So would anyone within twenty feet of her. She knew that because she was foolish sometimes … but she’d wanted to know. And she’d only tried it that once.
The mnemonic was right about Earth and Water, though. Glass was open to Earth magic—it had no effect at all. And glass did seal Water. That’s why most potions were kept in glass bottles. Potions drew on lots of different energies, but they used Water magic to hold their action in potential.
Arjenie’s fingers brushed the lump in the pocket of her jacket. The reminder of Dya made her heart ache and started her mind down another worry-path.
Arjenie did not understand Binai ethics, but she knew contracts were their high holy writ. Violations of contractual obligations were far more serious than, say, killing someone you didn’t know. Killing a relative was murder, but otherwise, the morality of murder depended on the context—and the contract.
Dya was risking a contract violation by sending Arjenie here. She said Friar was violating Queens’ Law. Normally Queens’ Law only applied to the sidhe realms, not to Earth—but Dya said it applied to her even here because it was in her contract. She could not be tasked with or coerced or tricked into violating Queens’ Law.
Robert Friar had tricked her. Maybe. Probably.
Dya had overheard something. That’s all Arjenie knew, but whatever Dya had heard, it had shaken her badly enough to risk breaking contract. Of course, if she was right, Friar had already broken contract and she was off the hook on that score. Breaking Queens’ Law invalidated any contract.
Queens’ Law. The words sent cold tingles along Arjenie’s spine. Dya had reason to be shaken, and Arjenie had reason to be hobbling down a dark road well after midnight, doing who knew how much damage to her ankle.
Arjenie was leaning on the cane a lot more by the time she neared the gate. It was the kind made from pipes, and it was closed. Beside it stood a young man in cutoffs with a rifle slung over one bare shoulder.
Arjenie took a deep breath, pulled harder on her Gift, and kept going. The young man didn’t notice her, not even when she climbed up awkwardly on the gate, careful not to let the tools in her tool belt clang against it. Her Gift would probably keep him from noticing sounds, but probably wasn’t good enough.
She swung a leg over and clambered back down. Success. She grinned at herself, at the young man who didn’t know she was there, and limped forward.
A wolf stepped out of the scrub beside the road. He looked right at her.
Arjenie froze. He was much more silvery than last night’s wolf. And he wasn’t looking at her, she realized with a rush of relief. In her direction, yes, but his gaze was focused a little to one side. Maybe at the guard?
Still, she didn’t move as he trotted up the road toward her … and on past. Her heart pounded so hard she was almost sick from it. But he did pass.
She looked over her shoulder, curiosity temporarily defeating fear. Sure enough, the wolf went right up to the young man, who made some kind of sign with his hands. The wolf shook his head. The man made another sign. The wolf nodded and set off along the fence.
Whew. Dya’s potion must have worked. Obviously she hadn’t left any scent on the gate.
Arjenie’s hands were shaking as she started moving again. Maybe not just her hands. Excess adrenaline was a lot like sheer terror in that way.
The rest of her mission was anticlimactic. She didn’t see anyone as she trudged down the road, and the only wolves she heard were yodeling at each other up in the mountains. The cluster of houses and a few commercial buildings that she thought of as Nokolai Village lay about three miles beyond the gate, but her target was quite a bit closer. There was one largish dwelling she’d have to pass, however.
The largish building was dark when she reached it, as it should be at this hour. Her heart beat a little faster as she walked by, but no one stirred. About forty feet beyond it she spotted the twin ruts of the trail she needed.
In the end, she didn’t need any of the tools she’d brought, not even the penlight. She had unusually good night vision, and with the moon so near to full she had no trouble finding the wellhead.
Nokolai had multiple wells—probably three, according to the expert she’d consulted. She’d only had time to locate the most recent well, drilled after the state began requiring permits. But Nokolai had a large water tank, easily spotted on the aerial photos. That tank supplied the forty-two houses and six other buildings in its central village. It, in turn, was supplied by all the wells.
In other words, she didn’t have to find and dose all the wells. Whatever she put in one would mingle with water from the others before reaching the houses.
Had the man Friar sent here emptied his vials into a single well, or had he poured them into the water tank? It probably didn’t matter, but she’d never been good at not thinking about something once it caught her interest. Friar’s agent had had a potion like hers to nullify his scent, but he couldn’t have gone unseen the way Arjenie did. There was no such thing as an invisibility potion. How had Friar’s agent snuck around without being spotted?
Very likely he’d put the potion in one of the other wells, she decided. This one would have been hard for him to reach without being seen, and the tank was way too exposed. But he’d had a lot more time than she had to do his research. He’d probably found a well he could approach more secretively.
She lowered herself to the ground beside the wellhead. Her ankle throbbed once, hard, as if surprised by the sudden lack of weight grinding down on it. Then the pain gentled. She smiled in relief.
The cap was right where she’d been told it would be, sticking out of the seal. “People have to chlorinate the water, yaknowwhatImean?” the driller she’d spoken with had told her. That’s how he said it, with the words melted into a single blob. “Got to keep it simple for folks, yaknowwhatImean? Unscrew the cap, pour in the chlorine. That’s it.”
Sure enough, that’s all Arjenie had to do. Unscrew the cap, pour in the potion.
This potion was in a larger vial. There was roughly a cup of highly viscous fluid, more like a murky gel. Arjenie’s human nose picked up a faint scent when she removed the stopper. Something similar to cloves, yet not cloves.
It smelled like Dya. Arjenie leaned forward carefully. Dya had warned her not to get any of the potion on her skin. Though it worked best if taken internally, it was extremely potent. Getting even the teeniest bit on her skin would undo the potion she’d taken earlier.
That’s what tonight was for—undoing. Making sure things didn’t happen.
“But, Dya,” Arjenie had said when she heard what Dya wanted her to do, “won’t Friar blame you when nothing happens?”
“I do not wish to insult your world, but people here are very ignorant. After I became suspicious, I chastised Friar about chlorine.”
Arjenie had blinked. “Chlorine?”
Dya had chuckled. “You are not so ignorant as he, little fox. I wished him to believe this chlorine might interfere with my potions. He had not told me that you people put it in your water here, you understand, and so I suggested that if the potions did not work, it was his fault for not informing me of the chlorine. He will be angry when nothing happens, for that is his nature. He will not think I have acted against him.”
“Couldn’t you just … well, instead of going through all this with the antidote—”
“It is not an antidote, Arjenie. It is an undoer.”
“Okay, but wouldn’t it have been simpler to just make the potions a little bit wrong, so they didn’t work?”
Dya had been silent for a long moment, then said softly, “I did not like Friar’s purpose, but it is not for me to approve or disapprove of the use to which my work is put. I did as I was bid. When I heard … when I began to suspect …” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Queens’ Law, Arjenie. If Friar violates it, then so must my lord be doing, also. He loaned me to Friar. He must know, but it—it is a very large thing to suspect one’s lord of such evil.”