The Potion Diaries 2

by Amy Alward

  Straining my neck, I can just about see a couple of other figures scampering through the tunnels like rats ahead of us. They seem to know the Palace tunnels well – they don’t hesitate over which turns to take. Eventually it seems like we leave the Palace grounds, because the tunnels take on an altogether more sinister appearance. I swear I see the flash of a skull embedded in the walls, and what I think is brick turns out to be bone. The catacombs. I’ve heard of these. They lie beneath the city of Laville, a whole generation of the dead forgotten, yet propping up the buildings. A ghoulish foundation.

  The tunnels widen so that my captor stands upright, and that’s when they blindfold me. The coarse fabric over my eyes blocks out every pinpoint of light. Without warning he wraps his arms roughly around my waist. I instinctively curl up into a ball like a hedgehog, compressing my middle around his forearms. I kick out with my legs, trying to make some kind of contact, but he ignores me, lifting me up and tossing me unceremoniously into a small box or a crate.

  I find out the hard way just how small – I kick my feet out and they hit solid wood. The force of it pushes my head up and it cracks against the top of the box. My wish to be knocked out is almost granted.

  Now is when the panic really settles in. I’ve never been good in tight spaces, but this is claustrophobia times a million. Lying on my back, the gag presses deeper into my mouth, choking my air supply. The blindfold is still firmly attached but since my head rings with pain, starry bursts explode in front of my eyelids.

  The box lurches along with my stomach, and the ringing in my ears clears enough for me to hear water lapping up against a hard surface. Rock, maybe. Stone. Bone.

  I’m in a boat.

  To distract myself from the fear that is threatening to engulf me, I force myself to remember what I know about the geography of Laville. There’s the River Calor, which snakes through the city centre. But it doesn’t pass through the Palace – or even near it – that I know of. This must be an offshoot, a tributary. An underground river that doesn’t show up on any maps.

  The reminder of being underground freaks me out even more.

  I can’t breathe.

  I can’t see.

  I don’t know if my captors want me alive or dead, but if they don’t let me breathe without a gag then they won’t have much choice in the matter.

  Strangely, there’s only one face that rises to the front of my mind, as my heart races and my breaths become increasingly shallow.

  Molly.

  Who’s going to be a big sister to her?

  My eyes roll back inside my head.

  The thrashing of my limbs slows until I’m still, no energy in my muscles left for a fight. I can’t get enough air to move.

  I hear a distant grunt, feel rough fingers on my cheek. Someone pulls the gag out and I roll onto my side and cough until my lungs feel like they’re about to fall out.

  Melling bee honey and hot Lethe water – for extreme bouts of coughing. What’s the likelihood of them having a potion on board? A weird, twisted urge to laugh comes over me, but it disintegrates into another hacking fit.

  When I’m done, I open my mouth and scream.

  Nobody stops me.

  And, if they’re letting me scream, that must mean they think that no one can hear me. That I’m alone.

  They let me scream until my voice is raw. They wait for my brain to catch up and realise that the screaming is futile. Which it does, eventually.

  ‘Search her,’ I hear a gruff, male voice say.

  I’m pulled up to a seated position and I gasp down the fresh air – grateful that I don’t have to bear the fug of fumes from the boat’s engine any more.

  My bag is roughly pulled up and over my head and someone empties it out on the floor. I hear the thud and crack of my phone, the flutter of the party invitation, the tube of lip gloss, my party heels. That all seems incredibly frivolous right now. Lastly, they unzip the lining of my bag and my stomach lurches. Someone shakes the bag to get it out, and I hear the last thing drop.

  It brings tears to my eyes to hear it. The slap of the leathery skin on the wooden boards.

  My potion diary.

  You shouldn’t have brought it, Sam, you idiot, I think to myself.

  I whimper when I hear another sickening sound – something being lobbed overboard. My things. Several splashes in the water. ‘Please,’ I say, tears now streaming down my cheeks. I picture my diary, sinking in the river. The leather chain unravelling, the pages spreading like wings, the ink blurring . . . until it settles at the bottom, never to be seen again. My life’s work is going to drown. A resting place shared with old bones. ‘What do you want from me?’ I hate how pleading my voice sounds.

  A voice speaks so quietly, I can barely make out the words. ‘No, not that,’ the person says. ‘Give that to me.’

  Someone takes a few steps towards me and the boat tilts. My shoulders tense.

  Something drops in my lap. It’s my bag. But it feels weighted down by something inside. I fumble with the clasp, my fingers clumsy with desperation.

  When my fingers touch leather, I can’t contain my relief. My diary is there. And it’s intact.

  ‘No alchemist should be without their diary, now, should they?’ the voice says.

  I’m so overcome with happiness that my eyes are shut when my blindfold is yanked down. When I open them, I blink furiously. It’s still dark, and it takes me some time to clear the starry bursts from my vision. But when they disappear, I finally recognise my captor. It’s the security guard from earlier. The one who helped Zain and I return to the party.

  I don’t understand. Why would he want to kidnap me?

  And then his eye starts to sag. My first instinct is to feel concern for him – it looks serious – but as the rest of his face follows suit, sliding down his neck like melting wax, I’m not worried for him any more. I’m terrified for me.

  Because the figure who emerges from beneath the wax is the one person I least wanted to see.

  Emilia Thoth.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Samantha

  ‘SAMANTHA KEMI.’ EACH WORD SOUNDS like it’s being dragged out of her mouth over hot coals, raspy and thick.

  My first thought is how monstrous she looks. Even though I saw her not long ago in the Zambi Wilds, at the end of the Wilde Hunt, it looks as if she’s aged fifty years. The black veins visible beneath her skin seem even blacker, her fingernails curved and sharp like claws. The golden lustre of her hair, which once resembled Princess Evelyn’s, is now a dirty white.

  Changeling potion.

  I dry heave onto the wooden boards as I realise that Zain and I must have been the ones to let her into the party. The other guards had seen us leave – they wouldn’t have questioned our returning with a guard as an escort. It had been Emilia all along.

  I shudder.

  The boat is one of those long houseboats unique to Laville. While most of them are brightly painted, in the dim light this one looks neglected: the paint is peeling and patchy, the shiny lacquer dulled with age. We’re out in the open now, but I can’t see much to indicate our location through the darkness. There aren’t many lights on the riverbanks, so we must be far out of the city.

  ‘You must be starving. I know they barely feed you anything at those Royal parties.’ Emilia snaps her fingers at someone inside, a loud click that makes me wince. A man emerges from the cabin, strides over to me and pulls me up roughly by the arm, out of the box. When I reluctantly stumble to standing, he pushes me forward. With my arms still tied behind my back, the muscles in my shoulders ache like crazy.

  ‘Come on, Ivan,’ Emilia says to the man. She strides ahead of us, her small frame engulfed by the security guard’s oversized clothing. The man grabs my head and forces it down to avoid the doorframe. The door is shut behind me, and Ivan pushes me onto a low bench. I grimace as I jam my wrists against the back wall, not able to get them out of the way in time. He leans over and, with a couple of slashes of his
knife, cuts away the ties around my hands. I shake them out, trying to bring back blood to my hands and feeling to my fingers. There are angry, deep red grooves where the rope has bitten into my wrists.

  Emilia disappears behind another door, so I focus on my second captor. Ivan is a big abominable of a man with a bald head, pale as milk, and engorged muscles that bulge out of his black t-shirt. It’s as if he’s been plucked from a design-a-muscle-man book. Dutifully following Emilia’s instructions, he stands over a small stove and ladles a big spoonful of beige, lumpy gruel into a bowl. He thumps it down on the table and slides it across to me.

  I stare at it, still holding my sore wrists, and even though my tummy is rumbling like crazy, I’m not hungry. Up close, I can see the gruel is made up of mashed-up beans. Plenty of bean varieties have magical properties. Who knows what Emilia might have concocted for me?

  Jack’s beans – known for gigantism and contain the power of growth. There is one variety rumoured to be able to age you in an instant – a cruel punishment sometimes used in the middle ages.

  ‘Eat.’ Emilia reappears at the door. Her voice is softer than before, her throat recovered from the extreme body morph. She’s swathed in a long black dress and a cowl-like hood, also black. Instinctively I push backwards on the bench, trying to create as much space as possible between her and me.

  ‘Still so afraid, Samantha Kemi?’ She leans forward so that her face enters the circle of light from the oil burner hanging on the ceiling. I’m shocked at the depth of the wrinkles that crisscross her face. Maybe she has been eating too many beans. ‘They’re not poison,’ she says. ‘Just food. Plain, ordinary food. Surely even you can tell that.’

  My eyes flick down to the bowl of beans again. They do look normal. I still don’t want to eat them.

  ‘Suit yourself, but it’s going to be the only sustenance you have for a while.’ Her voice trails off.

  My eyes dart around the boat’s cabin, trying to search for something – anything – that will convince me that I haven’t just been trapped and kidnapped by Emilia Thoth.

  Unfortunately, her presence is kind of a good reminder.

  ‘Why have you taken me? Why not just . . . kill me?’ I finally manage to choke out.

  ‘Kill you? My, my, Sam, you don’t understand me at all. I have no desire for your blood – unless it’s useful for a potion, of course.’ She chuckles, but I don’t find it funny. ‘I merely have a favour to ask you.’

  I narrow my eyes.

  ‘It has come to my attention that once again we share the same goal. We both would like to find your great-grandmother’s missing potion diary. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that why you’ve been jetting off here, there and everywhere?’

  I bite down on my tongue. I’m not going to dignify her questions with an answer.

  ‘Yes, well.’ Emilia drums her nails on the table, which sets my already fragile nerves on edge. ‘My initial attempts to find it have also proved fruitless.’

  ‘You mean by poisoning my grandad!’ I spit out.

  ‘Ah, so you figured that out, did you? Clever girl. Alas, your grandfather’s memories are incomplete and he is a stubborn man. He doesn’t appreciate my intrusion. But you are of his blood. Maybe there are things his memories will reveal to you that I cannot see. The sooner we find the journal, the sooner you can save your grandfather’s life.’

  ‘You mean the sooner you get to take Nova’s throne.’

  She laughs, and the sound is like tyres over gravel. ‘You think I am the real danger? Look at me. I cannot be Queen looking like this. I am a pawn. Well, perhaps more of a knight. But that doesn’t change the game. I need that journal but it’s not for me.’

  For a moment, I wonder what it must be like to be so deformed by potions you can’t interact with society. She looks upset. But wait a second – am I pitying Emilia Thoth? She didn’t have to choose that path.

  And as I think of another hole in her story, all the hatred returns in full force. ‘I don’t believe you. You want the aqua vitae to give yourself some kind of sick makeover!’

  She shakes her head. ‘You misunderstand, but you will see in time.’

  I lift the bowl of beans to my lips, then in a fit of rage, I throw it at her head. She dodges it smoothly, the bowl shattering against the far wall, gross bean paste dripping off the surface.

  Ivan is on me in a second, pinning my arms back and tying them again with the rope. I struggle, wriggling against the bench, but he is so much stronger.

  ‘My family isn’t just going to forget about me. The Princess will send her people to look for me!’

  Emilia’s dry, cracked lips spread into a grin and then she gets up slowly from the table, her limbs protesting against every movement. But I can see the strength in her eyes.

  ‘I hope my employers do come, because then you will truly know what is at stake,’ she says, leaning on the table so her face is terrifyingly close to mine. ‘And unless you help me get what they want, I’ll make sure you won’t remember your family at all.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  www.WildeHuntTheories.com/forums/THEKEMIFAMILY

  [MOST RECENT POSTS]

  OrdinaryLover3000 says: NEWSFLASH: EXPLOSION AT THE LAVILLE BALL, one dead, twenty-six badly injured. SAMANTHA KEMI and one security guard reported missing. My question is: where is Samantha Kemi?!

  154 replies

  Castillione says: NO. She’s definitely not in Runustan – can we please stop sharing that same picture that’s been photo-altered from when she was there a couple of days ago? False leads are NOT HELPFUL. Latest police reports think she’s still somewhere in Pays – since that’s where Zain is, probably worth assuming he’s following up on the most relevant leads. Her family have been advised to stay in Kingstown in case she returns there. They’ll be making a public plea for her safety tonight at 6 p.m.

  *MOD NOTE* Since this thread is moving so quickly, please check your lead hasn’t been disproved already before posting. Anyone blatantly posting misleading and false information will be banned from the forum permanently. A girl’s life is at stake here.

  Ushuanado says: I know the news is all about Samantha Kemi right now, but did anyone see the reports that a ZA van showed up at Kingstown General Hospital yesterday, allegedly to treat Ostanes Kemi? Surely that is HUGE.

  www.WildeHuntTheories.com/forums/PRINCESSEVELYN

  [MOST RECENT POSTS]

  RoyalRuiner says: Has anyone considered the possibility that the explosions at the Laville Ball were caused by the Princess’s out-of-control power? She hasn’t been seen in public since the explosion. We all predicted something like this was going to happen. Just lucky it happened in Pays and not Nova, right?! It’s about time our government cracked down on this. DON’T LET THE PRINCESS BACK INTO NOVA.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Samantha

  THEY LEAVE ME IN THE cabin, alone. A tiny part of me registers that it’s nice not to be crammed into a tiny box at the back of the boat, bound, blindfolded and gagged. But the rest of me is a numb, empty shell. I want to curl up into a ball and hide away from reality.

  I don’t think I’ve moved an inch when they come back for me. I’m taken from the boat to the back of a pick-up truck. We barrel down an empty, gravel road, deeper and deeper into unknown territory.

  At least they didn’t make me sit within touching distance of Emilia. I might’ve tried to bite her. Do I have anything to lose?

  Will Emilia ever let me see my family again? Even I’m not so stupid as to believe that she’ll just let me go, whether she has the power to alter my memories or not.

  She wants you for a reason, I tell myself. But even that isn’t a comfort. Because whatever she wants me for, I’m not going to give Emilia the satisfaction of getting it.

  Just accept it. You’re a dead woman. And now I can’t help the tears that prick up behind my eyes. I think back to only an hour before the kidnapping. Was I really staring at the Tree of Light with Zain, thinking about how
beautiful and precious the world was?

  Did Stefan, the handsome Prince, who seemed so charming, if a little predatory – did he know about what was to come for me?

  I think of Zain. How one day might never come, and we might never get to go on that proper date. I think of Grandad – unconscious, in hospital. I might not even get the chance to say goodbye. And I think about my family – I’ve given them yet another thing to worry about, just when it didn’t feel like things could get any worse. I’ve messed everything up.

  It’s all too much for my brain. The darkness, combined with the steady motion of the truck and the ache in my bones, sends me into an uneasy sleep.

  I have no idea how much time has passed when I wake – I only know that we have finally stopped. The sharp sound of slamming car doors takes me from drowsy to wide awake. They’re coming for me.

  Ivan jumps up to the back of the truck. He throws a blanket over me, bundling me up like I’m a baby.

  There’s a wall of trees in front of us, huge great evergreens that leave a carpet of brown needles on the ground. Behind me is rolling green countryside, dotted here and there with the odd farmhouse and barn. I know that we’re going to head deeper into those dark, foreboding woods – a twisting road seems to disappear inside it. I feel like I’m about to enter into a fairytale land, but not a nice one with happy endings. One of the terrifying ones, that end up with a young girl’s bones being crunched by ogres.

  I don’t recognise it from pictures, but I know we must be in Gergon. Not because of the scenery – it could also belong to nearby Prussia or even certain northern parts of Nova (I should be so lucky). I know we’re in Gergon because we’re about to swap the pick-up truck for a horse and wagon.

  They taught us in history class that there are some parts of Gergon so anti-technology, they refuse to use anything powered by electricity. Some of us thought it was quaint, but secretly we couldn’t imagine our lives without it. And now, here I am.