Page 29 of Potion of Deception (Potion of Deception #1)

SPECIAL CHARMS

T hey stopped by the wooden bridge over a narrow fast river. Violette raised her eyes to the stars, the clear sky made her heart flutter. The moon illuminated the river's waters as Dante unrolled the scroll.

A warm glow radiated from the paper written in gold ink:

Violette looked over to read the message. She couldn't say if the paper was enchanted or it was just a regular sheet with a clue.

“I see she definitely loved riddles,” she pointed out.

“Oh, yes,” Dante sighed, “she'd loved to make life difficult, especially to others.”

“Why do we follow her riddles? What if they lead to nothing?” She finally risked asking the question that couldn't leave her head. “It can be possibly just a trick to distract us and lead us in the wrong direction.”

“Of course it's a trick,” Dante said with a placid and faint smile, which made Violette raise her brows in surprise. “But even tricks have something that can help, Little Witch. I'd never trust someone like her but it can lead to what I want to find.”

“This doesn't make sense,” she retorted.

“You just had never met her. Luckily for you.”

Violette looked at the piece of paper again, her eyes plunged lower to a small black inked picture of two flowers in the corner.

“This looks like a hand drawing, not a stamp,” she noted, pointing at the drawing.

Dante slowly switched his gaze to the place her finger showed.

Violette’s forehead creased. “It looks like a lilac and a lupine. Does it tell you something?”

He shot her side-glance. “Only that it's flowers.”

“Maybe you could see it somewhere?” she suggested. “Maybe it's a signature? It has to mean something.”

“It can be. She had a favorite spot in her garden full of blue and purple flowers, perhaps there could be lupines and lilacs,” he said thoughtlessly. “Can't say for sure.”

“You said she was a witch, right? Could she make potions?”

“No, I don't think so. But she was making magic powders.”

Violette got deep into her mind. Tinctures, potions and powders, although requiring different skills, sometimes were prepared from the same ingredients.

“I don't know that much about powders as about potions but I know lilacs are not toxic flowers and never used in poisons. In the magic world we call them midnight flowers because they symbolize spirituality, believing that night is the best time for brewing potions.” She tipped her head towards the sky, processing her thoughts.

“Midnight flowers are usually used in sleep powders and spells, as well as in cures for memory loss and to fight nightmares.

And the lilac is a symbol of memory so I'd connect it to a powder of memory, an old and kind of rare spell.” Her head lowered, her index finger touched her chin.

“Maybe the answer we're looking for is in her memories? Could she leave a message for us in one of her reminiscences?”

Dante was deep in thought for a short time, pondering over her words.

“You think she could leave a piece of her memory?” His shoulders got tense.

“Yes!” Violette actively nodded. “Some magicians can save their memory for centuries to convey a message to their followers, to teach them or warn them about something.”

Dante looked at the piece of paper once more, his eyes fixed on another flower – lupine .

“No,” he said with a low voice, not taking his eyes off the little drawing. “It's not from her memory.” A sudden realization cleared his mind. “It's from mine. I know where to go.”

Dante rolled up the scroll in a second and stalked forward.

“Wait!” His words caught Violette off guard. “Where do we go? ”

“It's a place from my past,” he let out shortly as she aligned with him, moving further out of the river.

“What exactly?” She crossed his path, forcing him to stop.

His stone face looked right onto her. “I'd rather not have a conversation about it.”

“And again, you're keeping secrets. I thought we were past it.”

“It's not a secret.” An earnestness flickered in his eyes. “I just don't want to speak about it,” he said as he walked past, leaving her behind.

A white alcove with cracked columns stood lonely among the thickets of various flowers and plants which could only blossom in the winter.

Climbing vines of wild ivy entwined the structure from below to the roof, thick clumps of leaves hanging from above the bare bushes of the lilac.

It looked sad and fallen. A neglected garden.

“This place saw better days,” Violette mumbled.

The place of borrowed sorrow, the words rang through her mind.

She could see anguish and dying in this place, not because of the ruins of stones but because this place reminded her of something that once was great and was making people happy, whoever was spending time here.

But now all this is just wreckage of the past covered in dust and forever mourning. Desolate and forgotten.

“What are you looking for? ”

“I hope I am not mistaken,” Dante breathed as his hand reached the spot under the marble bench through the tangled thickets of ivy. A little beige box made of wood appeared under its shadow. A little symbol of lupine decorated the case, the same as on the scroll from the lake.

“How did you know?” Violette's lashes flitted.

“I remembered I saw it before. Long time ago,” he said. Violette felt a tone of grief in his voice, the longing in his gaze as it fixated on the wooden surface.

He reached for a little lock and opened the box – nothing except a little crystalline bottle with a silver dust in it.

Dante took the bottle out.

“Do you know what it is?” The question fell from his lips as his eyes were studying the little vial.

“I am not sure,” Violette looked closely and then took it from his hand. “A lot of potions and powders share the same color. Sometimes toxic potions can look exactly like the regular potion for better eyesight.”

“Is there any way to know what exactly it is?”

“Well…” she started uncertainly. “Sometimes you can smell some of the ingredients, especially flowers or berries, or blood.

But it's not really safe – there's poisons which can function through the smell, one sniff and you are dead.” She tilted her head to the side, her eyes twinkled to Da nte.

“Anyway, it's not really effective, you won't get every ingredient for sure and you can confuse one of the smells with another one, depending how much of a master you are.”

“Another way?”

“It's a difficult one, with the right spell and tools it's possible to find out the key ingredients, but it's not an easy spell.”

“Can you do this?” the vampire inquired.

“Even if I could, it's hard to get tools for it and the ingredients for the spell. It's not an option, if you want to do it quickly,” she sighed.

“Do you know which powders can look like this one?”

“Hm…” Violette lightly shook the bottle.

The dust, despite being silver, had a blue undertone and darker sparkles, and it awakened some thoughts in her mind.

“Like I said I don't know a lot about powders, but it could be sleeping powder…or vanishing fog. It also looks like–Oh wait!” Amusement filled her voice.

“It can be a memory powder, remember I told you earlier?”

Dante drew a deep sigh.

“Maybe, after all, it's still about her memories,” she implied with pride.

“Or,” Dante snatched the bottle out of her hand. “You are simply wrong.” His voice sounded bitter, almost acrid which made Violette flinch back.

She wondered since their first conversation about the witch’s memories, why Dante was so against this theory?

What does he hide? However, he was always hiding something…

What if in these memories she'll see Dante from a bad side?

Not like he was a good person, but what if she'll see what he had done to the witch that made her put the mask on him?

Could it be a reason? Or there was something else, something that he didn't want to see himself?

He said he doesn't want to talk about it, now Violette started to think the core of the problem was not her being nosy but perhaps, him not wanting to dredge up the past.

Dante put the vial back in the box. His gaze turned sullen, eyes dimmed as if they were not dark enough before. And she would not have disturbed him, but one question remained unresolved.

“What are we gonna do now?”

Dante kept his eyes on the box.

“I don't know,” he said honestly. “I have to think about it. Let's go find a place to stay if you don't want to freeze.”

Violette stared at his back as he was drifting away. She saw him like this for the first time, perhaps he still felt cold and arrogant, but she'd never seen him… sad . With that, she clutched the box he gave her, closer.

They didn't talk for some time, Violette even held the distance and was treading behind.

Her eyes were scrutinising the box case – it was very simple, she'd never have thought it could belong to the same witch from the crypt with jewelry and crystal boxes.

Her eyes studied the slightly cracked surface and colorful drawing of lupin flowers on it.

Then she opened the box – a bottle with magic powder rolled upon the bottom along with her steps.

She raised her eyes just a little bit and found a line in cursive on the inside of the case:

Violette stopped.

“Dante,” she called out, “there's something.”

He crept up on her practically unnoticed. Towering over, his eyes scanned the inscription.

“Did you see this before?” she asked.

A simple answer left his mouth, “No.”

“Could it be left on purpose?” The question slipped from her lips as she turned her face to the vampire, not noticing how close he was until her breath brushed his neck.

He mysteriously tilted his head to the side, occupied with thoughts.