Page 27 of Hemlock & Silver

The only time that Snow showed any emotion was when I reached into a drawer and drew out a small silver case, perhaps three inches long. Tarnish had blackened the deeper grooves of a floral pattern, but the edge by the clasp, where your thumb would rub, was worn smooth.

Snow moved then, just a little, as if she had started to rise, then thought better of it. I flicked open the case and found a miniature portrait of a woman inside.

She had a heart-shaped face and hair a shade darker than Snow’s. Her eyes were large and gazed at the viewer with disconcerting openness. You could read loneliness in that gaze, but hope curled under it, as if she wished very much for a friend.

“My mother,” said Snow. It was the first time that she’d spoken aloud since the process began.

I could see the resemblance. The same shape to the mouth, the same fragile prettiness. I don’t know why it surprised me that Snow would have kept a portrait. It certainly didn’t surprise me that she’d kept it out of sight.

What did you say at a time like that? What could you say?

“She was very beautiful,” I said at last.

Snow’s smile slipped. “Yes,” she said solemnly. Her eyes were old for a moment, as old as the women pouring ashes into spirit houses, as if she were mourning the loss of a daughter, not a mother. “Yes, she was.”

I nodded and closed the case, returning it carefully to its drawer. By the time I finished turning the rooms upside down, Snow’s smiling mask was back in place and she was only twelve again.

I took the pile of samples I’d gathered down to the workshop, but I was already fairly sure that there was nothing in them that would bring me any closer to learning how the king’s daughter was being poisoned.

The last day passed. I went to bed that night, hoping for an epiphany in my sleep. The ancient philosopher Krathos is said to have dreamed of dividing a bar of bronze and a bar of lead into smaller and smaller pieces, and woke to invent the theory of elemental atoms and molecules.

All I woke up with was a headache.

I stared at the bed-curtain for a few minutes, dread knotting tighter and tighter in my stomach, then sighed, got to my feet, and washed my face. The woman in the mirror had dark circles under her eyes, but otherwise looked remarkably well for someone who felt like I did.

I took five minutes to cover the dark circles with a little makeup, not because I am particularly vain, but because it felt like putting on armor before going to face the enemy.

Not that the king was my enemy. Actually, I rather liked him. He just happened to have the power to break my family without even thinking about it.

When I found him, he was sitting behind a desk, reading papers.

Reports, I assume. Being a king probably means you read a lot of reports.

(Though it was hard to imagine Bastian the Demon doing that.

Had he really cared about how many bushels of grain were being produced in any given province?

Maybe he’d had Lady Sorrel read them instead.)

The king looked up. Hope flickered across his face, there and gone, like a lizard on a fence post. My heart sank.

I had stayed up until the small hours of the night, trying to find something—anything—but no amount of careful heating or added reagents had turned up anything useful.

One of the fabric swatches had yielded the tiniest bit of precipitate, probably indicating a trace of arsenic in the dye, but unless she wore it soaking wet against her skin every day for six months, I didn’t see how it could be the cause.

I’d tell Nurse to remove it anyway, just in case.

My expression must have told him everything, because the flicker of hope faded. I winced internally. This man held his younger daughter’s body in his arms, and now I have to tell him that I’m no closer to curing the older one.

I squared my shoulders. Nothing would be gained by dithering. “I know you’re riding out today,” I said, “and I wanted to update you on my findings, Your Majesty.”

He inclined his head. “And what have you found?”

“Not nearly as much as I’d like,” I admitted. “I’ve tested everything I can think of… clothes, food, lotions… even the soap. I’m about to start in on the spices, although I can’t figure out how that would affect only her and no one else at Witherleaf.”

The king nodded. “Do you think it is poison, then?”

I knew I should be calm and reassuring and professional, but what I actually said was “Hell if I know.” I stared at one of the walls, registering that it had been tiled to waist height in a shade of blue that was probably meant to be restful.

I did not feel restful, and I had my doubts that the king did either.

“Will you keep trying, then?”

I jerked my eyes away from the wall to the king’s face. I could read nothing in his expression. We might as well have been talking about bushels of grain.

If I said no, I could go home.

If I said no, I’d be the woman who had failed the king’s daughter.

And if I say yes, I’ll probably be the woman who failed the king’s daughter a month from now.

She wasn’t going to die immediately. If I left now, she might go on for quite a long time. Long enough, maybe, for me to fade from memory. Most of the courtiers thought I was either a tutor or a mistress anyway.

It would be sensible to go home. I could tell the king that if it was poison, it was nothing I recognized, and I could suggest that he get an expert to treat Snow.

(I was an expert, mind you, and I’d put myself against any physician in Four Saints on the subject of poisons, but I would happily swallow my pride if it meant fewer repercussions for my family.)

Which is why I was very surprised to hear myself say, “I’ll keep trying. I feel like it must be something, but I can’t put my finger on it.” I snorted. “I’ll be honest, it may just be injured pride that I can’t figure it out, but I need more time to work on it.”

I had forgotten for a moment that I was speaking to a king. How long had it been since I’d added a Your Majesty ? But he smiled, brief and genuine, and said, “Thank you for not giving up.”

I wanted to say that there were no guarantees, but he knew that already. Instead I gave him an awkward curtsy, said, “Travel safe, Your Majesty,” and fled.

You absolute numbskull, you could have gone home. This is probably only going to make your eventual failure worse.

“I know, I know,” I muttered to myself, startling a glance from a passing servant. “I know.”

I still had no proof at all that it was poison. It could still have been some illness that the physicians didn’t understand. When had I become convinced that there was an actual cause and that it was something that I could find?

I had nothing. I had tested everything but the walls. And yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something important.

And I’ll bet gold dust against sand grains that Snow knows exactly what it is.

The thought startled me. I’ve never liked physicians who blame the patient for their illness. It’s probably why I work so hard on the lotus addicts. But once the thought had crystallized, I couldn’t ignore it.

Something strange was going on in Witherleaf, and it centered around Snow. And Saints help me, if I didn’t figure out what it was, curiosity was going to eat me alive.