Foxglove Page 10

  She pulled the gland out and gagged as it jiggled in her hand. “Can’t you do this?”

  “Magic requires a personal connection,” Maeve said. “Your participation is not optional. Now, put the venom in the pot.”

  Maddie complied, draining the contents of the sack into a bowl, which she carried over to the so-called pot. Maeve was the queen of understatement. It was a cauldron, pure and simple. Solid iron, it came up to Maddie’s waist and probably weighed a thousand pounds.

  Maddie tipped the bowl into the cauldron, picked up a long wooden spoon, and stirred. She’d already added more than a dozen ingredients: robin’s egg yolk, ground locust antennae, live beetles the size of baseballs, vinegar, fermented apples, rat intestines, and what must have been 30 gallons of beef tallow. According to Maeve, fat was a better conduit for mingling the ingredients than water. The liquid smelled like death warmed over.

  Nevertheless, a thrill had crept into the back of Maddie’s mind, as though she were tip-toeing closer to something she’d been missing all her life. She was doing magic. Real magic. Fear and excitement hung in the air like electricity, and goosebumps raced across her skin.

  A thin layer of luminescent slime coated the walls of Maeve’s lair beneath the palace, filling the room with a sickly green light. Bare wood, dripping with sticky sap, formed the walls, split and broken by deep fissures that plunged into even deeper darkness. Three low tables, polished black with mineral oil, squatted around the cauldron in the center of the room.

  Maeve leaned over the bubbling brew and drew in a long breath through her nose. She exhaled with satisfaction. “Mmm, almost done.”

  Maddie grimaced. “That’s really messed up. You know that, right?”

  Maeve chuckled as she reached her arm into one of the shadowy cracks along the wall. “You will have to do more than smell it before we are finished,” she said, fetching out the next ingredient.

  Maddie glanced back at the cauldron. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “One preparation, one spell,” Maeve replied, returning with a glass jar filled with yellow jelly. “The mixture will mingle with your humours and allow the magic to do its work, forming the connection between you and the world around you.”

  “And we’re making this much because…?”

  Maeve upturned the jar into the cauldron. The jelly hissed and popped as it dissolved into the mixture.

  “It is a very special spell,” she said.

  Maddie had to admit, she should have known this would be the way faerie magic worked. Wizards had spell books. Magicians had magic words. Witches had brews.

  She began to wipe her fingers off on her dress, another hand-me-down from Theresa, when Maeve reached out and smacked her hand.

  “Do not wash,” she said. “It stifles the magic.”

  Maddie sneered down at the goop on her hands and then looked back at the cauldron. Steam rose from its oily surface and saturated her nostrils, coating her throat like spoiled milk. Her excitement about performing magic was dwindling rapidly.

  “What next?” she asked.

  Maeve glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 11:50.

  “The spell is ready,” she answered. “And it is almost time. Remove your clothing.”

  Maddie blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Trust,” Maeve said, moving to the nearest table.

  Maddie grumbled and got out of her clothes. She stood by the cauldron, nude. Maeve returned carrying the same long, stone knife Maddie had seen in the queen’s apartment.

  “This is for you,” she said, holding it out. “Never let anyone borrow it. A witch’s blood creates the final link between herself and the magic, but you must never mingle your own humours with those of another. What we take into ourselves, we take in forever. Do you understand?”

  Maddie took the knife. The heavy, triangular blade was chipped to a razor edge along its entire length, and a purple braid wound around the handle. Her initials were carved into the pommel.

  “You couldn’t have made this just now,” Maddie said. “How did you know I would need it?”

  “I began to suspect the moment you arrived,” Maeve answered. “No ordinary human could have survived your wound. Understand this: the practice of magic lies in the understanding of connection, but the true power of a practitioner is a matter of perspective. Our powers link us to the forces of nature: to the animals, to the trees, to the wind and the fire, to the past, and even to the future.”

  Maddie looked up. “The future?”

  “It occurs rarely,” Maeve said. “And we never know how our premonitions will manifest themselves when their time arrives. Did you ever wonder why Gwynedd was waiting for you in the woods? Or why our wardens happened to be near enough to save you?”

  “I guess I just figured I was lucky,” Maddie said.

  Maeve took the knife and set the edge against Maddie’s palm. “Luck had very little to do with it. There is a reason you came to the Veil, Madeline Foster, and there remains a chance that, from the moment you arrived, you were never destined to return.”

  Maddie’s mouth fell open. “What does that mean?”

  “Very soon, you will see.”

  The clock struck midnight.

  “It is time,” Maeve said. “Make a cut across your palm, deep.”

  Maddie felt a pressure building in her chest, as though something deep inside her was straining to get out. It pressed against her soul, eagerly tossing aside her fear and confusion. She struggled to slow her breath as hot anticipation flowed like liquid fire in her blood.

  “I have to do this,” she said.

  “Yes,” Maeve answered. “You do.”

  Maddie took a deep breath, counted to three in her head, and tugged.

  The blade cut deep. Maddie let out a yelp and almost dropped the knife as her hand clamped into a fist against the pain. Blood filled her closed palm until it flowed over her fingers and dripped down into the cauldron. The potion burst into flame.

  Maddie gasped and jumped back. The fire flashed and swirled up, stirring into the air, a curl of green light mingled with black. The mixture in the cauldron churned, frothing as the blaze consumed it in a surge of thick, black smoke. The fumes smelled of disease and rancid fat, but there was a sweet, metallic thread running through them that tickled Maddie’s nostrils. Somewhere, deep in the most primitive corners of her mind, a terrible instinct rumbled awake. Her mouth began to water even as her conscious mind recoiled from the sight.

  The brew settled into a thick, black broth that stank like a swamp. A rainbow of colors played across its surface like motor oil on pavement. Maeve produced a tall clay cup from her robes and dipped it in the liquid, filling the vessel to the brim.

  “Drink,” she said, holding it out.

  For the briefest flicker of an instant, Maddie hesitated, remembering Maeve’s warning. What we take in, we take in forever. If she was right, the magic would never leave her.

  Maeve pulled the cup back. “You must be certain. It is not too late to turn back.”

  Maddie wiped the knife off against her thigh and set it aside. She took the cup and held it to her lips. They said she might not be human.

  It was a hell of a thing to be unsure about.

  Maddie tipped the foul liquid into her mouth. The smell climbed into her nostrils and slithered down her throat like an over-sized, wriggling eel. Maddie forced down every last drop before, heaving for breath, she let the cup slip out of her hands. It broke on the floor.

  Maddie shuddered as she stared at the shattered fragments. “God, that’s awful,” she said, resisting the urge to throw up. “What now?”

  “You will feel it in a moment,” Maeve answered, stepping back.

  Maddie leaned against the cauldron. “Feel wha—?” A sound like the beat of a huge drum exploded in her skull.

  Allsight

  Maddie doubled over, choking as the room went black. A burning pressure built up inside her eyes as the potion churned in her gu
t and pushed out into her body. She clutched her stomach with one hand; with the other she grasped the edge of the cauldron, struggling to stand. Her vision swam as the black ooze burned through her insides, and staring down at her hands, she looked on in horror as her veins turned black.

  “Maeve!” she shouted, stumbling to the table.

  Her mistress’s voice sounded far away. “Do not fear. The magic is reaching out to you. Embrace it.”

  Maddie leaned over the table and wretched. Black smoke billowed up from her throat, spilling out like hot foam, carrying with it a strange mix of bittersweet odors. Maddie clawed at the stone surface, screaming as the fog spewed from her mouth. The taste of charcoal and raw meat coated her tongue.

  Thoughts of bile and blood flooded her thoughts and she swallowed, searching not for breath, but for more of the potion. Need dug into her mouth as she lurched to the cauldron and leaned over the edge, every nerve in her body tingling with desperation as sensation crawled down her stomach and tightened in her loins. Her knees buckled. She could feel the humours filling her legs and arms until even her fingertips felt alive. The magic wrapped around her body from the inside. Her pupils dilated as she sucked in a deep and willful breath.

  Maeve’s voice whispered in her ear. “Do you feel it?”

  “Yes,” Maddie gasped.

  She felt her body lift up and fall. She plunged into the cauldron. The black liquid slithered into her head, and her thoughts dissolved. Maddie opened her mouth and drank deep, and when she could drink no more, she breathed the potion in, allowing the dread power to fill her lungs as thoughts and feelings of every stone and creature all across the world joined in harmony at the center of her mind.

  And for an instant, Maddie Foster was gone.

  The world snapped back into focus and she shrieked, lurching out of the cauldron, a mass of black sludge and beading sweat. She rolled onto the floor and lay on her back.

  “What was that?” Maddie said, raking in a breath.

  Her mistress answered, standing over her. “You.”

  Maddie sat up. Something was different. A dark curtain had fallen over her eyes. She could barely see through it, and yet what she perceived was clearer than ever before. Her whole perception shifted and wove around the room, flitting from object to object like a moth drawn to too many candles. She was the chair, then the fire, then the strange ingredients in their jars and boxes, stuffed in the cracks around the room. For a moment, she even felt like she was staring out of Maeve’s eyes, looking back at herself. Maddie saw her, skin draped with a dense lace of blackened veins, her eyes as hollow as beads of polished ebony.

  I knew I was right. I wonder how much she has already understood.

  Maddie blinked. The thoughts were not her own, but Maeve’s consciousness was all around her as she tried to understand. How much had she understood about what?

  She is the Foxglove. It has come back.

  “Stop that, please,” Maeve said, flinching. She put out a hand and touched Maddie’s shoulder.

  The sensation shocked her back into her own mind and body. She shook herself and pressed her eyes shut, but it didn’t help. The room and everything in it drifted through her head, demanding her attention. The chair, and then the fire, and then Maeve. Her own mind was lost in a blurred smear of thoughts, feelings, and sensations.

  “I… I’m sorry,” Maddie said, fighting to pull herself back together. “I didn’t mean to. I don’t know what’s going on. What’s happening?”

  Maeve let go of her shoulder. “Try to focus on the room. Let yourself feel it, but do not dive too deep. Float on the surface. Allow your mind to drift.”

  Maddie tried to do as she was told, but the task was strange and difficult. The room no longer existed on its own. Maddie felt like a cloud of smoke, perceiving the world through the senses of everything she touched. She felt the strong legs of the chair, the solid stone of the cauldron, the crackling of the fire as it consumed the wood. She could feel the decay of the magical ingredients around the room, bathed in Maeve’s preserving liquids. The bitter mixture clung to her like a second skin.

  “This is the Earth Sight,” Maeve said. “The space between things. The realm within and without. It is the highest form of magic, and the spell that connects us to all of nature: near, far, past, present, and future. We see though every eye, hear through every ear, taste with every tongue, and perceive the world with the understanding of every mind around us, no matter how vast or how small. Every witch begins her training with this experience, to show her what it means to be truly joined with the world.”

  Her training. To show her. The meaning behind the thoughts caught in Maddie’s mind like a bird in a snare.

  “What about the male witches?” she asked, but she knew the answer before her mistress could respond. “There are none.”

  “Very good,” Maeve said. “There are male practitioners among the Erlkin, but there are none among the faerie. Their sense of self is too fragile. They become lost in the minds of the world.”

  The images and emotions of a thousand men, howling as they gripped their heads, flowed like black water into her mind.

  “You’ve seen it happen,” Maddie said. “How did I know?”

  Again, her mistress didn’t answer. She only tilted her head, and the understanding came to Maddie as clearly as if she had known the answer all her life.

  Maddie whispered, “We can read minds?”

  “Yes,” Maeve said. “But you are unpracticed. Your conscious mind still fights to hold the line between yourself and the perception of the Earth Sight. You seek thoughts as answers to questions as though reading a book. In time, you will grow to understand that the magic grants far more than that. You will be the minds and objects you inhabit. Memory, understanding, bias, emotion, belief, and sensation will come to you as easily as your own breath. I told you before—”

  “—the true power of the practitioner is a matter of perspective.” Maddie lay back on the floor, flabbergasted. “How far does it go?”

  “The masters among us have gazed across entire oceans, but most witches manage no more than a few miles. Why do you ask?”

  “Earlier, when I drank the goo—“

  “The spell.”

  Maddie said, “The spell, right. It was so intense. I felt like I was connected to everything, and I mean everything. I didn’t even know who I was anymore. Is that normal?”

  Maeve shook her head. “No. What you experienced, however briefly, is called the Allsight.”

  “And what is that?”

  “A state of pure connection,” Maeve said, lifting her off the floor. “Without bounds or limits. In our history, no witch in the world has ever attained it.”

  “Until now,” Maddie said.

  Maeve helped her to a chair and set her down. “Indeed.”

  “But it was terrifying.”

  “Only because you do not understand it. In its natural state, the consciousness of the Foxglove encompasses all things. It does not think and feel as we do.”

  One creature, a single, global view of the world, as close to godhood as any mortal being could ever hope to come. The enormity of it fell onto Maddie like a lead blanket and her hands began to shake. She clamped them down onto her legs.

  “If you’d never come along, I would have been just a normal girl,” she said, her voice quaking.

  “No, you don’t understand,” Maeve replied. “You do not possess the Foxglove, you are the Foxglove.”

  “But how can you be sure?”

  “Humans have no magic. If you were not the Foxglove, you would have died in the woods when Gwynedd cut out your heart, and you certainly would not have been able to enter the Earth Sight.”

  Maddie rocked back and forth, forcing herself to breathe. “I thought you said the Foxglove was a tree.”

  “There is no way to know how this came to pass,” Maeve said. “The tree might have been destroyed by a random act of nature, or perhaps it was cut down, but whatever hap
pened to it, you must realize that the Foxglove cannot die. Its life force is immortal. It would have lived on, reborn as some other form of life. One can only imagine that it somehow passed into your mother shortly before she conceived you, and it took the form of her human child.”

  “Passed into her?”

  “Perhaps your parents had dinner before they mated.”

  Maddie recoiled. “Ugh! Don’t tell me that!” She got to her feet and paced across the floor. “Can you take this thing out of me?” she asked.

  Maeve pinched her eyes shut, massaging her forehead. “Madeline, the Foxglove is not inside you. It is what you are.”

  “Then how come I can’t feel it? How come I’m not all… transcendent or something?”

  “The power must be dormant.”

  Maddie spun around. “I don’t suppose you know how to keep it that way.”

  There was a long pause.

  “You are afraid,” Maeve said, realization dawning on her face.

  “You’re damn right,” Maddie answered. “I lost myself a moment ago. It felt like dying, Maeve. I never want to feel that way again.”

  “It may not be avoidable.”

  “So then what am I supposed to do?”

  Maeve came across the room and steered Maddie over to the cauldron. “We will tell Rose and Theresa. They will undoubtedly inform the captain of the wardens, the matron of the house, and the prince.”

  “Fantastic,” Maddie said. “You just listed almost every person I know.” She leaned down on the edge of the cauldron and sighed. “They’re going to think I’m a freak.”

  “I’m sorry, but now that we know Gwynedd’s suspicions about you were correct, we must do everything we can to keep you safe.”

  “And what about me?”

  “You will have to make a choice,” Maeve said. “If you wish, you can remain in the palace and pursue your studies. Rose will protect you, and perhaps in time she will find a solution to Gwynedd. Alternatively, we could instruct Kidhe to take you far away, someplace where perhaps she will never find you.”