Poison Kiss

by Ana Mardoll

  He shrugs at this. "Location merely increases the amount of magic the portal needs to power it."

  Clarent leans forward, listening intently. "Where does the magic come from?"

  Celia is the one who answers. "That's the other problem," she says, her voice tight. "The magic comes from us, from the person or people opening the portal. There is power in our intent, in the will to cross. If our will isn't enough, the raw magic in our bodies can make up the difference. A hard crossing can leave an altered weakened for days, or even strip some of their magic away permanently."

  She shakes her head at Hermit. "All three of yesterday's altereds lacked sufficient intent to power a portal. Nor did any of them lose their raw magic, so far as I can see. There's a deficit of power to explain their crossing."

  Hermit frowns at this. "Why would they lack intent? Humans escape because they want to escape, because despite our best efforts some part of them remembers there's another world they belong to. That's why there's rarely any point in recovering the ones who get away."

  "I didn't want to escape," Clarent says softly. "I wasn't conscious enough to want anything."

  "You're sure?" Hermit rounds on him, looking extremely dubious.

  "None of the three intended to come over," Celia repeats firmly. "Clarent was a sword, Tox didn't have the slightest memory of our world, and the bear-woman was brought over in a broken portal. The edges didn't close, and there were human witnesses. I've only ever known that to happen when one party wants very badly not to cross. It's why hunters drug their prey unconscious. Are you still going to tell me she powered a portal with her intent?"

  He's quiet for a time, mulling this over. "Portals require power," he repeats slowly. "But some portals require less power than others. Just because they weren't weakened by the crossing doesn't mean they couldn't have paid a small toll." He frowns. "You'd need to know the conditions on both sides. You cannot solve the equation when you only have half the facts. That the portals opened in the middle of the city is odd, but if the fae side was particularly barren—"

  "There were trees," I pipe up, anxious to help. "Grass, too."

  He glares at me. "Barren of magic," he explains impatiently. "If the magic were particularly thin in the fae world where your three crossed, then the portal would not need much power to open. One of the deserts our parents sometimes leave behind, perhaps; a coincidence, but no longer an unbalanced equation."

  "You have parents?" I frown in surprise. Never once in otherworld had I heard of a faery giving birth. That was something only humans did, and even then very rarely.

  "We call them that," he says, his deep tone turning dry. "The Elder Fae are foci of magic. They absorb power from the land and air around them, creating deserts in our world. When they have sucked an area dry, they move on in search of greener pastures. They vary in size and strength, but it is from them that we are spawned and to them that we return. We may be merely a by-product to them, like shed scales or fur."

  "Or shit," Lavender adds in a soft voice.

  He ignores her, his tone turning lofty. "I choose to believe we evolved as part of their metabolism. Our job as their children is to acquire food for them. We are very willing to oblige, for when they become hungry enough they eat us. They say the first children were quite frantic until they found humans to offer as tribute."

  "You made portals," Celia breathes. "The will to find food was strong enough to channel a crossing."

  Hermit nods, looking smug. "Yes, we crossed to hunt, though it is uncomfortable for us in your world. The first children only hunted when they were hungry, but that was risky and our parents were rarely obliging enough to give sufficient warning of their needs. We learned to keep humans as cattle. Later, we decided we no longer needed to do the hunting ourselves, and we acquired finders to visit your world and replenish our herds."

  "Didn't you care that they were people?" I breathe, feeling a lump form at the back of my throat. "That we are people? You're looking at us, talking to us! Don't you care that you take us away from our homes?"

  "Not particularly," he says with a careless shrug. "Do you worry whether your steak left a family behind? You aren't all cattle, of course; we do keep quite a few of you as pets. Pretty playthings for our beds and parties; tailors to clothe us and our favorite toys; musicians to play while we dance. We altered the humans to be more useful and pleasing to us, and so you might last longer in our world. Your culture, too: we took what we liked and adapted our society around it."

  I bite the inside of my cheek, steadying my breathing. I don't want to listen to any more of this; yet I've been searching for answers since we escaped, only finding guesses and speculation. Vishkanya. Rappaccini's Daughter. Our best attempts to piece together the May Queen's motives for making me a murderer, for plaguing me with a lifetime of nightmares.

  "Why do you turn us into assassins?" I ask, my voice low. "If you're all serving the same parents, why do you kill each other? Shouldn't you cooperate?"

  He arches an eyebrow at me. "Our own parents kill us when they are hungry and our herds are too small to satisfy them. Can you think of a better way to double your flock than to acquire your neighbor's?" He lunges for another candy before Oracle can move the bowl away. "The desire to survive didn't evolve in us the same way it did in you; but we learned. Now we cultivate thorns in our gardens: assassins to kill our neighbors and guards to keep them from killing us."

  Lavender stiffens, the air around us full of sour anger. "If you live and die by the size of your 'flocks', why do you waste so many of us?"

  Hermit shrugs. "Do you waste nothing? Many of us are bored. We're born fully grown, you know; we are given a selection of knowledge from the memories of our parents. As we no longer spend our time hunting and the existence of servants has given us leisure time, there is little to do between birth and death. We take our amusements where we can."

  "The humans she made me kill meant nothing to her," I whisper. I'd guessed as much, but it hurts to hear the confirmation. "I was given my magic to kill her rivals, and everything else was just to pass the time."

  "No," he snaps, correcting me. "You were not given magic. All humans have magic, just as all faeries do. We merely arrange you to resonate with our own, like a magnet polarizing a steel needle. To actually give you magic would require losing some of ours, a luxury we cannot afford. Faeries who weaken themselves in that way are quickly killed off by their neighbors."

  He peers at us, his eyes narrowing. "Tracing the pattern left by another faery is difficult, but from the looks of you two she was quite a budding alchemist. Different humans have different magical strengths but we have guidance over your shaping, like a potter with clay. You are both powerful and were probably specially selected for your potential. The snotty purple one is designed to influence and ingratiate; the little pink one carries a unique taint."

  Lavender growls at him. "Her lips are poison," she says firmly, "that's all. She's not 'tainted'."

  He laughs, the sound unpleasant and grating. "Her lips are harmless. The resin she produces is a magical binding agent designed to restore cohesion within a damaged system; I used a similar substance to heal my own wounded servants. When she kisses someone, the fluid disseminates rapidly through their bloodstream, arresting damage and boosting regeneration. But since she is infected, her taint clings to the binding agent and the virus spreads within seconds, killing her victim faster than they can heal. If you were to draw the fluid from her lips, the virus would die instantly without a living carrier and the resin would once again be beneficial."

  Celia sucks a surprised breath of air against her teeth. He looks confused at her reaction and then laughs. "Oh, you knew that already, did you? Did you think her fluid gained its healing properties because of something you did?"

  My heart is pounding. "What virus are you talking about? I don't understand. I'm not sick."

  "Your whole body is infected," he states flatly. "You were made to kill any faery who could be coaxe
d to consume you. The magic in your fingers increases our hunger and makes you seem like a particularly tasty morsel. Once your target is infected, the virus spreads quickly via the binding agent, corrupting and destroying all magic from the inside." He studies me, his eyes eager. "I wonder if her eventual goal is to create a weapon for use against the Elder Fae."

  Lavender stares at him, outraged. "The May Queen expected Rose to kiss one of your faery parents?"

  Hermit shakes his head, looking thoughtful. "No, I doubt that was the plan. The mouth as a point of infection was probably an interim step to test the process as she refined her methods. She can't experiment on Elder Fae without being found out, but she can test on faeries and humans. Nothing can live once their magic has been destroyed, after all. She probably intended to serve up a whole bouquet of edible flowers," he muses. "Pretty sights and smells, and one deadly Rose in the very center."

  "I've kissed Rose and my magic wasn't affected," Clarent points out. "Joel said that indicated a biological poison, one that didn't affect metal."

  Hermit laughs at him. "You didn't survive because you're made of metal; you survived because of your unique talent. You have an instinctive control over magical alignment. When her virus enters your body, you simply realign the invasive magic to match your own. Very few faeries would be able to accomplish what you seem able to do without conscious thought."

  I feel panic tightening my chest, irrational fear building. "No. You're wrong," I whisper. It was bad enough when I thought only my lips were deadly; to have my whole body soured by the May Queen is more than I think I can bear.

  Hermit gives me a dry look. "Oh, you don't have to believe me, little flower," he says. "Here, boy, I'll show you. Take their hands, both of them."

  Clarent hesitates but takes my hand gently, his other hand reaching over my lap to touch Lavender. She looks displeased to be asked to relinquish her grip, but reluctantly releases me in order to take his hand in hers.

  "Focus," Hermit says, his voice dipping lower. "I know you can see the web of magic around them. Study the arrangement around their fingers, the changes around their hair. You're not just looking for the marks of fae magic, but the subtle individual variations that make them different from each other."

  Clarent's breathing slows, his silver pupils widening as he studies us both for markings that the rest of us cannot view. "I can see it," he murmurs, his voice softer now. "I can see where the web thickens and changes. But I don't—" His voice stops; his eyes widen as he looks at me.

  "What? What do you see?" I stammer, feeling my heart clench.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Hermit smirking. "You see it now, don't you, boy?"

  Clarent shakes his head at me, trying to find the words to soften the news. "Rose, I'm so sorry. Yes, you're different, but it's not bad. I thought it was just because you had a different faery from everyone else. But Lavender—" His face falls as tears well in my eyes. "I should have told you," he whispers, sounding miserable.

  "Not your fault," Hermit says cheerily, reaching for another candy. "It's a nice little piece of work. Subtle, really; wouldn't expect most faeries to pick it up at a glance, which of course is the point. I could probably recreate it if I had enough time to study it, though I imagine it's specially designed for exclusive use in her flowers. No point in letting another faery steal your research, is there. Candy?"

  Chapter 23

  After the first flush of tears, my sadness ebbs away to be replaced by a numb emptiness. Around me, I hear raised voices as Hermit and Lavender and Celia argue, but their words feel distant and disconnected, not important enough to hear or remember. Clarent holds me to his chest, his solid weight sheltering me as he tucks his chin protectively over the top of my head.

  "Come outside with me?" he whispers softly, his voice warm in my ear. "Get some fresh air?"

  I don't want fresh air but neither do I want to stay here with so many people, so I nod. Gently, he helps me up. Lavender jumps up with us, her eyes worried, her hands outstretched to steady me. Clarent jerks his head towards the front door in explanation, and after a brief hesitation she nods her approval.

  "I'll be out in a minute," she says, her voice tight. "Stay with Clarent, okay, Rose?" I nod again, not meeting anyone's gaze.

  He leads me out to the landing, where the only sound is the nearby traffic and the air doesn't smell of emotions that aren't mine. The sun blazes brightly off his silver skin but his arm stays cool around me. I clutch the nearby railing and stare at the faraway ground, wondering if I'm about to be sick.

  "You're still you," he murmurs, gazing over my shoulder at the traffic below us, the cars driving by. "You're a little different from everyone else, but you're not bad."

  I shake my head slowly, unable to find the right words. I wish I could feel my sadness again or shed some tears, but instead I feel empty. "I'm tainted," I whisper, my voice hollow. "Not just my lips, every inch of me. Dirty."

  He wraps his arms more tightly around me. "I don't think you're dirty," he says, his voice gentle. "I've seen you and your magic, touched you and kissed you." He nuzzles my hair with his nose, the gesture lightly teasing. "I'd do it again, if you'd let me."

  I almost snort at this; it's not a laugh, but it comes close. "I've wanted to know for so long who I am and where I came from," I admit, my voice low. "Why they took me and not someone else. I wanted to know what they did it for, what was worth ruining my life over." I shake my head again to try and dislodge the numbness clinging to me. "Then I find out I was nothing more than poisoned meat. They could have kidnapped a roast from the grocery store instead."

  Clarent listens to this in silence. The way he holds me, the way he breathes beside me is warm and tender, accepting everything without judgment. "They took our history away from us," he agrees solemnly. "They made us forget that we speak other languages. How many more might we know?" He hugs me closer to him. "But we're still ourselves," he says firmly. "You're still you and I'm still me, no matter what happens."

  I twist my head to the side, trying to catch him in my peripheral vision. "How do you know?" I ask quietly, feeling tears prick my eyes. "When your body has been altered and your memory locked away, how do you know you're really you?"

  He smiles down at me. "Well, sure, there are things I don't remember right now that I want to discover again. And they've done things to my body that make life different than it would have been otherwise." He leans down, nuzzling my ear. "It isn't fair, and we've got every right to be angry. But maybe I can make something good out of this; maybe I'll end up knowing myself better because I won't take anything for granted. Every memory I can pull to the surface is precious." He kisses my cheek softly. "And the new memories are pretty good, too," he whispers.

  I choke back a cry in my throat, turning in his arms to bury my face in his chest. The sorrow slams back down, flooding the numb emptiness of my mind and drawing tears from my eyes. "But there's so many bad ones," I mumble into his cool skin. "So many bad memories. So many dead faces and constant worry!"

  My voice rises in a high whisper as he holds me, my words punctuated by sobs. "Clarent, I'm afraid I'll hurt Lavender if I stay this way, but that I'll fail to protect her if I change back! I don't want to be fae, but I'm afraid that turning me human might make things even worse."

  "I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he repeats, stroking my hair and holding me through the sobs. He hesitates, and a long minute spans out as the worst of my tears subside into hiccups. "Rose," he says, his voice very tender, "may I look again?"

  He takes a half-step back from me, holding me steady with his hands on my arms. I look up at him anxiously. He's staring at me, the way he did before when Hermit was guiding him. His eyes move over me, studying invisible details that don't correspond with anything in my mirror. "It's bad?" I hazard, my gaze dropping away from his scrutiny.

  His voice is low and reassuring. "No. No, Rose, absolutely nothing about you is bad. Your magic is different, that's all. The way i
t moves over you, the patterns; Rose, you're beautiful and unique. It's not dirty."

  "It kills people," I remind him, my eyes still not meeting his.

  "It does. But, Rose—" He hesitates again, frowning in concentration. "I think I understand the pattern of your magic, what makes it different from Lavender's."

  His frown deepens, his eyes tracing the curve of my shoulder, following an invisible eddy. "He acted like it was so difficult," he muses, almost to himself. "But if the flow changed in this direction, the virus would be stronger; counterbalance it the other way and your magic would be more like hers."

  "You can see my magic in that much detail?" I ask, my eyebrows rising in surprise. Hermit had said very few faeries could accomplish what Clarent does by instinct; I'm astonished at how he seems to master his talent more every time he uses it. What would he be able to do by now if his faery hadn't kept his mind muddled as an inanimate sword?

  His eyes return to mine, roused from his musings. "Rose, it might take me a little time, but I believe I could remove the poison. If you don't want to be a normal human, I think I could make you like Lavender. You'd still be able to protect us; Hermit says she can influence people with her emotions. If I made you like her, you'd be able to do the same."

  "Clarent—"

  We're interrupted by the door opening behind us. Lavender slips out silently, leaning her back against the wall and looking weary. For a moment, I feel a surge of guilt at being caught crying in Clarent's arms. We've been discussing my magic and our future, topics that she deserves to be included in.

  Yet if she's upset with us, nothing shows on her face or in her perfume; her smile is tired, but she seems relieved to join us. "Celia has the keys to the truck, otherwise I'd take us home right now," she explains, running frustrated fingers through her hair. "He positively refused to apologize for being a jerk, and now that she's said we're leaving he's throwing a tantrum. I don't think we're going to get anything useful from him."