab at the leaves.
“You’re ten. Of course my sword is bigger,” he says matter-of-factly.
“And they’re not even real. They’re wood,” I say, furthering my nonexplanation for why I’m doing so badly.
“Well, that you can be grateful for. You’re not ready for a real sword,” he says, and my hand tightens around the wooden hilt in frustration.
“I am ready,” I say defiantly.
“No, you’re really not. And from the way you’re acting right now, I don’t think you’re ready for any sword. Even a wooden one.”
I roll my eyes and he hits my blade with his, sending it flying again. I open my mouth to protest, but before I can get a word out, he picks up my practice sword and starts walking toward our house.
“Hey!” I call after him, running to catch up. “Give that back!”
“When you’re ready,” he says in the calm voice that drives me nuts.
“How will I ever be ready if you won’t give me my sword?” I say.
He stops and turns to face me. “I’m not referring to your skill. You could have the best fencing skills in the world and your attitude would sink you.”
I frown.
“Do you remember two weeks ago when you got into an argument with Emily at school and came home in a rotten mood?” he asks. “You marched off into the woods with your knives. And what happened?”
I eye him warily, not sure where he’s going with this. “I threw badly and wound up crying.”
“Right,” he says, his voice easing a bit. “Not because your skill suddenly changed, but because your emotions did. You hate to be bad at anything, Nova. And even more so, you hate to lose. But being bad at something and losing aren’t awful the way you think they are and they don’t mean what you think they mean. They’re human. They’re how you learn. And most importantly, they give you freedom from always being a perfect winner.”
I stare at him, unconvinced. “And being a perfect winner is a bad thing?”
“Actually, it is if you can’t not be a perfect winner. It’s a trap where you set yourself up to be constantly disappointed. The bravest people I know, the most skilled people I know, all lose and are bad at things. But they own it. And because they can own it, people trust them.” He gives me a pointed look. “It’s a form of power to be able to embrace yourself in all the ways you are and all the ways you’re not.”
I strain against the urge to tell her who my dad is. I can’t imagine this will end well for me if she finds out he’s a Lion.
“My dad is a Lion,” I blurt out the moment I think it. “Damn it!” I yell, and smack the table, nearly losing my balance and toppling to the floor.
“A Lion,” she says, sucking in air,
and there is a dangerous tone in her voice. “You thought I would help a Lion.” She pulls a slender dagger off her belt.
I take a stumbling step backward, trying to think my way through the disorientation. I now deeply regret not telling Aarya and Ash where I was going. “I can’t believe I protected your location.” And now I’ve just said that out loud. I’m so frustrated, I could scream.
“Meaning what? That no one knows where you are?” she says, the corners of her mouth pulling up in a terrifying smile.
“Exactly,” I respond, getting more upset by the second.
“Come to think of it,” she says, looking around her room, “there are ingredients I’m running low on.” She gestures at her glass bottles. “You may do nicely in that regard.”
For a second, I don’t move; I can’t even think how to react. My mind wants to reject her words and convince myself that she didn’t say she wanted to use me for tinctures or poisons or whatever sick things she makes in here. My eyes flit to the copious jars of dried ingredients on her shelves; I’m suddenly feeling sick to my stomach. I look back at the apothecary, who runs her finger along the edge of her dagger thoughtfully.
Sweat beads along my hairline. “Look,” I say, desperately trying to focus on something to say that doesn’t reveal my dad. “I get why you’re not leaping at the chance to help me.”
“I’m not helping you,” she says, correcting me.
“But you’re wrong,” I say, and shake my head, angry with myself.
“I find that exceedingly unlikely,” she says, taking a step forward.
“Will you stop?” I say. “Will you just stop coming at me with that dagger for one minute? I can’t think and I can’t tell you what I need to tell you.”
“Your not being able to think isn’t my problem,” she says, unmoved by my ramblings.
I brace myself, trying to navigate my thoughts past my fear. “You’re wrong that it’s not worth helping me,” I repeat, trying to gain my bearings.
“Of that, I am not convinced,” she says.
“I’m not who you think I am. I’m a Bear,” I say, my brain fighting itself to come up with anything that doesn’t sound like it was concocted by a first grader. Whatever she gave me took away my ability to filter and reason.
“Someone who has a Lion father is not a Bear,” she says.
“My mom was a Bear. If you look at me closely, you will see that,” I say quickly, and immediately redirect my thoughts away from my mom before I reveal anything more.
The apothecary pulls a vial out of a pouch on her belt and uncorks it.
My eyes widen. “And…a-and…,” I stammer, inching along the table, trying to put distance between us. “What I’m doing is what the Bears have been attempting to do for decades. I’m trying to stop the Lions, stop Jag from using his power to hurt the rest of the Strategia.”
She raises an eyebrow.
I grip the table, aware that every second counts, and aware that if it comes to a fight, in my current state I will most certainly lose. “The Latin phrase I said to you, the secret code, is specifically about helping those who are fighting the Lions. It means don’t surrender; never give up. With a code like that, I have to believe that stopping the Lions matters to you.”
She shakes her head like the conversation is growing tiresome, and she dips the tip of her blade in the bottle. “As it turns out, I’m stopping a Lion right now.”
Sweat drips down my temple. What if she paralyzes me before she cuts me up? What if I’m awake for the whole process?
“Lions. Jag. Fighting,” I say quickly, trying to get my thoughts and my mouth moving in the right direction.
She corks the bottle and puts it back on her belt, returning her focused gaze to me. She takes a step forward, and I once again lose my train of thought.
For a brief second I look around me, searching for a weapon or something to block her path, but even that slight twist of my head makes me wobble. I eye a set of shelves that are ten feet away. If I lunge, I could potentially grab hold of them and pull them down before she reaches me. Of course, I might get pinned beneath them. And even if I could get past the shelves with my stumbling movements, I seriously doubt that I could get through both locked doors and into the store before she reached me and slit my throat.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” she says in a harsh tone, following my eyes.
I bite down hard, shaking my head, so frustrated I could cry. I return my gaze to the apothecary, who is steadily approaching. “Fine. Okay. You win. You win. I can’t think my way out of this and you’ve made it impossible for me to control my own body. So here I am, stuck with you and that awful dagger. And maybe—”
A small smile appears on her lips. “It’s shocking how simple your thoughts are. Base, even. I would expect more from a six-year-old Strategia.”
I ignore her insult. “Judge me all you want. But at least I’m not a hypocrite. At least I don’t use a code that suggests I’m fighting the Lions when what I’m really doing is getting in the way of those daring enough to try.”
Her eyes narrow and she jabs the point of the dagger under my chin.
But I don’t back down.
“When I found out I was Strategia, I hated it. The last thing I wanted was to be part of this power-hungry, murderous secret society. But then there was something else, something about Strategia that made me reconsider—that they do everything in their power to stop history from repeating itself and to avoid the types of tragedies they know can happen. And so here I am looking for my dad, when I realize something…I can’t go back. I can’t ever have the life I used to have before I knew I was a Strategia. But I do get to make a choice, a choice about what kind of Strategia I want to be. And even though I don’t know much, and even if I’m ‘base’ like you say, I know that Jag is a tragedy worth stopping. And despite what sentiments some Strategia preach, no one is actively opposing him. But I am.”
She pauses, her dagger still pressed into my skin, and her expression shifts. For the first time I get the sense that I’ve said something that caught her attention.
“What makes you think you can stop Jag?” she says. “When you can’t even save yourself from me?”
I grip the wood with all my might, trying not to move, lest she decide to slice me open. “Because everything and everyone I love in this world depends on it.”
She grunts, and for a long couple of seconds she looks like she’s trying to decide something. We stare at each other, each moment stretching out in unbearable silence.
Then suddenly she pulls back the dagger, sheathing it on her belt.
I don’t dare speak, for fear that anything additional might make her decide to chop me up for parts.
She pulls a slender vial from a pouch. “Drink this,” she says, with no explanation.
I stare at the vial, hesitant.
“I would drink it if I were you, unless you plan on crawling out of here,” she says in an impatient tone.
I take a deep breath, cross my fingers, and chug the shot of acidic-tasting liquid. It burns my throat all the way down and I gag and cough like my throat is on fire, wondering if she’s really poisoned me this time. But almost instantly I stop feeling so wobbly. My legs stiffen under me and the fog in my brain clears. I no longer feel the urge to blabber my every thought at her.
She crosses the room with swift steps, grabbing a couple of items from her shelves. She places a small glass jar about the size of a lip gloss container on the edge of her worktable. “Drunken Confessions,” she says. “The oil I used on you. One dab on the skin should last about an hour.”
Suddenly I feel upside down. She’s not killing me and she’s selling me herbs? I nod, instead of speaking, afraid she might change her mind.
The apothecary drops two thin glass vials into a small burlap pouch and ties it. “Two darts tipped wi
th lightning poison.” She grabs a glass vial the size of a pill bottle from her worktable, placing it with the other items. “And Angels’ Dream. A drop or two in food or on a blade will put a large man to sleep for hours.” She slaps my phone down next to the poison.
I’m positive my face reflects my shock. “I…th-thank you,” I manage, my mind spinning. “How much do I owe you?”
The apothecary levels her gaze at me as I pull out my wallet. “I’m not accepting money.”
“I can get you more if you—” I start.
“No,” she says, cutting me off.
I stay very still, not sure what she’s doing or why she’s doing it.
“Bring me Maura’s golden bear-claw necklace and we will call it even,” she says.
I stare at her, confused. Maura…It’s the female form of the Roman name Maurus, meaning “dark.” But that doesn’t tell me anything. The only thing I can surmise is that this Maura is from the Bear Family and that she must be prominent enough that I would know her by name.
“I don’t have time to go to Italy right now,” I say, not sure how to navigate this request and confident that it’s a bad idea to tell her I don’t know who Maura is. I stare at the bottles and frown. I’m so close.
She looks at the clock hanging on her wall. “Well then, lucky for you I happen to know she’s dining at La Cucina Della Nonna,” she says. “And if you’re the Bear you claim to be, doing what you claim to be doing, you should have no problem convincing her that it’s a worthy cause.”
If she’s going so far as to tell me where Maura is, she must want that necklace badly. And if she wants it badly, then it’s valuable or important…which means it will be nearly impossible to get. I exhale loudly.
“Now get out,” she says, and tosses me my phone, and I practically run for the door.
I WALK A full three blocks from the apothecary’s shop before I stop and take out my phone. I pull off my gloves with my teeth and start typing a message to Ash, Aarya, and Ines.
Hunting November Page 21
