Page 212 of Beast and Remedy
“You are the world’s greatest friend. I owe you.” I draw her in for a tight hug.
Protocols be damned. She’s been such a relevant piece in the cure, and she damn well deserves to know how amazing she is.
Glancing at Stefan, I have half the thought to hurry and thank him too.
You don’t have time for that.
I sigh and clear my thoughts, promising myself to express my gratitude once I fix everything.
“There is nothing to owe when friends are involved,” Sybille replies as we break apart, both of us smiling.
She gestures for me to go, and I don’t waste a moment, taking off down the side of the ballroom. I lift my skirt when I pass the threshold and large numbers of guests and sprint toward the alchemy room.
47
Shadows
Trepidation sings in tandem with the magic in my chest when my steps slow near the alchemy room. But the door is ajar, light seeping into the corridor.
Worry churns in my gut, my brief resolve fizzling away.
Beau might have arrived before me or escaped his own party to hide in here prior to making the announcement.
Can I face him again after telling him we were never destined to be together?
I shake away the thought and move forward, whether my heart wants to or not. I need to save my home—my people—my sister.
Easing the door open, I’m surprised by the woman hunching over the tonic vials, fussing with them. “Marian?”
She tenses and peers over, her features hardened and intense. “What are you doing here?”
I step past the threshold, my stomach dropping at the disaster in the room.
The cases of inventory we have from each kingdom are emptied and spread out on the ground. Crushed valerian mixes with the scent of lavender, and the remnants of both are scattered with the chanterelles, smushed and dragged across the deep stone.
Sweet Makers, it looks like someone stomped on the sugar beets and roseroot, too.
I arch a brow. “I think the better question is what are you doing to the tonics?”
Marian huffs a laugh. “The room was too tidy, tooneat. It pissed me off.”
What the—
She turns to the carton of the cure, holding up a glass, letting it glint in the light. “And then there’s the issue with these vials.” She smashes it on the floor.
I gasp. “Marian! What the Oblivion?”
I rush to the ruined medicine, only stopping to avoid stepping on broken shards. Fury flares to life in my chest as the little light of Beau’s magic dims, the remedy destroyed.
She takes another and another, letting each one fall and break without explanation.
I grab her wrist before she can shatter another. “Marian!”
But she fights against my hold, thrashing her arm and seething. “Don’t you get it? Ihaveto destroy them all.”
Confused, I wrestle her, needing to stop her. But she overpowers and pushes me.
I fall, landing on the crushed glass and hiss.
