Page 14 of A War of Crowns

But, still. She was a busy woman. The Spymaster and all. She had things to do. Secrets to uncover. A Lord Chancellor to track down and annoy.

And yet here she was, trapped.

For a time, the sound of her pestle scraping the bottom of the mortar was the only one filling the shadowed confines of that underground room. On the periphery of her vision, she watched Sir Dacre shift his weight from foot to foot. He oozed with a palpable discomfort.

And yet the knight still made no move to leave.

Impatience finally won out over her wicked desire to see just how long she could keep the knight squirming. “Was there anything else, then?” Olivia snapped as she finally ceased grinding her herbs.

Sir Dacre jerked to attention as if the Lord Constable himself was in the room with them and had started barking orders as Sir Easome was wont to do.

“No,” the pretty man admitted. “I just thought, ah…well. Since I was about to go find Her Majesty…would you perhaps like to walk with me?”

Olivia frowned and fished about for her flask of wine and a funnel amidst the snarl of medicinal and alchemical instruments arranged atop her work table. “Didn’t we just decide you’d be watching Crestley until the day he died?”

“Oh, well, I didn’t know you meant rightnow—”

“Of course I meant rightnow.” Olivia rolled her eyes and fixed the funnel into the mouth of her flask so she could pour the not-quite-as-fine-as-it-could-be powder within. A swirling of liquid later, she took an experimental sip and grimaced.

As ever,bitter rootcertainly proved its name accurate.

“That bad?” Sir Dacre asked.

Olivia shot him a flat lookin reply.

“You can’t honestly prefermycompany to the ladies of the court,” she observed. She was tall. She was gangly. She wasn’t the least bit polished or perfumed. No man in his right mind would ever prefer her company to one of the queen’s many ladies-in-waiting.

When Sir Dacre but cleared his throat rather than offer a proper answer, Olivia asked more directly, “What are you loitering around down here for anyway?”

“I was…ah…” Sir Dacre shifted his weight yet again. “I mean…your company isn’tthatterrible.”

Olivia blinked the once before throwing back her head and cackling openly. It wasn’tthatfunny, honestly. Sir Tristan Dacre, the most desirable young man in all of Goldreach, thinkinghercompany wasn’t that terrible.

But Olivia couldn’t help herself.

It was one of the stranger and more unfortunate side effects of the dream petal she had just ingested. Already, that cordial was taking the edge off of the Pain coursing through her left side. It didn’t erase it completely, of course; she was still aware of it. As she ever was.

But it was decidedly and blessedlyless, and a good deal easier to ignore.

In addition, everything began to glow with a rosy haze about the edges, which brought a level of cheer to her otherwise dark and dank surroundings, with which Olivia was unfortunately all too familiar.

She preferred it that way, after all.

The dark and dank. Not the medicated haze from the dream petal.

When her cackling subsided, Olivia hacked up a single, wet cough and unlocked the middle drawer of her apothecary table. She procured a small purse of coins.

It softly chinked when she settled it into the center of Sir Dacre’s palm.

“Here,” she said, fighting against another titter. Everything was simply more amusing on dream petal. “Your payment for the week.”

The knight blinked at her and protested, “This isn’t really necessary, you know—”

Olivia waved him off, though. “You’re my spy. I’m the Spymaster. There’s your payment. You’re free to go.” She was already running late. So terribly late. Ol’ Percy was going to have an earful for her. “Hurry off now. There are skirts to chase. Rumors to collect. Tidbits of information to sniff out.” She sniffed the air in illustration, just in case Sir Dacre needed a picture painted for him.

The knight slowly backed out of the room. “I’ll, ah…see you later, then,” he offered by way of farewell.

Olivia nodded and made a few agreeable noises until the man finally shut the door to her workshop behind him.

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