Witchy Sour(70)

It was too late. He’d plucked one of the blossoms. I watched with horror as he held it up to his nose and took a sniff. “These smell nice.”

Resting my fingers on the thin stems of the flowers, I focused on the details of the plant and let my hands dance up and down the long, twisty vines. Aloud, I muttered the phrase from the pages of the Mixology spellbook:

Daffodils and flowers gold—

Each one born from a matching mold.

On the stems you’ll find the key—

A vein throughout guides you to me.

“These flowers don’t have veins,” I said slowly. “These are Trappers.”

“What’s a Trapper?” snarled Thomas, throwing down the flowers. “Did you do this on purpose?”

“No!” I shook my head. “Of course not. It was an accident.”

“Why should I believe you?” He looked down at his hand, which was turning red from contact with the Trappers. “What have you done?”

“There’s an antidote,” I said breathlessly. “We need to get back to the bungalow. I can save you. I know the antidote,” I lied. There was an antidote, but I didn’t know it by heart. I was confident I could figure it out with the help of my spellbook, however. But that was only if—a very big if—we got back in time. “Let me help you. We have to hurry.”





Chapter 25



“Look what you’ve done!”

I winced as Thomas held his arm out for me to examine. His fingers had turned red first, but that redness had seeped up through his forearm and touched his elbow. In its place, a dark purplish shade had taken over, the skin stretching as the swelling began. “I warned you. If you hadn’t touched it, this would never have happened.”

“You led me to believe it was Hog’s Vein.”

“It looked like it from a distance, but that’s the point of a Trapper!” I stepped forward and lightly held his palm in my hands. It was warm to the touch, and if we didn’t get him to a place where I could whip up an antidote quickly, he wouldn’t survive. The swelling alone would wreak havoc on his nervous system, if it hadn’t already.

“How did you not know this was a Trapper?”

“The point of a Trapper is to mimic other plants. It’s not a clever name,” I said. “It’s an obvious, practical one. The plant ‘traps’ unprepared users into choosing it over their intended target. The Forest is brimming with dangerous plants, you know that. This is one of many.”

He flinched in pain. “Why didn’t you touch it?”

“Patience saves lives,” I said, parroting the fairy’s advice. “If you look closely, you can see a difference.” I pointed toward the stems on the small plant. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but even a Trapper can’t imitate another plant perfectly. Hog’s Vein is named for the tiny blue vein running through its stem. If you look closely, these Trappers don’t have veins.”

Thomas didn’t look convinced, so I chanted the rhyme that’d tipped me off in the first place.

“If you’d read the book, you’d have seen that clue beside the picture,” I explained. “I almost didn’t catch it, but when you reached out, something jarred in my mind.”

“How convenient.” His face pinched in pain, his eyes widening as he looked down. “It’s spreading.”

I pulled his arm closer to me, my fingers following the red and purple as it crept past his elbow. “We have to hurry. The chances of sparing someone’s life after the Trapper’s venom has spread past one extremity is low.”

“It’s nearly up to my shoulder!”

“We need to move fast,” I said, pulling him along. “How do we get out of here?”

“Why should I trust you?” He yanked his arm from mine.

“If I wanted to kill you,” I said harshly, “I’d just sit down and watch you die.”

Our gaze met in a fiery battle of wills. This time, his crumbled first. “To the left. Follow that path, and then turn right every time you see a Lily of the Valley.”

I guided him down a path formed from overhanging tree branches and a lack of brush beneath our feet. Now that I was looking for Lily of the Valley, the path seemed to appear before my eyes, almost as if someone had flicked on a flashlight and pointed the way forward. One cluster of little white flowers appeared after the next, and each time we hung a right, a new batch of scenery appeared. No more traipsing in circles and dancing between the trees. My feet were sure, though Thomas stumbled behind me now and again.

“Stop looking at your arm,” I said. “If you keep falling we’ll never make it.”