Page 33 of Immortal Rose

Mint, bergamot, and ginger swirled around me, tickling my nose, unleashing a warm murmur of magic in my veins. Foxcourt moved to my side then, splaying his large hand over the small of my back to prevent any escape.

Eleanor pressed the cloth to her uncle’s nose and mouth. He choked in several shuddering gasps, and within moments, the rhythm of that breath eased and evened. As she drew the handkerchief away, Eleanor’s dark eyes studied him. “There. That’s put some color back into your cheeks.”

It had. Whatever magic had been blended into the perfume had an immediate restorative effect on the man. His gaze focused as it found mine.

“King’s Blend,” he crowed at me. “Your grandsire’s work, of course. It invigorates me.”

“Yes, I can see that,” I said, earning a reproachful nudge from Foxcourt’s hand. I stepped closer to the King, away from the distracting touch. “Is this the perfume you would like me to create?”

The King flicked his skeletal fingers at his niece, but she had already gone to the fireplace mantel to retrieve a small, nondescript wood box. “The . . . Yes, that’s it.”

The princess unlatched the box, and its contents flashed with firelight. The faintest suggestion of rose both intrigued and startled me; it was heady and pure, but unlike any I’d known.

I took the small crystal bottle when Eleanor held it out to me. The crystal flacon was cold and empty, but it had a surprising weight to it. It had to be real gold on the vessel, caging the clear glass in a lavish pattern of vines and thorns. I stroked the edges of the rose crowning the stopper, so lifelike in full bloom that I had to remind myself it would be impossible to dip flowers in molten gold.

That rose—that sweet rose. I brought the flacon closer, inhaling the scent, begging it to reveal its secret. It was honeyed, almost like a centifolia rose, and yet there was an indescribable effervescence to it.

In my mind’s eye, a primeval garden spread before me, the golden outline of a woman rising from the tangles of rosebushes unscathed, as delicate and beautiful as any of the blossoms around her. Not a woman, an ancient goddess—Venia, mother of the fairies, who saw to love, beauty, and healing.

As if in answer, a lingering pulse of warmth spread across the glass, absorbing into my skin with a sharp tingling sensation.

Magic.

“Five days ago, my dear uncle was poisoned,” Eleanor explained, careful to measure the King’s response before continuing. “We believe it was inadvertently administered by a valet, as he assisted the King with dressing.”

“Bloody Gallia,” the King huffed, visibly provoked. “Couldn’t send me to my reward in the war and haven’t ceased trying since. Compliments of the deuced DeForests, no doubt. No antidote will take. It’s magic, I know it.”

“The DeForests have the same ability as the Rosebournes?” I asked, unable to mask my shock. That would certainly explain William Rosebourne’s particular ire for them.

Destroyed felt too light a word for what Rosebourne had done to the Gallian perfumers, burning their warehouses and flower fields, hiring privateers to seize their shipping vessels, and—if the scandal sheets were to be believed—adding a corrosive acid to one of their few remaining batches of perfume.

The DeForest perfumes, known for their bold, woody notes, had been a secret indulgence of many Patricians, who paid to have them smuggled into the country at eye-watering sums. Almost overnight, the unloyal Patricians had been exposed, burned by the acid-laced perfume like a mark of shame. “The Rose-Kissed,” the scandal sheets called them.

I drew the bottle away from me, alarmed, but Foxcourt interjected. “The perfume in question was destroyed and the valet dressing him thoroughly questioned. It was delivered to the palace in a Rosebourne flacon.”

Oh, God. My heart sank as I took in the full horror of the King’s condition. The missing clumps of hair, the sallow and drooping skin, and that stench, yarrow and angelica, on every breath. And then there was the man’s blackened fingernails, as if he had dipped each in ink . . .

A chill skittered through my soul. I wasn’t mistaken. This wasn’t the first time I had encountered this poison perfume.

“How do you know Rosebourne wasn’t behind it?” I asked carefully.

Not carefully enough, clearly. Foxcourt’s intent gaze fell on me again, as if he could peel away my skin and bone. “Why do you ask?”

I was proud of how quickly my feint came to me. “I’m only wondering why the obvious culprit has been dismissed.”

The King snorted, only to choke on the very same breath.

“Rosebourne’s business thrived with the King’s patronage,” Eleanor said diplomatically, smoothing over the crude sound.

“Only through the King’s patronage,” Foxcourt added, meaningfully. A thoughtful furrow deepened between his brows. “It is a rather elegant play on the DeForests’ part to best Rosebourne at his own game and frame him for such an act.”

He sounded almost appreciative.

“But then, who would have switched out the real perfume for the poisoned one?” I asked.

“My court is full of vipers and spiders, girl,” the King said. “All of them would, and gladly.”

“That’s not true,” Eleanor said, smoothing his knotted strings of hair from his face. “You are beloved and well respected.”