Page 81 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

Old Ones, this changeseverything.

I draw in a shaking breath just as the High Queen’s crimson lips curve and she glares down from the dais.

“In front of you is a challenge just as deadly as the threat magic poses for this isle. Each cup contains a poison. Some will have more than others, and none are entirely safe. Choose one to drink until you empty the cup. Pick well, and you will live. Pick poorly…”

She doesn’t bother to finish.

The nobles’ deafening cheers rip me out of my head and right back to the fencing yard, staring down at a table with around half a dozen cups. The standing screens separate me from sight of the noble daughters, and them from each other.

The bitter rage coursing through my veins is as dangerous as any of the poisons in front of me. I have to control it so I canthink. My wits are the only thing that can save me now.

The High Queen’s pale glare flashes over me, lip curling in disgust. “You have five minutes to choose a cup and drink untilnothing remains,” she says, then flips over a heavy hourglass on the banister, and the grains of sand start to fall. “Begin.”

Sweat gathers along my upper lip.

I wipe it away and fight to focus on the cups laid out in front of me.

Keeva would know what to do—even though just thinking of her and Finn makes pain sliver into my heart. Does either of them know there’s still magic left?

Hurt flares deep in my chest.

How can anyone keep a secret this big foryears?

And the fact that the High Queen admitted this in front of not just Eireician nobles but the Leonese, too? Old Ones, she must be so certain of her grip on our isle that she’s no longer trying to keep the truth from foreign nobles, from diplomats. Does she want them to know that she has the power to drain what’s left, and no one can stop her?

But—I only have five minutes.

None of the questions hammering in my skull are going to help me pick which poison to drink. Everything that isn’t right in front of me, I have to shove away. It won’t work forever, but that doesn’t matter. It can work for now.

For all the hours I’ve spent around Keeva’s stall, did any of it really stick? She taught me how to pick apart powders and leaves, made sure I learned which ones might paralyze or blind or even drive a person mad. No one is immune to the right dose—not peasants or nobles or kings.

I focus on the cups.

Five of them, all filled with different liquids.

There’s a stoneware cup the color of sand with warm amber tea—it gives off the heavy waft of honey.

Keeva once said you can hide just about anything under honey’s dense sweetness, and my mind jumps to possibilities of obvious poisons. A musty, piss-like scent lingers just under the sweetness, easy to recognize and one of the most easily available poisons.

Hemlock, deadly fast at paralyzing the ability to breathe.

So… not that one.

A stemmed glass the shape of a rose is filled to the brim with dark, almost purple wine. I bring it to my nose, inhale deeply—and frown.

There’s nothing obvious about the scent to make me wary, just the usual smell of earth and bright berries. But I swirl the glass, tilting it so the wine almost pours out and I can see right to the bottom. That’s how I catch it.

Grit so fine, it would be easy to mistake for sediment left over from the winemaking process. I recognize it in a heartbeat, from hours spent helping Keeva grind the bark. Yew extract—deadliest when gathered during winter and ground from its evergreen needles.

Slow-acting, but certain to bring on stomach pain, diarrhea, convulsions, then death.

No, thank you.

The glass shakes in my grip as I set it down.

The crowd watches all of us with a hush, but I ignore them and turn to the next one: a small porcelain glass no taller than my thumb, barely big enough to hold an ounce of what smells like uisce beatha, the wickedly strong spirit distilled in the inner hills of the isle.

Again, I think back to Keeva’s lessons. The stronger the tasteof what you put a poison in, the more a poisoner can hide. I might not remember the names of every flower and herb I’ve helped her handle over the years, but I remember enough.