Page 15 of A Witch’s Guide to Love and Poison

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‘I need you to not be insufferable about what I’m about to say,’ Bisma told Xander, pacing in his greenhouse early the next morning. She’d rushed in without thinking and only realized at the end of her sentence that he was asleep, his copper hair sticking out in every direction.

He rubbed his eyes, disoriented.

‘Bis?’ His voice was groggy with sleep. ‘Am I dreaming?’

Her face heated, not at all helped by the fact that he was shirtless under his paltry bedsheet. She spotted his shirt draped over a chair and threw it at him. ‘Put some clothes on.’

He sat up, frowning. ‘Usually in the dream, you’re telling me to do the opposite.’

She flushed at the thought. Pushing the rest of his blanket off, he stood, and she could unfortunately see why a dream version of her might make such commands. He was slender and well sculpted, all lean muscles from his broad shoulders down to his narrow waist, and she couldn’t help but stare.

It had been a long time since she’d been up close and personal with a shirtless man, and she sure had missed it, if the way her body hummed in response was any guess.

‘Like what you see?’ he asked, grinning as he caught her ogling.

She scowled. ‘Remember when I prefaced this with how I need you to not be insufferable?’

‘Sorry,’ he said, grinning more stupidly. ‘Didn’t hear much beyond “I need you”.’

She didn’t have a clever response to that, since he chose that moment to slowly put his shirt on, lazily tucking it into his trousers, and she watched his muscles move beneath the thin fabric, the image searing into her mind.

Remembering herself, Bisma glared. She turned to leave but Xander caught her hand, pulling her back with a firm tug. She whirled, almost colliding into his chest. He did not let go of her hand; she inhaled the sweet scent of cloves.

‘Sorry, Bis,’ he said, looking at her with a lopsided smile. ‘You’re too easy to rile—my little porcupine.’

‘Porcupine!’ She made an outraged face at that, wrenching free from his grasp.

He laughed out loud. ‘Alright, alright, I’ll behave.’

Xander ran his hands through his hair, tidying it a bit, and she felt disappointed she had not been afforded the honors. He cleared his throat, straightening up, then crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Alright,’ he said, green eyes focused. ‘I’m listening.’

Giving him a final withering look, she released a breath. ‘The freezing potion worked.’

Now he was alarmed. ‘Another poisoning?’ he asked, concerned, and she nodded. ‘Who?’

‘Deeba,’ Bisma replied. ‘The two-year-old.’

He swore.

Bisma looked away, blinking rapidly to force back the tears welling in her eyes. She had spent all night trying to figure out what to do and had come up with nothing substantial. There was no choice but to find a cure, and no matter how she had tried, she couldn’t do it alone.

Which was why, as dawn broke, she had decided to come to Xander. He had helped her twice already and had expressed an academic interest in the case. He was vexing, irritating, annoying , but she had no one else to turn to.

‘What’s her story?’ Xander asked, his voice gentle.

She turned back to him. ‘Why do you ask?’ No one ever did. He had asked about Mei’s story, as well. He hadn’t asked about Luna’s story but hers was more known in Old Town.

‘It’s important,’ he said. ‘Your sisters are part of who you are; I want to learn more about them. About you.’

Her heart skipped a beat. She cleared her throat, ignoring how his words warmed even the coldest parts of her.

‘Deeba came to us at nine months old, about a year ago,’ she told him. ‘She was in a little basket with a note, which explained that she was an orphan and that her wards were neglecting her. The neighbors were the ones who took her away one night and left her in the Enchanted Forest; they couldn’t care for her themselves but hoped that the Forest would look after her.’

‘Goodness,’ Xander said, alarmed. ‘They just … took her? And risked the baby being rejected by the Forest?’

‘The note detailed just how neglected Deeba was there,’ Bisma explained. ‘Apparently for the first month, they heard her cries all day and night until eventually the crying stopped. The neighbors thought perhaps this meant that things were well, but when they went to visit, they saw that the baby was practically starved.’

Rage flared through Bisma, still fresh.

‘The lack of crying was not a sign of contentment; it was an eerie sort of silence. She hardly stirred or made a sound because she had become conditioned to realize that crying out for help yielded no results. So she simply … stopped. That was when the neighbors realized they needed to intervene, that the chance of life in the Enchanted Forest was better than a life in the village, which would surely end if things continued the way they were.’

‘A baby not crying at all?’ Xander asked, horrified.

‘She still hardly cries,’ Bisma said. ‘At first, we all thought it awfully disconcerting, but of course we got used to it. Even now, she’ll whimper or fuss a bit, but she never cries out fully, the way most babies do. Even last night—’ Bisma broke off, mouth trembling.

She took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. ‘She was the first baby to come to the Forest when I was older,’ Bisma said. ‘I mean, Nori was left as a baby as well, but I was thirteen at the time and had sisters older than me who held more responsibility, so it wasn’t the same. But with Deeba I was second eldest, with only Baji— Eva —above me. And of course Eva was busy with everything else, so much of looking after Deeba in those early months fell to me.’

Why was she telling him all this? Just because he had asked one question didn’t mean he wished to hear her ramble on.

‘Anyway,’ she said, clearing her throat. Xander had been listening intently, which made her feel … strange. Shy. She wasn’t used to speaking in such a manner with anyone outside her family, or now with her new letter-writing friend, but writing was different from speaking aloud, watching the other person watch you, seeing their face shift with emotions.

‘She’ll be alright,’ Xander said, his voice sure. ‘The freeze potion will protect her. Just imagine she’s taking a long nap.’

‘Yes, but now what?’ Bisma asked. ‘That’s why I’ve come, really. Can I see what you’ve been working on? You said you’ve been puzzling over a cure.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Xander said, brightening at the chance to help. ‘Can I see Deeba? I want to make sure the freeze potion is really working, and perhaps we can extract some of the poison from her and study it?’

‘I’ll bring her here,’ Bisma said.

‘I can go with you,’ Xander said. ‘Save you the trip, meet the rest of your sisters.’

Bisma gave him a stern look. ‘No.’

Though outsiders were not allowed in the Enchanted Forest, she knew she could probably bypass the Forest’s border fog with her magic to allow Xander in, and the Forest would allow it if she asked nicely, but that wasn’t the issue.

They needed to proceed professionally. She couldn’t have emotions meddling in, and if he went to her home, met her family, things would surely get messy.

‘If we’re to work together, we’ll work here. Away from the Forest and away from my sisters.’ She looked around his greenhouse; it was clearly equipped with everything they might need.

‘But I’ve met your sisters before,’ Xander said, confused. ‘Mei and Luna, of course, and the others, when they’re in town with you.’

‘You haven’t been formally introduced, and it’s going to stay that way,’ Bisma said. She didn’t want them to get attached to him. They would work together to find a cure, then go on as they had before. ‘This is strictly a business arrangement, as in we are working together as colleagues and nothing more.’

‘Right,’ he said, blinking.

He swallowed. She could tell he was disappointed, and she felt guilty, but this was the only way to stay safe: to keep him at a distance.

‘And what exactly would I have to do to earn the honor of meeting your family?’ he asked, bouncing back from his melancholy mood with determination. His eyes sparkled.

Bisma could not help it; her heart warmed. No matter how difficult she was, Xander was always willing to rise to the occasion.

With Gregory, Bisma had always had to be on her very best behavior in case she upset him. He had been so mercurial, and Bisma had always needed to be so easy-going, and even then it was never guaranteed that he wouldn’t grow cross with her over the littlest thing.

But why on earth was she comparing Xander to Gregory? It wasn’t as if she was in love with Xander as she had been (foolishly) with Gregory.

Bisma pretended to think about his question. ‘Hmm. Stop being so insufferable and I’ll consider it.’

He clicked his tongue. ‘Damn, that’s half my personality, Bis.’

‘Half? I’m impressed, Alexander; I wasn’t aware you had a personality beyond that.’

He held a hand over his heart as if injured, though he laughed as well. ‘You don’t even need poisons,’ he said. ‘Not with a tongue like yours.’ His gaze dropped to her mouth. ‘Positively deadly.’

Her lips tingled. ‘Don’t test it,’ she warned.

‘Not even a taste?’ he asked, stepping closer.

She arched a brow, lifting her chin. ‘You wouldn’t survive. You said so yourself—positively deadly.’

She ran her tongue over her teeth. He watched the movement, his eyes dark. A little thrill buzzed through her.

‘Ah, but with your tongue on mine at the very least I would die happy,’ he said, voice low.

Imagining such a prospect, her heart leapt.

‘I can’t have you dead yet,’ she replied, trying to get back to the topic at hand. Hadn’t she just said something about professionalism? And yet there they were, going back and forth. It was so easy—too easy—to lose herself with Xander. She cleared her throat. ‘Not before you’ve made a cure for Deeba.’

But the words lacked her usual bossy nonchalance. Her face felt flushed, and it must have shown, for Xander smirked.

She hissed at him, which only made him smile.

‘Come then, let’s get to work, my darling strictly business colleague.’ Xander motioned for her to follow him to one of the tables, where there were variously sized plant pots, as well as a variety of tools and bottles of ingredients: dried herbs, aloe vera gel, essential oils, infused waters.

Bisma had spent most of the night panicking about Deeba’s safety, but the freeze potion had held. Deeba would be safe while they worked on a cure.

At least, that was what she told herself whenever she felt her composure unraveling. She needed to focus on things beyond being worried: the cure, preventing more poisonings, not to mention discovering who was poisoning them.

‘What is all this?’ Bisma asked, lifting a bottle and smelling its contents. She wrinkled her nose— wormwood .

‘I’ve been testing different concoctions,’ he said, quickly paging through a journal. She didn’t focus on or read the exact words, but it was clear he was being very methodical.

‘Oh.’ She was a little impressed, really. Her process was so far from this.

‘You don’t keep notes?’ he asked, intrigued.

‘No, I do,’ she replied, then thought about it. ‘Well … not really.’

This seemed to both deeply alarm and fascinate him. ‘How do you keep track of your mixtures?’

‘I don’t really mix as much,’ she said. ‘I usually rely on my magic when I’m growing the plant, then just supplement it a bit?’

‘And that works?’ he asked, interest lighting his green eyes.

‘It’s kind of like cooking,’ she explained. ‘If you’ve got the main ingredient, like meat, or bread, or cheese, or potato, you don’t need to do much to make it into a meal?’

Her words sounded like nonsense to her, but he hung on to every word.

‘How fascinating!’ he breathed, genuinely interested.

She gave him a curious glance. ‘Why?’

‘As far as I know, most witches don’t operate in that way,’ he told her. ‘Even in Whitebridge, I met a few garden-witches who worked on potions, but most focus on mixing magic rather than growing magic. Going off your analogy, mixing is more like—you can grow wheat, but you still need to alter it a great deal before you can have bread. Whereas with growing, you’ve already got the flour and basically just need to add water and bake, and there you have your bread.’

‘Oh.’ She hadn’t realized there were different subsets of skills in garden-witchery. It really was fascinating. ‘You learned all this in Whitebridge?’

He nodded. ‘And from my mother and grandfather. Their focus was on mixing as well—same as mine. From what I’ve gathered, focusing on growing is rather rare because it’s more difficult.’

‘I’ve never thought of it that much,’ Bisma admitted. ‘I’ve just grown what I’ve needed or wanted.’

‘Yes, but how do you communicate that with your magic, with the soil? To receive the product you desire?’ He was practically buzzing with excitement, and she could tell he had a dozen questions to ask.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, feeling shy. ‘It doesn’t always work. Sometimes it takes me a few tries and modifications, but it’s just something I feel , I suppose. How do your lungs know how much to breathe in and breathe out? Or how does your heart know how long to wait between beats? It just does.’

‘You’re a marvel, Bis,’ Xander said.

She rolled her eyes; he was being superfluous.

‘No, really, I mean it,’ he insisted. ‘The reason growing magic is so rare is precisely what you just said: it’s hard to explain, which makes it even harder to teach. Mixing magic can be learned quite easily; it relies very little on intuition. It’s why most of what I learned was focused on mixing rather than growing.’

‘I hardly know any mixtures, though,’ Bisma said.

‘Well, that’s no problem at all!’ Xander said with a smile. ‘It’s easy to learn.’

Bisma did wish to learn more, she always had, but she’d never had any education or books to study from. Xander had a wealth of knowledge in his family, not to mention his education in Whitebridge, but she had obviously never asked him or Eleanora to teach her.

Perhaps she should have.

‘I’ll teach you all I can about growing magic if you teach me about mixing magic,’ Bisma said, feeling brave.

Xander’s face lit up. ‘Would you really?’

She nodded. ‘Absolutely.’

He was even more excited now; he was practically bouncing like a puppy. ‘Brilliant. That would be brilliant.’

His enthusiasm was infectious, but Bisma guarded herself from it. She would not allow Xander to sneak into her affections; she could not. She was afraid that if he ever did, it would be impossible to be rid of him.

Bisma did not wish to go back to the way things were after discovering Gregory’s true colors, the acute heartbreak she had felt. The nauseating realization that it had all been a lie: every moment they had spent together, every word, every touch. The disappointment had been a heaviness on her chest, infiltrating all her bones, which had been followed with the shame.

She would not open herself up to such a wound again, not when the previous one had been so hard to heal. Even now she felt the scar, the bruised, bumpy skin of it, cutting through the center of her, a jagged welt still tender to the touch.

She would have given Gregory her whole heart, and it would have meant nothing to him; on the contrary, he would probably have complained about what a large, bloody mess it was.

She’d stopped trusting herself after that incident. How could she have not seen it? Was she so easily deluded? So easily fooled? Bisma had always prided herself on her mind, but Gregory had proved that it was not always to be trusted.

But that wasn’t going to happen with Xander.

He was only interested in the cure from an academic standpoint. As for the rest, he was an incorrigible flirt, but as long as he didn’t start to mean anything more to her, she would be fine.

She would stay vigilant; they could work together as colleagues. She had always yearned to know more about her magic, as well, and perhaps this was the only opportunity she would ever have.

It was these thoughts that occupied her mind as she returned home to pick up Deeba, as well as some things from her garden to take to Xander’s. She placed the frozen, sleeping Deeba in a basket, wrapping her in a blanket.

‘Is she going to be alright?’ Mei asked, worried. They were all staring at Bisma as she prepared her things in the garden.

Bisma turned to give them all a reassuring glance. ‘Yes, she will be. I’m working with a very skilled and clever witch to find a cure.’

Xander was not here to witness it, so she could freely admit that he really was very clever.

‘There’s absolutely nothing to worry about, really. In the meantime, just think of Deebs as taking a very long nap,’ Bisma said. ‘Nothing at all to fret over.’

‘At least this means I get a break from changing diapers,’ Azalea joked half-heartedly.

Bisma and Luna exchanged a glance before they both laughed out loud.

‘Azalea, you’re such a little demon sometimes,’ Luna said, shaking her head, but she said it with fondness. Azalea blew her a kiss in response.

‘Oh, we were all thinking it,’ Azalea said, shrugging.

Seeing the older girls laughing, Nori and Mei joined in, their shoulders relaxing.

‘Now back to your chores,’ Bisma said. ‘I’m going to be busy working on this cure, so I need you all to be good and to listen to Luna.’

Azalea groaned.

‘You heard Baj!’ Luna said, grinning wickedly.

The girls dispersed before they could be told what to do, and Bisma pulled Luna aside.

‘I’m sorry we didn’t have the freeze potion for you, Luna,’ she said. If they had, Luna wouldn’t have had to go through the awful bloodletting process. ‘Can you ever forgive me?’

‘Baji, it’s not your fault,’ Luna said, squeezing her hand. ‘I’m just glad you have it now for Deebs, so she won’t have to go through what I did.’ Her hand absentmindedly went to the scars on her arm again, a darkness entering her eyes for a moment. Then Luna shook her head, and Bisma wondered if she imagined it.

‘You’ll find the cure,’ Luna said. ‘I know you will.’

But as Bisma carried Deeba back to Xander’s greenhouse, she couldn’t help but doubt herself, her thoughts racing. She still needed to find out who had done this, and why, but finding the cure was more pressing. She just hoped she’d be able to do everything and that her sisters’ faith in her was not misguided.

Letting herself down was something she could survive.

Letting her sisters down was something she could not.