Page 22 of Faerie Fate (Fae Academy for Halflings #7)

Poppy gave me her back and tossed a handful of lavender into the fire in the same movement. The flames flared bright pink for half a second before returning to their normal colors.

“You think I’d go around using my real name? I’ve got business with people who don’t need to know what I can see,” she explained in short terms. “When the gift strikes, I assume another name, and then I go back into hiding. Can’t trust people. Can’t trust anyone.”

Very clearly, she couldn’t trust me, either. I’d just said the wrong thing. She’d drawn an invisible shield around herself.

“Okay, well, maybe it’s not me,” I replied. “I still need help. Your help. The curse will kill me if I don’t get the flower.”

“I want to do a truth spell on you. To make sure you’re not an enemy.” Poppy already had a new bottle in hand. “It won’t hurt.”

Mistrust boiled behind her eyes. I knew the feeling. I greeted it like a long lost sibling.

Poppy looked and sounded so unapologetic I admired her strength. She’d gone from hesitantly helpful to shut-off in the blink of an eye.

“Sure,” I replied through thin lips. “I have nothing to lose.”

The salve had hardened on my wrist and neck, and the lack of pain granted me more freedom of movement. I stood, kicking the stool slightly away. If she wanted to go through with a truth spell, then I’d rather stand for it.

Put us on slightly equal footing rather than her looming over me like a praying mantis.

Poppy met my gaze and tossed the vial of clear liquid into the cauldron, glass and all. It landed with a plink and a puff of smoke as she conjured a clutch of herbs out of thin air. Easily.

“We’ll need a little bit of black ash to bind it together.” She shook her head and turned to her stores, her hands going to her hips. “And I think some clear quartz and lapis lazuli. Already got amethyst in there. Mugwort.”

She conjured the ingredients out of thin air, stopping only long enough to glare at me over her shoulder.

“It would be better done on a waxing moon but I suppose this will have to do.”

Taking a chance, I glared right back at her. “Unless you think your power isn’t strong enough to get the job done without the moon in the right phase.”

“Primrose and thyme,” she snapped in response.

Poppy conjured and completed the potion, tossing each new ingredient haphazardly into the simmering cauldron. I swear, if I didn’t know any better?—

The way she worked reminded me of Barbara throwing together the potion for my glamour, to hide my shifter side from the professors at the academy.

I brushed the comparison aside. All witch magic was the same.

Poppy scooped a bit of the potion into a new vial and thrust it underneath my nose. “Drink.”

My anger wasn’t close to being spent but I did as she asked, daring to meet her eyes.

It wasn’t half bad. The liquid had taken on the slightly bluish hue of some tea I’d seen made with butterfly pea flower and it smelled like peppermint and a spring breeze. It slid a little viscously down my throat, settling low in my stomach.

“Who are you?” Poppy began.

The barriers around my mind and tongue both softened.

“Tavi Alderidge.” I answered her without hesitation. “Well, Octavia, but no one calls me that. Ever.”

“What are you doing in this place and time?”

Poppy stood at least a foot away from me, close enough to touch but far enough to keep me pinned in her sights.

“Mike can manipulate time. It’s his innate power. He brought me back to find a witch who can break the blood curse. We needed this time because the flower we seek is extinct in our time.”

The words flowed out of me but it felt right to tell her. The last dregs of my hesitation melted away with the infusion of the potion.

I stared at her ambivalently, waiting for her to rapid-fire more questions at me.

Although her gaze remained narrowed, her brows drawn down, her expression barely changed. “What flower?”

“According to the witch in my time, it’s the morsana.”

Poppy smirked and asked, “Why didn’t you get your witch to break your blood curse, then?”

“Because she died.”

The admittance gave me no satisfaction, nor did Poppy’s widened lips at her surprise.

“Fine,” she said at last. “I’m appeased. You seem to be telling the truth.”

Even that wasn’t enough to change the blanket of neutrality covering my senses. I looked her dead in the eye and took her hand. “Do I know you?”

Poppy was clearly confused. “What do you mean?”

“You’re familiar. The way you talk, the way you act. Even the way you brew your potions. I feel like I know you.”

She adjusted her grip on my hand to link our fingers together, almost angrily. “That can be easily ascertained, girl.”

Why she’d be pissed at me I wasn’t sure. Poppy sent a wave of her magic outward, connecting us. Her consciousness became a slight brush against mine as though she and her spell were requesting permission to look into my head.

Under the influence of the truth potion, I let her in. I opened the door for her scrutiny whether it was the smart thing to do or not. Right now, with my emotions out of the way, I had no logical reason to stop her from seeing everything.

Her magic was a breeze through my memories rather than the battering ram it might have been. No time passed before Poppy saw Barbara in my memories.

The first time I’d met her, with a cigarette dangling from her thin lips.

The way I’d seen her the last time, on the chopping block.

Floored, Poppy withdrew from my head and dropped my hand. “That’s me,” she whispered. “Three hundred years from now.”