The Poison Eaters and Other Stories

Corny laughed. “So you're saying the world is cold and bleak, but infinitesimally less bleak with Kaye around? Could you be any more depressing?"



Roiben tilted his head. “And yet, here you are, more miserable than I."



"Funny.” Corny made a face.



"Look, you can make someone appear to love you,” Roiben said as carefully as he had put the jagged piece of broken china on the counter. “By enchantment or more subtle cruelties. You could cripple him such that he would forget that he had other choices."



"That's not what I want,” Corny said.



Roiben smiled. “Are you sure?"



” Are you? Yes, I'm sure,” Corny said hotly. “I just don't want to keep anticipating the worst. If it's going to be over tomorrow, then let it be over right now so I can get on with the pain and disappointment."



"If there is nothing but this,” Roiben said. “If we are to be shadows, changeless and forgotten, we will have to dine on these memories for the rest of our days. Don't you want a few more moments to chew over?"



Corny shivered. “That's horrible. You're supposed to say that I'm wrong."



"I'm only repeating your words.” Roiben brushed silver hair back from his face.



"But you believe them,” said Corny. “You actually think that's what's going to happen with you and Kaye."



Roiben smiled gently. “And you're not the fatalist you pretend. What was it you said? More afraid equals more of a jerk. You're afraid, nothing more."



Corny snorted a little when Roiben said jerk.



” Yeah, I guess,” he said, looking down at the asphalt and the strewn garbage. “But I can't stop being afraid."



"Perhaps, then, you could address the jerk part,” Roiben said. “Or perhaps you could tell Luis, so he could at least try to reassure you."



Corny tilted his head, as if he was seeing Roiben for the first time. “You're afraid, too."



"Am I?” Roiben asked, but there was something in Cornelius's face that he found unnerving. He wondered what Corny thought he was looking at.



"I bet you're afraid you'll start hoping, despite your best intentions,” Corny said. “You're okay with doom and gloom, but I bet it's really scary to think things might work out. I bet it's fucking terrifying to think she might love you the way you love her."



"Mayhaps.” Roiben tried not to let anything show on his face. “Either way, before we go back inside I have a geas to place on you. Something to remind you of why you ought keep secrets secret."



"Oh come on,” said Corny with a groan. “What about our meaningful talk? Aren't we friends now? Don't we get to do each other's nails and overlook each other's small, amusing betrayals?"



Roiben reached out one cold hand. “Afraid not."



Kaye was sitting on the counter of Moon in a Cup, looking annoyed, when Corny and Roiben walked back through the doors. Catching sight of them, her expression went slack with astonishment.



Luis, beside her, choked on a mouthful of hot chocolate and needed to be slapped several times on the back by Val before he recovered himself.



Cornelius's punishment was simple. Roiben had glamoured him to have small bone-pale horns jutting from his temples and had given his skin a light blue sheen. His ears tapered to delicate points. The glamour would last a single month—from one fat, full moon to the next. And when he made coffee, he would have to face all those hopeful faerie seekers.



"I guess I deserve this,” Corny said to no one in particular.



"Why did I even try to save you?” Luis said. Though his friends had gone, he was still there, still patiently waiting. Roiben hoped that Corny noticed that before all else.



Kaye walked toward Roiben. “I bet I know what you've been thinking,” she said, shaking her head. “Bad things."



"Never when you're here,” he told her, but he wasn't sure she heard as her arm wrapped around his waist so she could smother her helpless giggling against his chest. He drank in the warmth of her and tried, for once, to believe this could all last.



The Poison Eaters



I trust that your bonds are not too tight, my son. Please don't struggle. Don't bother. You're soft. All princes are soft, and these cells are built for hardened men.



It is a shame that you never met your grandmother. You are very like with your tempers and your rages. I imagine she would have doted on you. How ironic that Father tried her for being a poisoner. Right now, especially, Paul, I imagine irony is much on your mind.



The morning of her execution she had her attendants dress her all in red and braid her hair with fresh roses. Wine-colored stones cluttered her fingers. There are several paintings of it; she died opulently. It was drizzling. I was to walk her to her tomb. It was something like a wedding processional as she took my arm and we went together, down the steep steps. The place was dark and stank of incense. My mother leaned close to me and whispered that I looked splendid in black. I remember not being able to say anything, only taking her hand and pressing it. Outside, the rain began to fall hard. We heard the shrieks of the assemblage; aristocrats don't like to be wet.



My mother smiled and said, “I bet they wish they were down here where it's dry."



I forced a smile and made myself kiss her cheek and bid her farewell. The masons were waiting at the top of the stairs.



My mother and I were not close, but she was still my mother. I was a dutiful son. I had commanded the cooks to put the sharpest of my hunting knives beneath the food they had prepared for her. I wonder if you would do that for me, Paul. Perhaps you would. After all, it cost me nothing to be kind.



See this cup? A beautiful thing, solid gold, one of the few treasures of our family that remains. It was my father's. He had a cupbearer bring him his wine in it, even as his other guests drank from silver. I have it here beside me, just as you filled it—half with poison and half with cider, so that it will go down easy.



I have a story to tell you. You've always been restless, too busy to hear stories of people long dead and secrets that no longer matter. But now, Paul, bound and gagged as you are, you can hardly object to my telling you a tale:



Sometimes at night the three sisters would sleep in one bed, limbs tangling together. Despite that, they would never get warm. Their lips would stay blue and sometimes one of them would shake or cramp, but they were used to that. Sometimes, in the mornings, when women would bring them their breakfasts, one might touch them by accident and the next day she would be missing. But they were used to that, too. Not that they did not grieve. They often wept. They wept over the mice they would find, stiff and cold, on the stone floor of their chamber; over the hunting dogs that would run to them when they were out walking on the hills, jumping up and then falling down; over the butterfly that once landed on Mirabelle's cheek for a moment, before spiraling to the ground like a bit of paper.



One winter, their father gave them lockets. Each locket had the painting of a boy inside of it. They took turns making up stories about the boys. In one story, Alice's picture, who they'd taken to calling Nicholas, was a knight with a silver arm, questing after a sword cooled from its forge with the blood of sirens. At night, the sword became a siren with hair as black as ink and Nicholas fell in love with her. At this point the story stopped because Alice stormed off, annoyed that Cecily had made up a story where the boy from her locket fell in love with someone else.



Each day they would eat a salad of what looked like flowering parsley. Afterwards, their hands would tremble and they would become so cold that they had to sit close to the fire and scorch themselves. Sometimes their father came in and watched them eat, but he was careful to never touch them. Instead, he would read them prayers or lecture on the dangers of sloth and the importance of needlework. Occasionally, he would have one of them read from Homer.



Summer was their favorite time. The sun would warm their sluggish blood and they would lie out in the garden like snakes. It was on one of those jaunts that the blacksmith's apprentice first spotted Alice. He started coming around a lot after that, reading his weepy poetry and trying to get her to pay him attention. Before long, Alice was always crying. She wanted to go to him, but she dared not.



"He's not the boy in your locket,” Mirabelle said.



"Don't be stupid.” Alice wiped her reddened eyes. “Do you think that we're supposed to marry them and be their wives? Do you think that's why we have those lockets?"



Cecily had been about to say something and stopped. She'd always thought the boys in the lockets would be theirs someday, but she did not want to say so now, in case Alice called her stupid too.



"Imagine any of us married. What would happen then, sisters? We are merely knives in the process of being sharpened."



"Why would Father do that?” Cecily demanded.



"Father?” Alice demanded. “Do you really think he's your father? Or mine? Look at us. How could you, Mirabelle, be short and fair while Cecily is tall and dark? How could I have breasts like melons, while hers are barely currants? How could we all be so close in age? We three are no more sisters than he is our father."



Mirabelle began to weep. They went to bed that night in silence, but when they awoke, Mirabelle would no longer eat. She spit out her bitter greens, even when she became tired and languid. Cecily begged her to take something, telling her that they were sisters no matter what.



"Different mothers could explain our looks,” Alice said, but she did not sound convinced and Mirabelle would not be comforted.



Their father tried to force Mirabelle to eat, but she pushed food into her cheek only to spit it out again when he was gone. She got thinner and more wan, her body shriveling, but she did not die. She faded into a thin wispy thing, as ephemeral as smoke.



"What does it mean?” Cecily asked.



"It means she shouldn't be so foolish,” said their father. He tried to tempt her with a frond of bitter herb in a gloved hand, but she was so insubstantial that she passed through him without causing harm and drifted out to the gardens.