Lounging on a chair by the fireplace, Mistress Garnah popped a sugar-coated ball of chocolate into her mouth and chewed. She'd already eaten dozens. The lace clustered at her throat was streaked with chocolate stains. Arin had liberated the chocolates from the kitchen late last night, squirreling them away under her skirts-she'd never stolen anything before, but Mistress Garnah had wanted them and the head cook hadn't been there to ask. "What do you need?" Arin asked.
"I need your steady hands to measure six drops of tin-ease, three of goat's milk, and one tablespoon of sugar. It's the sugar that stabilizes the potion. Amateurs think it's to sweeten the taste, but that's not true, or not entirely true. The sugar is a vital ingredient. You can't skimp on it."
Leaving the window, Arin crossed to the long dining table that she'd convinced the guards to let her drag into the room. It was covered in test tubes, bowls, and beakers. At one end was Mistress Garnah's precious microscope, carved of heartswood and fitted with priceless glass lenses. Along the back of the table, containers of spices and powders were lined up in alphabetical order. She selected the ingredients and carefully measured them into a small bowl that used to be for appetizers-at Mistress Garnah's request, she'd relieved the kitchen of a portion of their equipment for mixing and measuring. "What does this potion do?"
"What do you think it does?"
Arin considered it. Last time she'd given a wrong answer, she'd been crushed by the disappointment in Mistress Garnah's voice. She'd spent the better part of an hour huddled under the table crying. Thoroughly mortifying, she thought. She couldn't believe she'd overreacted like that. It wasn't like her. She did not want a repeat performance. "Goat's milk soothes, but combined with tin-ease and inine pods . . . It's a sleeping potion?"
"Conks you out faster than a hit on the head," she said cheerfully. "Only flaw is that it has to be dried into a powder, which requires careful baking. That's why most people use the less-toxic-smoke-inducing tamar leaves instead, thus making their potion far less effective. But you, my dear baker, should have no problem with it."
Arin frowned at the potion. Another mixture that wouldn't help Daleina. "We're supposed to be helping my sister. How does this help?" She then felt a stab of guilt-she shouldn't be questioning Mistress Garnah! Mistress Garnah was wise and kind! Tears pricked her eyes. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean-"
Garnah waved her hand. "Curiosity is good! It's a sign of an active mind. Now, tell me, if you were to put this potion into food, what would you cook to hide the taste of the potion? Remember it will be in powder form."
"Almond cake. I'd limit the sugar and let the potion supply that. The taste of the almond should hide the bitterness of the tin-ease." Dimly, Arin noticed that Mistress Garnah hadn't answered her question. But then that thought was replaced by another: she knew tin-ease tasted bitter. How had she known that? Lifting the powder up to her nose, she sniffed. "I've tasted this before."
"Pour the potion into a vial, and we'll start on the next."
As her hands followed Mistress Garnah's instructions, she tried to puzzle out the familiarity of the taste. She'd never cooked with it, certainly. She hadn't seen it in the palace kitchens either. She'd always been excellent at identifying flavors . . . It felt as elusive as a fish, the memory slipping away from her as she tried to grab it. "Exactly what does the tin-ease do?"
"Ah, an excellent question."
She felt a rush of pleasure.
"It activates the full power of an ingredient's essence. Alone, it has little effect. But in a potion . . . Boom! You see, that's the beauty of what we do. Single ingredients alone are nothing. It is only when they are combined that they have power. It's the interactions that produce effects. In this case, a few drops of tin-ease transform the soothing strength of goat's milk into transportation to full-out la-la-land." She fluttered her fingers in the air. "It enhances what is normally merely metaphorical."
Arin jotted a note in her notebook about the effects of tin-ease, as well as a list of ingredients for the sleeping potion. "Wouldn't the act of putting a potion in a cake change the interactions? We'd be adding more ingredients."
"Smart girl. But you always know exactly what you put in a cake, don't you?"
She did. She . . . "There was tin-ease in my cake."
Garnah popped another chocolate in her mouth. "Of course there was."
She felt a flush of warmth at Mistress Garnah's approving tone, and then she shook her head, trying to think clearly. This was not a good thing. She should not be happy. "You put a potion in my cake? Why? What potion? What did you . . ." She swallowed the words. Mistress Garnah must have had a good reason. She must have seen something in Arin that needed to be fixed or healed or . . .