Page 92 of How Does It Feel?

With a deep breath, I carefully moved the third cup of rosy pink oleander poison to the left, then followed suit with the white snakeroot that smelled like nasty raw meat and then the water hemlock that smelled like carrots. I was gambling that those three were what I guessed and were all poisonous. I moved the chalice of what I guessed was lemon juice to the right in my “antidote” pile and stared at the three ominous cups remaining.

A snake fell from nowhere and landed in my lap.

I screamed and tried to fling it off as I fell off the table onto the snake-littered ground.

My hoarse screams echoed through the cave, which only seemed to rile up the serpents that climbed around me as I scrambled, trying to get to my feet. For the first time in my life, I felt so scared I couldn’t function. My body was shutting down from pure panic.

My eyes fell shut as the thick bodies of snakes crawled over me. How I hadn’t been bitten yet was beyond me, but I would be soon. One can only huddle in a snake-filled room so long before they were bitten and killed.

Get up.

You’re a terrible assassin.

I thought you had pull with animals?

Fucking Mendax! His voice was quiet and hard to hear in the back of my mind, but it was almost like I felt it more than heard it.

I sat up, furious. This was the last thing I needed!

Get out of my fucking head!

And I’m not a fucking assassin! Does a well-trained assassin roll up in a ball and wish for death surrounded by snakes, you idiot?

The nerve of that prick. I stood up and slowly moved to my previous perch atop the snake-free table of poisons fueled purely by annoyance.

I never said you were well trained.

I growled.

Get out of my head, Mendax! I hope if I do die, you feel every single thing through the bond. Every tiny ounce of pain from me being killed and gone forever.

Silence. Good. I lifted the unknown purple cup.

You have no idea the level of pain I will feel when you are gone forever.

Sorrow and anger, more potent than the poisons in front of me, flitted through the bond, and I sucked in a surprised breath.

More snakes fell.

I shook my head and tried to focus yet again. The purple liquid was beautiful but had no fragrance. If I were guessing by the opacity of the purple and the theme from the other poisons, it was botanical. Could it be an antidote? Like the other clear cup, it had no fragrance.

My mind scanned through the toxic flowers I knew of that came in that color. Aconite was the same purple, highly poisonous, and coined the Queen of Poisons, with the only known antidote being some mix of borax or something I couldn’t remember.

I set the cup down and picked up the clear and fragrance-free cup. Could this be that? The blend of borax? It wouldn’t have a scent, and it would be clear. I took a chance and moved my suspected borax mix to the right with the lemon juice and the purple I suspected as being Aconite to the left. If my shoddy guesses were correct, then that would be four poisons, all to my left and two antidotes to my right, with the strong herb-smelling one in the middle. It had to be some sort of antidote. It smelled like there were at least ten or so herbs mixed together. There was an old medieval antidote called nine poisons? I shakily moved it to the right.

Well, with four poisons, I would have to start with one of those.

I moved the Aconite to its own place, then set what I believed to be the clear borax mixture in front of it.

When the cattle in the study had consumed the white snakeroot, they fed them a diet rich in acidity to fight the toxins.

I set the pale green chalice that I suspected was snakeroot next to what I hoped would be the borax mixture and then placed the supposed lemon juice next to that.

That left me with oleander, nine herbs, and water hemlock. Maybe.

Two poisons and one antidote, how would that work? If I took both poisons together, it would only up the toxicity to my system.

Had I heard the numbers wrong? Had it been three poisons and four antidotes?