Beautiful Torture *Book Two of the Beautiful series*

8) Potion

"I am Seraphina, sorceress of Wicker Wood. Head mistress of Nightfall. It is an honor to welcome one such as you into our home." She bowed her head and bent her graceful knees into a sweeping curtsy. The kind Lucy tried in vain to master at Streatham Palace. All around her, the young maidens followed suit with perfect ease.

A roaring blush warmed Lucy's cheeks. How did they know her? There was no way Austran could have possibly sent word ahead. He had been with them up until she left, apart from a brief exit to pay off the guards. It would not have been long enough to send someone out first. She bit her lower lip, taking in the faces of each girl in turn. While they all had different features, they somehow felt the same. Like radiating a shared energy. When she realized they were all staring back, waiting for her to say something, she dismounted and fumbled into a clumsy curtsy of her own. "Thank you for the kind welcome, sorceress. I hate to bother you at the late hour, but I have urgent business at the bequest of Lord Ossis."

Lucy watched a darkness fall over the woman's features, fleeting, like a shadow passing over candle flame. And then it was gone. Her smile returned and she began doling out orders to the young girls. "Penelope, fetch tea. Bring it to my study. Cressida, have her mount fed and watered." Her lavender eyes flashed back to Lucy. "Come, dear goddess, and tell me of this business."

The inside of the home was grander than Lucy expected. Almost a shining illusion in its luster. Every surface sparkled, the wood floors smooth and polished. Leafed branches grew, forming the walls, stairs, and rails. Hints of hyacinth and jasmine filled the air, tingeing it sickly sweet.

Lucy breathed in deeply. She was still nervous, and to try to soothe herself, she repeated the plan over and over in her head as she followed the sorceress down the warm halls. She wouldd get the potion to bind the twins and make her way back to Bone. Once there, she would wait until dawn, and then request an audience with the twins in their home. According to Lord Ossis, if she presented herself as a messenger from Queen Mary, they would not be able to resist admitting her. His children were curious souls by nature. Cunning, too, though which worried her. If they saw through her facade, she might not be able to splash them with the potion. It just needed to touch their skin, Lord Ossis assured her. But she would have to get them both at the same time, without soiling herself, or the remaining one would strike her dead.

"Coming?" The sorceress called over her shoulder. Lucy was stunned to realize she had fallen several steps behind.

Nodding quickly, she hurried forward where the woman pressed open a vine framed door to reveal her study. The room was longer than it was wide, with a high ceiling and three circle windows that opened to a tangle of moon lit gardens, the plants glowing strangely gold.

A large desk sat to the right, while a long counter took up the shelved wall on the left, littered with delicate instruments, curled parchment, and more jars of herbs than Lucy could count.

"Please sit," she gestured to the chair on the opposite side of her desk before taking a seat herself.

Lucy did as asked, settling in, though her blood hummed with urgency. There was no time for pleasantries or the millions of questions she was dying to ask this woman. Yet, one managed to slip out before she could quell it. "What is this place?"

The woman smiled again, though it lacked the same luster it had outside, under the moon, with the young maidens surrounding her. In here, she looked more tired. Lucy noted the deep circles forming beneath her eyes now, as though she had been casting an illusion spell before and it slipped suddenly. "Nightfall Academy is a school...and a sanctuary for young girls and women looking to escape the cruelty of their past," she began carefully and eyed Lucy, trying to gauge her reaction. Lucy was wise enough to maintain her passive expression. "I formed it decades ago, as a young woman myself after a particularly...awful...incident involving a Lord in Croxix...my own father."

Lucy shivered at the way the sorceress' tone tightened around the word awful. The same darkness she had glimpsed earlier returned and with it, a piercing sense of dread. "I traveled here, to this quiet corner of the world, seeking solace and healing. What I found was better. Chaos thrived in these woods."

"Chaos?" Lucy asked sharply, the word itself a startling reminder of her own wicked father.

The sorceress smiled apologetically. "Forgive me. Chaos is the term of old, used by the gods and generations before us. I mean magic. The trees, the grass, the rivers all are alive with it. It took me many years to discover each of their secrets; how I might make a tree grow at will, change the flow of a current, harvest power from this plant or that, thicken the air to shield us from enemies. I do apologize, by the way, for the frenzy."

Lucy quirked an eyebrow, truly captivated by the woman's story. "Frenzy?" She repeated.

"The fog-like mists that bring fear if breathed. Delphine did not see you coming until it was too late. The girl's visions can be unpredictable." Though she shook her head, Lucy noted the motherly affection in her eyes.

"These girls, you care for them?"

The sorceress nodded, idily twisting a long curl around her finger before letting it spring free again. "Like they are my own flesh and blood. Word traveled once I began to thrive here and the young maidens started arriving one by one, and then in two's and three's. Each held a trauma of their own. Rape, slander, abuse. Almost always at the hands of men. My powers freed them. Made their bloods start again when they had an unwanted babe that tethered them to their abuser. My fog kept away those who would hunt them." That dark look again. Her piercing gaze pushed into Lucy's skull. "You could join us, Luciana. Lay down this task ahead of you, for it was agreed between Lord Ossis and I that any Maiden who takes my vow cannot be compelled to leave, lest those who try to force them suffer the wrath of the gods. I see what you carry, young one. The scars on your soul. You could wash them clean here. You could forget. " Her long fingers danced over a set of vials holding clear liquid with silver flakes drifting through it.

Lucy, dazed, found herself thinking of several unpleasant moments in her life. The heavy eyes of the men at Granston House that found her, starting at hardly ten years old. The Duke's vile touch assaulting her untouched flesh. The sea captain's calloused hands on her breasts and waist, grinding her against himself as she tried not to be sick. The list went on as every painful encounter flashed behind her eyes until she squeezed them shut and gripped the edge of her chair. Her fingers throbbed under the strain.

But, like a pulse through darkness, a spark of gold fought against the black. Alexander's face, strong and sure, filled her with the love she carried for him—washing everything else away. Blinking, she felt her urgency return. Her king needed her and she, him. That was how it would be, always.

"Thank you for your kind offer. While it is tempting, and I respect all that you do here, I ask only for your help in accomplishing what I came for."

The sorceress frowned, crestfallen, seemingly unused to rejection. She stopped fiddling with the vile in her hand, replacing it in its holder, and nodded. "Very well. You seek a potion to restrain Imera's twins." It was not a question, but rather stated as fact. Lucy's face pinched in surprise. "My Delphine," she explained when catching the confusion, "she saw your purpose before you arrived."

Standing, the sorceress glided over to her counter of herbs and mixing instruments. Her fingers danced over various jars, pausing briefly here and there before moving onto the next until she found the one that satisfied her. A low chant began in the back of her throat. To Lucy, it sounded almost like a song with words spoken in a language she could not understand.

It could have been hours or minutes that went by as the sorceress worked. A sheen of sweat glistened over her concentrated brow, her chanting rose in intensity. At last, she lifted a small but sharp knife, it's tip flashing in the candle light. She turned to Lucy, her face transformed with a glowing, earthen power. Her palm opened and she stepped towards her. Somehow, Lucy understood the wordless gesture. It was time for her part. Her blood. Without question, she laid her hand flat, palm up, onto the sorceress'. The flash of the blade came, leaving no room for fear or second guessing. Only the briefest flutter of her mothers scarred wrists flitted behind her eyes.

The blood came quickly. A thin red line. A sharp sting. The sorceress did not waste a drop. She cupped Lucy's hand before holding it over the mixture in her vial. And then, with great expertise and care, she smeared a salve over the wound and bound it in a bandage to match the one still wound around her other palm.

"It is done," She said solemnly, and pressed a cork into the glass potion vial. The contents within glowed a soft gold.