She worked quickly, taking only the smallest amounts. Just as she’d begun pouring the last bottle, she heard the floor behind her shift beneath someone’s weight.
“Who’s there?” a voice asked.
Senna jumped, spilling precious potion all over the floor.
The woman in the doorway hissed at the waste. Prenny stepped into the small circle of light cast by the candle.
Senna’s mind whirled with a thousand lies that could free her, but Prenny would believe none of them. So she kept silent, her insides quivering. She should have waited for Reden or Hesten. With one of them keeping watch outside, Prenny would never have caught her.
The Head’s thin lips were pressed together. “Collectively, those potions took years to make.”
Senna tipped her head in acknowledgement. “I know.”
Prenny snorted. She took Senna’s candle, then moved to a small table and lit a heavy lantern. She turned up the wick. Light flooded the room, making Senna blink. Prenny reached inside the satchel and pulled each potion out. She twisted down her magnification lens and read the labels. “By the Creators, these are fighting potions.” She pulled her glasses off and pinched the bridge of her nose. “What could you possibly want with fighting potions?”
Senna’s tongue felt like a useless piece of cured meat in her mouth.
Prenny locked the cabinet and shook the stolen key at Senna. “Where did you get this? And how did you get in my home?”
Knowing any lie she told might trap her, Senna kept her mouth shut.
Prenny harrumphed and shoved the key in her dress pocket. “In addition to stealing my potions, you’ve stolen my time. Chesli flowers only open for a few nights a year. Now, instead of pollinating them, I’m wasting my time with you.” She whipped her black cloak around her shoulders and picked up the lantern. “You will come with me. Now.”
Senna considered running, but she couldn’t leave Reden. And she needed those potions. They were one of the few things she was counting on to keep her alive.
Tugging her hood down to hide her face, Senna moved beside Prenny, who grasped her arm firmly above her elbow. Just before they reached the Council Tree, Senna pretended to trip. She tossed the keys into the shadows of the foliage, grunting to mask the sound of their clanking. Pogg would find them. He always did.
Prenny hauled her up. Without hesitation, the Head marched her back into the midst of the Witches and up to Coyel, who was bent over the chesli plants, her fingers caked with glowing pollen.
“We have a problem,” Prenny said. “Where are the others?”
Coyel straightened her back with a groan. She glanced at Senna before sending off two Witchlings to find Drenelle and Chavis. Coyel moved Prenny and Senna out of earshot of the other Witches while they waited for the other Heads to arrive.
Chavis was the last to come in. All of them were smudged with glowing pollen. The chesli plants were so integral to potions that even the Heads participated in the harvest. The four gathered around the lantern to shield its light from the insects swarming the glowing flowers. Senna was trapped inside.
Coyel rolled her neck. “All right, Prenny, what has Brusenna done now?”
Prenny handed her the seed belt. “I caught her in my home, stealing potions.”
“Stealing?” Coyel took the belt. She held one of the glinting vials to the light.
Though Senna’s heart dropped to her toes, she forced her head high as she met Coyel’s baffled gaze.
“How did you get a key to my home? My potion cabinet?” Prenny demanded.
Senna stared at the field of Witches bent over the glowing pollen. Arianis was in the center of a group of girls who were stealing covert glances and sharing hushed whispers. Amid all the furtiveness, Mistin stood unmoving, staring at Senna.
Senna found her voice. “You all seem to have forgotten I lived on this island alone for months. I took the key to Prenny’s cabinet and used it to get what I needed to fight Espen.”
Prenny’s mouth opened and closed again. For once, she seemed at a loss for words.
“And you never gave the key back?” Chavis asked.
Thinking it best to say as little as possible, Senna shook her head.
“What other keys do you have?”Chavis asked.
Glad she’d ditched the keys, Senna answered truthfully, “None.”
Drenelle, who’d been quiet until now, touched each of her jewels as if to reassure herself none were missing. “We’ll have to search her belongings. All of them. Who knows what other things she has that don’t belong to her.”
That was certainly something a traitor would say, though they wouldn’t find anything. There was nothing to find. Imagining them combing through her underthings and rag chest, she shifted her weight uncomfortably.