Page 36 of The Poisoned King (Impossible Creatures #2)

The Possibility of an Antidote

Jacques led Anya to the kitchen, where Christopher was bent over the book, a bowl at his side.

“Christopher,” said Anya. “Jacques called me.”

“ Summoned you,” said Jacques. “The verb is always summoned , when it’s a dragon.”

“Jacques just read the antidote for us. It’s possible, I think.”

“There are details here,” said Jacques. “About when to take it, and how, and what happens. It says that it has never been tried on a human.”

“Later,” said Christopher. “We’re giving it to dragons, not humans. Read the antidote again, Jacques?”

Jacques squinted at the book. He read, “ As the poison is made with foul substance, so the antidote is made with equal and opposite light. This is a list of herbs and plants, I believe—four ferenleaf, a sunsetflower, three sprigs of rue.”

“Ratwin, do these grow here?” said Christopher.

“They does. They grows so many and so vigorouses that the sunsetflower grew as tall as the sun itself.” She nodded. “It caught fire.”

“As tall as the sun,” said Christopher. “Seriously, Ratwin?”

“Obviously no, Christopher. Buts they does grow here, yes.”

“Could you find them for us?”

“With eases and pleasures.”

“It says, One somulent leaf, picked at the midnight hour, ” said Jacques.

“So we’ll have to do that tonight,” said Christopher.

“And then, One feather of a wise bird; cousin of air. ”

“A wise bird,” said Christopher. “A phoenix, maybe?”

Koo gave a puff to his already puffball chest and croaked out, “Me!”

But Gallia nipped her beak at him. “I shall provide,” she said. She ducked her beak to her side, plucked a black feather, and laid it in the bowl.

“ Six scales of a dragon: dragon to save dragon. That is easy,” said Jacques. He spread his wing and bit and scraped a powder of his scales into the bowl. It clearly hurt him; he said nothing.

“Ten strands of kanko fur: the essence of luck. ” That was easy enough, for the kankos followed Christopher everywhere he went, and one was found perched in a corner. It allowed itself to be snipped, five hairs along each tail.

“Water to cleanse: an ounce of seawater, two ounces of river water, three ounces of rainwater.” The first two were easy, and Anya ran out of the palace, across the lawn, to the lagoon and to the river.

Rainwater was harder—it had not rained for days—until Irian remembered the watering trough for the unicorn in the rose garden.

“This will have rainwater in it,” she said.

Ratwin returned with herbs in her mouth. “I chewed them a little,” she said, “to release the goodness. They was disgustingtons.”

Jacques screwed up his tiny eyes, standing atop the book. “And this is the final piece: A poison devised by mankind must be annulled by mankind. The blood of a human ”—and he squinted—“ innocent of heart .”

Nighthand snorted. “Who’s got an innocent heart these days? In this economy?”

“Anya,” said Ratwin, “you are youngest. Puts that knife tip in your thumb.”

Anya reared backward. “I’m not that. Not…innocent.”

“Are you not?” said old Gallia. She looked at Anya with a glance of such love that Anya could hardly stand upright under it. Perhaps it was the palace, in its strangeness and beauty; perhaps it was Christopher’s waiting face; whatever it was, Anya let herself tell the truth.

“I think of murder, every day. I want Claude dead. I want him to suffer. I want him to beg me for mercy, and I want to kill him. You don’t understand—it haunts me.

” Her voice rose, quicker. “It’s got into my bones.

It’s never leaving. The hatred. I don’t know what to do with it.

” And now she had failed the antidote too.

“Ah,” said Gallia, and she looked hard at her charge. “I do not believe in the existence of an innocent heart. Not beyond the very youngest of children. Innocent is not the same thing as good , or true , or faithful , or generous .”

Jacques cleared his throat. “It occurs to me that the word eroth — —has multiple meanings. Blood of a human innocent of heart —or blood of a human brave of spirit .”

Koo looked up at Anya. “You,” he said. His adoration of her was extreme, but about this he was not wrong. He stretched up and pecked at Anya’s finger. Her blood ran into the bowl.

Gallia flew at Christopher and pecked at his hand until it also bled. “You too,” she said. “Do it. Add your heart to the bowl.”

They ground the mixture into a wet paste. It turned first blood-red, then red-brown, and settled on deep green.

“How will we know if it works?” said Anya.

“We won’t,” said Christopher. “For all we know, it could be a second poison. The first time we try will be an experiment.”

They did not know, then, that the experiment would come very soon.