Step 3: Pick the perfect poison

Despite Ivelle's confidence in the amnesic powers of mandragar, she was decidedly on edge the next morning. She jumped when Anabelle leaned into her line of sight to offer her some biscuits, and nearly spilled tea on herself when she a platoon of guards hurried past the kitchen where she was taking breakfast with the servants.

It wasn't just Ivelle who was jumpy. The entire castle was on high alert. Rumors swirled among the servants that someone had tried to break into the Royal Treasury last night. "I heard the thief put a magic spell on the guards and put them to sleep," Ivelle overheard Anabelle telling Alfred in hushed tones. "And now the queen is punishing a bunch of guards for falling victim to the magic. And the queen is having the rest of the guards search the palace for the thief."

That certainly tracked with why none of the guards had come running when Prince Eirifold had called for them in the garden yesterday. Ivelle slurped her tea and tried to reassure herself everything would be fine. After all, she hadn't gone anywhere near the royal treasury, she hadn't put any guards to sleep, and she hadn't left any traces in the royal wing of the palace (she hoped).

She had only been seen by the prince.

A prince high on drugs at the time.

No one would believe anything he said.

...Probably.

If Ivelle was uneasy, her anxiety paled in comparison to Ash's, whose pacing had reached record heights. He'd been beside himself when she'd materialized in their room the night before, swearing and dripping blood over their undoubtedly valuable carpet.

"What do you mean the prince bit you?" he'd screeched, as she rummaged around for a healing potion and some better bandages than the torn strips of cloth from her skirt.

"He took a nom out of my hand with his teeth."

"Why were his teeth anywhere close to your hand!?"

"I was trying to stop him from shouting for help." (She avoided mentioning the panic-snogging. Ash was already in a tizzy as it was.)

"He'd better not have fucking rabies!"

"That's what I said!"

"I'm never letting you go anywhere without me again!"

It had taken a while for Ash to calm down, and even longer for him to stop chewing her out for not simply offing the prince while he was drugged out of his mind. Ivelle's vague explanation that "the timing was wrong," wasn't enough to satisfy him.

"Look," Ivelle had huffed finally. "Lillian's life might be better if we kill Prince Dingbat after they get married, you know? It should be up to her. I mean, we should at least discuss it with her. She is the client, after all."

Ash had shut up after that. But he continued to send her salty looks that morning as she nibbled her breakfast croissants in the servant's quarters. He seemed somewhat mollified though, when Anabelle brought a small bowl of fruits and seeds over to the table "for the good crow to nosh on."

Ivelle was too wound up to eat much. It wasn't until a servant popped his head into the kitchen and summoned them both to the shelter of Lady Lillian's tearoom that she finally began to feel some semblance of calm.

To Ivelle's relief (and Ash's profound annoyance) Lillian seemed far more interested in the mechanics of poisons than in the nuances of their gimmicky 12-step plan. Ivelle laid out her array of potions on the princess' private table, and for a time they went through the glittering vials one by one, with Lillian oohing and aahing at appropriate moments.

Ivelle was pretty pleased with her potion collection. Amassed over a decade, it spanned a wide array of different concoctions, from the incredibly functional to the exceedingly deadly. Most of the nastier potions had been inherited when her mum died. A couple – like her Healing potion, which would rapidly heal any scrapes (crucial for a carpenter!), or her Doggify potion, which would turn the drinker into whichever dog breed best matched their personality – were specialties she'd mixed up herself.

Lillian seemed most attracted to the sparkliest potions, which also tended to be the most dangerous.

"This one's so pretty," she gasped, holding a bright green one up to the light.

"Yeah... don't break that bottle. That one's called iverdrought. It's tasteless and scentless, and a few drops will kill a man. It takes twelve hours before the death happens, so it's a good way to evade taste-testers. Be careful, you don't want to get it on your dress."

"And this one?" Lillian picked up another vial, this one a bright blue. It glittered in the sunlight that streamed through the open windows, matching the sapphires that gleamed on her dress.

"That's sunshade. I'm not much of a fan, to be honest. It gives the drinker horrible boils and they kind of... ooze themselves to death."

"How do you know so much about poisons?" said Lillian, delicately replacing the vial into Ivelle's satchel. "In your flier, you said you'd poisoned your own husband?"

Ash shot a nervous glance in Ivelle's direction. For a moment, Ivelle thought he was going to offer a snide interjection, but instead, he ruffled his feathers and sank down on her shoulder once more. He'd been unusually quiet since last night.

Ivelle twirled her vial of Doggify potion. She thought about lying, but couldn't see much point. After all, Lady Lillian was as invested in their evil scheme as they were. What could it hurt if she knew the truth about Ivelle's past? "I had to... do away with my husband a few years ago," she found herself saying. "His name was Lord Saffron, and he was a piece of work."

"Oh dear."

"Yeah. He was a fucking narcissist, and he also... killed my mum." Her cheeks flushed as she suddenly registered what she'd just said. "Shit, I just swore in front of a noble lady. ...Fuck! I just did it again! Bloody hell–I mean, shoot. Sorry."

Ash had covered up his face with his wings and was shaking his head. Lillian had put a delicate hand to her mouth.

Fuck! Ivelle fought the urge to sink to the floor in shame. Goodbye, gorgeous roof deck.

Then she realized Lillian was laughing. Giggles erupted from behind the gloved hand she was holding to cover her mouth.

"You're... not mad?" said Ivelle.

"It's... refreshing," said Lillian. "Most people feel like they have to tiptoe around me. Even my servants, who I've known for years, still feel like they have to treat me with deference. It's been years since I had anyone who... well, anyway." Her voice sobered. "I'm sorry about your mother."

"Don't be. She was a crappy mum. She robbed a lot of banks and embezzled a lot of money. She... probably deserved to die. I just wish... I mean I feel like... well, it was a teensy bit my fault that she died."

Ivelle swallowed a lump in her throat.

The silence seemed suddenly oppressive.

"Anyway!" she went on with false brightness. "After Saffron murdered her, I decided to poison him. Using my... amazing twelve-step method, which... is why we're here."

She chanced a glance up toward Lillian.

The lady's eyes were filled with pity.

Ivelle fought the urge to crawl into one of the lady's fancy cabinets and die there.

"You know..." Lady Lillian tapped her fan against her lips. "Originally I came from the kingdom of Castrena. We were a small kingdom, but prosperous. A little too prosperous." The lady's breath caught delicately in her throat. "We drew the eye of the King of Estrella, and he decided to annex his kingdom to ours. Forcibly, with a lot of soldiers. Eventually, my parents sued for peace. The King of Estrella said he could grant peace to my people... but in exchange, I must marry Prince Eirifold when I got older."

"I never heard about that."

"I'm not surprised," said Lillian. "There's a lot that goes on that the common folk never hear about. The tigers do a good job keeping out most reporters, and what little news does make it out of the palace has a way of getting abruptly... silenced.

"My family didn't want me to marry Prince Eirifold. I was eight at the time, and they were trying to protect me. They traveled to the royal palace – all of them – my parents, even my older brother, who was only thirteen – to plead for better terms to the peace accords. But on the way to the palace, their carriage was hit by a terrible forest fire, and they all perished. Only my older brother survived, and he later died of his injuries at the palace... or so I was told." She blinked rapidly and stared down at her hands as though not actually seeing them. "So you see... I also carry a lot of guilt, thinking my family died because of me."

Something about the tense note to Lillian's voice made Ivelle wonder if there was more to the story that Lillian wasn't telling her. Had the king of Estrella been directly involved in her family's deaths? Did Lillian suspect, or did she have proof?

Against her better judgment, Ivelle found her heart going out to the lady in front of her. Lillian might be a spoiled noble with absolutely zero survival instincts, but that didn't mean she hadn't had hardships in her life. "I'm sorry," she said awkwardly.

"Don't be. It was years ago." Lillian replaced the poison she was holding into Ivelle's satchel and stood up. "Perhaps we might continue this lesson later?" she said ruefully. "I have a bit of a headache."

"I didn't realize," said Ash, as they headed back to their room, potions jangling at Ivelle's side.

"Huh?" Ivelle's thoughts were still swirling with all she'd learned from Lillian. It was no wonder the lady wanted to poison Prince Eirifeld. If it had been her, she would have wanted to poison not just the douchenozzle, but the entire royal family!

"I didn't realize," Ash repeated, poking Ivelle in the cheek with his beak, as though admonishing her to focus, "that you were still so torn up about your mum."

That was enough to startle Ivelle out of her reverie. She turned to glower at her pet crow. "I'm not torn up about my mum."

"Ya-huh."

"No, seriously! I'm not!"

"Shout that just a little bit louder and maybe I'll believe you."

"For fuck's sake – She had zero redeeming qualities, Ash! She may not have openly stabbed people, but she was still a nasty hag whose sole pleasure in life came from bank heists. Most of the coins she stole belonged to hardworking citizens. She was essentially stealing from folks with nothing and leaving them to starve."

"She was still your mum." Ash opened his beak as though to say something else, then hesitated. "Ivelle..." he said slowly. "I've been thinking..."

But he broke off mid-sentence.

A second later, Ivelle saw why.

A pile of turds sat in front of the door to their room.

Not just any pile of turds. No, this was the most massive turd pile Ivelle had ever seen. As though some animal had gorged itself on an entire platter of Estrella's finest crumpets and then had at it on the front stoop of their doorway.

Beside her, Ash was flapping his wings in consternation. "Ick!" he said. "Ivelle... you don't suppose–"

"Be quiet." Ivelle leaned forward and studied the turds through narrow eyes. Close up, they looked an awful lot like dog turds. And she had a sinking feeling she knew which dog's behind they had come out of.

Surely not. There were dozens of strays in the palace. Probably she'd just been unlucky, and one of them had decided to turn her doorstep into its personal loo.  It wasn't necessarily...

...him.

Ivelle stood up, so fast she almost dislodged Ash from her shoulder. "Stay here," she said. "I'll go find a towel to clean all this up."

Surely Annabelle or one of her fellow servants would have some bleach strong enough to scrub away the pile of doggy doo-doo. She hurried toward the servant's quarters, not paying much attention to where she was going.

She was more than halfway to the kitchens when she almost crashed into a platoon of guards. At first, Ivelle tried to skirt around the guards, thinking they were just passing through. But as she hurried past, they turned in unison to follow her.

One of the guards cleared his throat.

"Are you the new jester?"

Ivelle thought about lying and saying no. But she had a feeling she wouldn't be believed, seeing as how she was still clad in her purple-and-scarlet jester's uniform.

"Um... maybe?"

"I was ordered to bring you to the royal gardens immediately. Prince Eirifold wants a word."

~*~

Words: 11,916

Today's ONC shout-out goes to evacharya's mystery thriller "Stone 2 Stone." A hair-raising crime thriller with an intriguing premise, interesting characters, and a gripping mystery, this story will keep you on the edge of your seat, eager for more!