Surprised, I look at Sister Serafina, who indicates it is up to me. I glance back at Sybella. Our hold on her is so fragile, I cannot say no. Besides, the convent bed is finer than any pallet I have ever slept on, and it is almost wide enough for two. I make room for her, and she crawls under my covers to lie down next to me. As we lie together in the narrow bed, the nuns lull us to sleep with gentle voices, singing their song of darkness and death.
When I wake, there is pale golden sunlight streaming into the room. I sit up, surprised to find I am alone. Not only is Sybella gone, but there is no nun clucking at the worktable or fussing with the beds.
Just as I am wondering what I am supposed to do next, Annith appears, as bright and lovely as the morning itself. She smiles when she sees I am awake and sets the tray she is carrying on the worktable. “How do you feel?” she asks.
I flex my arms, my toes, raise my shoulders against the soft linen of my shift. “Fine,” I reply, surprised that this is true. The healing tisane of Sister Serafina’s is indeed a small miracle.
"Would you like to break your fast?”
I find that I am starving. “Yes,” I say, and she brings the tray over to me. She hands me a tankard of small ale and a loaf of bread fresh from the convent ovens. There is even a pot of goat cheese. I spread the cheese on the bread and take my first bite. It is the most delicious food I have ever eaten. My hunger, which has been asleep for my entire trip across the kingdom, rises up now, and I devour the breakfast in a matter of seconds. Annith looks at me in concern. “Do you want more?”
I start to say yes, for I have learned never to say no to food, then realize I am already full. “No,” I say, pleased when I remember to add “thank you.”
Annith smiles and lowers herself onto a stool by my bed. As she smoothes her skirts around her knees, I long to ask her about Sybella, but I am afraid. Afraid of what might have become of her during the night. I feel a pang of guilt at my own peaceful slumber.
“Once you are feeling up to it,” Annith says, “you are to join Sister Serafina in her poisons workshop.”
Poisons. The word makes me throw back my covers and swing my feet to the floor. “I am ready now.”
Annith’s brow wrinkles in concern. “Are you certain? You’ve been here only a short while.”
“Yes, but I had five days to recover from my injuries during my journey, and in truth the tisane and the breakfast have done much to restore me.” I am as hungry for this work I have been promised as I was for the bread. “I would love to begin now, if it is allowed.”
“Of course! To rest or to work, the choice is left to you.” Annith fetches me a gown from the wooden cupboard. It is a dove gray habit, like hers, and as I slip it over my head, I can feel myself slipping into this new life that I have been given.
Annith helps me comb my hair, her fingers gentle even among all the tangles. when I am presentable, she leads me from the room and down the confusing maze of corridors. She opens a thick door and we step outside. I blink against the bright sun, then hurry to follow her. She leads me to a small stone cottage downwind from the convent. “I am not to go in,” she explains, “as I do not have your gift. But you may enter; the good sister is expecting you.”
“She is?”
Annith’s eyes sparkle. “She suspected you would want to start right away.” Then she bids me goodbye and heads back toward the convent. Alone on the doorstep, I knock.
"Who is it?” a voice calls out.
“It is Ismae,” I say, wondering if I need to explain further who I am since I am not sure if she knows my name.
“Come in!” the voice says cheerfully.
I open the door and step inside.
The maids in my village talked of falling in love with a man at first sight. That has always seemed naught but foolishness to me. Until I enter Sister Serafina’s workshop. It is unlike anything I have ever seen, full of strange sights and smells, and I tumble headlong into love.
The ceiling is high, and the room has many windows. Two small clay ovens sit on the floor. In front of the fireplace is a range of kettles, from one big enough to cook a goat whole all the way down to one so small it could belong to the fey folk of hearth tales. A large wooden press takes up an entire corner of the room. Fragile glass containers and globes sit beside squat earthenware jars and silver flasks. The most striking thing in the room — a writhing mass of glass vessels and copper tubes — sits alone on one of the worktables. Two flames burn beneath it, and the whole thing hisses and bubbles and steams like a large, deadly viper getting ready to strike.
“My still,” Sister Serafina says with great pride. “I use it to boil and reduce substances to their essence, removing all the extra matter until nothing but the poison remains.” She motions me over to the table, and I come eagerly, ducking under a lowhanging clutch of roots drying in the rafters. A strange and pungent combination of smells reaches my nose, rich, earthy notes combined with a cloying, sickly sweetness, and a strong acrid smell lurking underneath.
On the table is a bowl of withered black seeds and a pile of shiny red ones. Large round pods the size of rosary beads are scattered next to drying tubers that look like a man’s organ. Seeing those brings Sybella’s question of last night back to me.
Sister Serafina studies me closely. “How are you feeling?”
I start to tell her that I can hardly feel my injuries any longer, then I realize she means how am I feeling among all the poisons. “Fine,” I say. To my surprise, I am smiling.
“Then let’s get to work.” She shoves a bowl of round green pods in front of me. They are misshapen lumps covered in soft, flexible prickles. She takes up a small pointed knife. “Cut them open and extract the seeds, thus.” with a deft flick of the blade, she guts one of the pods, and three fuzzy seeds spill out. She pinches one between her fingers and holds it up to me. “One of these will make a man so sick, he will wish to die. Three of these will kill him.” Then she hands me the knife, places the seed back on the table, and returns to her distillery.
The knife handle is smooth and well balanced, a thing of beauty, but the seed pod is tough and fibrous, and my hand is not as skilled as the nun’s. It takes a long time before the point of my knife pierces the hard shell and breaks it open. I glance up to find Sister Serafina watching me. Unable to help myself, I flash a smile of victory at her.
She gives me a toothy grin, and then she turns back to her work and I turn back to mine.