Reap the Wind (Cassandra Palmer 7)

I nodded, biting my lip, and stared at the crimson glints in the almost full bottle in my hand. “You’ll be in trouble when Mircea finds out you gave this to me.”

“Probably.”

I looked up. “And?”

Marco stuck the cigar between his teeth and grinned at me. And then mussed my hair. “I’ve been in trouble before.”

• • •

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Rosier asked when I just stood there, looking at the bottle in my hand.

“I’m trying to figure out how much to take.” It was the one thing Rhea couldn’t answer for me. I assumed the acolytes could, but she’d never been around when Agnes was using the potion. And nobody had been nice enough to put a recommended daily dose on the label.

“Well, how much did you take last time?”

“Maybe an eighth of a bottle, because that’s all there was. But it wasn’t enough. I think that’s why I was out for so long—I had to supplement it with my own power, and almost blew a fuse. But if I’m unconscious this time—”

“Then double the dose.”

“I was out for almost a day,” I reminded him. “If I double it, and I’m out half a day, does that help us?”

“Then take all of it. Be certain.”

I stared at it, biting my lip.

I wasn’t certain.

I wasn’t certain at all.

“This is the last.”

“What?”

I looked up at him. “The last bottle. There isn’t any more.”

“What do you mean?” He looked annoyed. “It’s a potion, not a finite resource—”

“A potion that takes six months to make.”

“What?”

I nodded. “Jonas said Agnes had to put in a request for it six months in advance, because of the brewing time, and that the last batch was delivered a week before she died—”

“Then get it from her court. If she just received a shipment, she can’t have used it all!”

“I did. That’s what this is. And your people checked with all the potion makers, and if the Senate has any, they’re not giving it to me.”

Rosier looked at the bottle in my hand and scowled. “You’re telling me this is the last anywhere?”

“Yes. And I can’t go into the past and retrieve any, because the Pythias only used it in emergencies, and that would screw up time in a way I might not be able to fix. So . . . this is it.”

We both looked at the little bottle for a moment, the demon lord who ruled a world and the Pythia who controlled time, and neither of us had anything useful to say.

Until Rosier’s voice cut through the pub, a harsh, discordant note. “Take all of it.”

I looked at him, and my fist clenched around the glass.

“Damn it, girl! If those Pythias find us, they’ll take whatever’s left. Better it be in you, where it might do us some good!”