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“It’s better than grapefruit in disguise,” Lyell snarks.
“Oh, go color your circles,” Ada pops back.
That one takes all of us a minute to comprehend, but Madigan seems to understand it immediately. She chokes on her bite of opaidish, though she tries to recover before anyone asks her what it means.
Ada offers no explanation. She only smiles politely at Lyell. He’s suspicious, but I don’t blame him. I know enough Earthly terms to know that was a nice way to say something rude. Despite that, Ada and Lyell get along well, which is good for us.
Ecaeris leans over the corner of the table and plucks Ada’s glass from her hand. She rolls her eyes as he sniffs at the liquid… But we all freeze when he takes a sip.
Imryll hovers for a moment, and I hold my breath, though nothing happens to the careless Mongrel prince. Connak is the only one who doesn’t share our shock.
“It’s good,” Ecaeris tells Pyris. “Sweet, but subtle. I can smell the flowers, though.”
“Uhh, thank you,” the Shade doctor says, a bit of concern in his voice.
Ada suddenly looks too sober. “Why did you drink that?”
I grimace as Ecaeris glances from the glass to Ada before he shrugs. He isn’t the only one who has thought about drinking it just to see what would happen, but I didn’t expect him to be the first one to give into the risky urge.
Connak, maybe.
But not Ecaeris.
“Talodus and I withstood Nesta’s attack, too,” he tells Ada. “I was curious.”
“That could have killed you,” she points out.
“It hasn’t.”
“There’s a silent yet in that response.”
Ecaeris walks around the table and trunks her chair as he kneels in front of her. “Ada, haven’t you wondered if we’re even half as invincible as you are?”
“I have,” she quips. “But I haven’t spoken to Spiran in a while, so I haven’t been able to ask her. I’ve just been praying you wouldn’t put yourself at risk.”
“I have no cramps.” He holds his arms out, quickly glancing at his stomach. “That would have been the first symptom, especially with the star flowers.”
Ada glares at him, though her frustration is fading. “How do you know that’s what’s in this?”
“I can smell the floral aroma.” Ecaeris smirks. “And I know you. There was a book of toxins in my mother’s study, but I dropped it in your room before I came here.”
“Do you think it will work?” Ada cringes and turns to Lyell. “I’m sorry. Would you rather we didn’t talk about this in front of you?”
“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “She needs to go, and I’m not enough to kill her on my own. Neither is Nesterin, which is why he left the Shades years ago.”
Madigan sets her glass of water down. “Because he tried to kill her?”
Lyell smiles grimly at his goddess. “Her favorite son because he looks like the lover she lost. Then he tried to kill her… She’s not forgiving at all. She almost killed him, but we were able to get him out before she came back to finish the job.”
“Will this be enough to weaken her, at the very least?” Imryll asks, twisting the dark glass bottle in his hand. “That’s what we need to know.”
Ada nods. “If it’s not, then we need to know what our other options are.”
“You’re really invested in this, aren’t you?” Madigan whispers, as if the realization has just hit her. “You just came in and never stopped rolling with the punches.”
Madi has a point.
Ada washed up on our shore with dozens of questions, but she didn’t really panic. Not like one would expect. She’s had her moments of disquiet where she was worried about inadequacies, though it almost feels as if she was meant to be here. Designed to be here.
