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She hesitated. “Depends on the poison.”
“Well, since we’re talking specifically about strychnine...?”
Slowly, stiffly, she shook her head.
“Daciana!”
“We don’t have a choice,” she cried. “Either I do this or we all die anyway when your council floods this place with their power. Strychnine can kill a werewolf, but a lot slower than it’ll kill you. As long as we get your mom and leave this horrible place quickly, you can get me to the infirmary and Healer Helena will save my life.”
Nitsa turned on Jason. “You’re a Titan and a son of Hades. There must be something you can do. Can you unhinge your jaw and suck it all up like Dimitri can?”
“I only unhinge my jaw to suck the ladies.” He winked. “But also, no. Dimitri could do that because Lethe water belongs in hades in the first place. This stuff isn’t from the Elysium.” He flapped his hand. “It can’t be reclaimed to a home that is not its home. Best I can do is summon flowers that will put smiles on our faces and songs in our heart... as we eat ourselves to death.”
“See,” Daciana said as shivers climbed my spine. “This is the only way.”
“But— But we—” I was helpless watching her lift the apple to her mouth. My best friend was about to poison herself to help my mother. I couldn’t let this happen. “She’s my mom. At least let me be the one to—”
Her sharpened teeth tore a bite off the fruit, chewed, and spat it out. “Agh,” she cried, hacking it up. “Sorry. I’m sorry. The poison is all I can smell now. My gag reflex kicked in.”
“Wait.”
“I can do this, I swear,” she continued.
“Listen.”
“Let me do it,” I said. “You can rush me to Healer Helena same as you.”
“You won’t make it. This stuff kills within thirty minutes.”
“But—”
“Both of you,” Tycho barked. “Stop arguing about who’s going to kill themselves and listen. I saw something whenDaciana took a bite.” He pointed. “One of the apples in the cornucopia disappeared.”
“What?” Ionna peered around him. “It did?”
“Let me see.” I took a bite of my carrot, then spat it out. Before my eyes, a carrot vanished from the cornucopia. “This means it has to touch our lips, but the magic, power, curse, or whatever it is, can’t tell if we’ve swallowed.”
“Can that work?” Nitsa asked. “If we don’t swallow any of it, we’ll be fine?”
Daciana lifted her shoulder. “A lot better off than if we did.”
I blew out a breath. “All right, then. Here we go.”
We dug in. It was the worst and grossest dinner party of the century. We bit and spat, bit and spat, bit and spat out the food, raining masticated fruit and vegetables all over the table and ground. It was horrible, but the amount of food in the cornucopia was shrinking.
I bit into a star fruit, and a golden glint dazzled at the edge of my vision. “The key.”
Grabbing hold, as soon as my fingers closed over it, the manacles disappeared from my ankles. “Let’s go.”
We shot up from the table and ran for the door, but not before I pocketed the star fruit.
“Guys? Hey, guys.”
I skidded to a stop, finally noticing someone wasn’t with us.
“Guys!” Theron thrashed in his seat, manacles firmly in place. Around him, the faceless statues were getting up, and getting closer. “What’s going on!”
Their fists reeled back. The six of us were running before we started screaming.
