Page 97 of Taste of Thorns

I sniff and wipe away the tears with the back of my hand.

This isn’t the same as Stanley. That boy was my only friend back in Slate. For a brief moment in time, he made me feel special and wanted, cherished even in a world where nobody seemed to care about me at all. Then he had that stupid growth spurt. He beefed up and people started noticing him. I, all of a sudden, was not good enough for Stanley Chandlers – not the girl with a drunk father and a permanent black eye.

I could have coped with it, if that is all it had been – ghosting me, ignoring me, pretending I didn’t exist. But he had to punish me too, didn’t he? Like he was angry at me for something I’ll never understand. So he’d find me alone and use the opportunity to take out all his frustrations with his fists. Just like Muriel. Someone else’s punching bag.

Beaufort Lincoln isn’t Stanley Chandlers, I tell myself over and over again. I’m not sure he’s a good man exactly but for a moment in time I trusted him.

The question is, am I right to trust him now?

Chapter Thirty-Five

Beaufort

I drag Henrietta into a small side room, one used by the Lords and Ladies of the court for games of cards. I flick on a side lamp and secure the door shut. Then I point to one of the chairs set around the nearest card table and Henny sits.

“What exactly is it that you want to know?” she asks.

“You know what I want to know. Who the hell were you and Kratos meeting out there on the academy moorland in the middle of the fucking night? And why?”

“The Black Worm,” she says, picking up a discarded pack of cards from the table and beginning to shuffle through them.

“I don’t know that name. Is it a code name?”

“I assume so. I assume he doesn’t want us to know his real name.”

“Do you know who he really is?”

She shakes her head. “No clue at all.” She lays the cards out face down in front of her and starts to flip them over one at a time.

“Why not?”

“I’ve had no motivation to find out.”

That doesn’t ring true to me. Henny is clever. She’d want to know who she was dealing with.

“Henrietta,” I growl, and she looks up at me expectantly at the note of warning in my voice. “Tell the truth.”

“I happen to be, Beaufort. I have no idea who the man is. I only know him by that name.”

“But he is a shadow weaver?”

She nods. “I’d never met him or seen him before until recently. He’s not from here.” She sweeps her hand across the room. “He doesn’t move in our circles.”

“And why were you meeting with him now?”

A sly smile spreads across her mouth, one that makes me uncomfortable. “He supplies me with Dream Rot.”

I stare at her in disbelief. My mouth drops open. “Henny, no,” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. She’s lying to me. She must be. “Why the hell would you touch that stuff?”

“You know why, Beau.”

“You’re powerful enough. You don’t need it.”

“Oh, but I do,” she says, as she flips over the ace of spades, her eyes ablaze, “it’s all I can think about.”

“Shit,” I say, combing my hand through my hair, pacing to the door and back again. I can’t believe this is true. Henrietta has always been unpredictable and erratic. But she wouldn’t be stupid enough to take Dream Rot. It’s a highly illicit substance. A highly dangerous one. A substance said to enhance a shadow weaver’s powers tenfold, but a substance that leaves the user at its mercy, completely and utterly dependent.

The Empress has banished more than one shadow weaver who was discovered to be using the stuff.