A Little Taste of Poison by R. J. Anderson Page A

tomorrow.”
    Strange, Eulalie had seemed well enough when class started. But perhaps she’d been putting on a brave face. Isaveth nodded and laid her head on the desk as Mistress Corto walked away.
    *  *  *
    Esmond sat through his classes that day with barely contained impatience, longing to dash home and try Isaveth’stracking spell. Surely by now Eryx had read the letter he’d written and added it to his secret file.
    Mind, that was assuming he hadn’t merely torn up the letter, or handed it over to their parents just for the pleasure of watching Esmond squirm—or worse yet, discovered the tracking-spell on the paper, which would tell him at once that Isaveth and Esmond were working together. . . .
    No, that was unthinkable. They couldn’t have failed so badly, so soon. Eryx was clever, but he also had a blind side: He was so accustomed to being the smartest person in any room he entered that he assumed other people were stupider than they actually were. He would believe the letter because it fit his view of Esmond as a boy whose impulses were stronger than his judgment, and he’d never guess Isaveth had made its pages traceable, because like most nobles, he had little understanding of what Common Magic could do.
    The weekly bid committee meeting at Council House should keep Eryx occupied until half past four at least, but Esmond was taking no chances. When the last bell rang, he dashed out the gate and hailed a carriage home at once.
    The butler assured him that Eryx was indeed at the meeting, and Lord Arvis had recovered enough to gowith him. Civilla was at the seamstress being fitted for her ball gown, while Lady Nessa had retired to her beloved indoor garden. The house was Esmond’s, so he raced to his bedroom, retrieved the bottle of tracking decoction, and set to work.
    According to Isaveth, all he had to do was lift the bottle, swirl it, then wait for the floating specks inside to point the way. Mouth dry and skin tingling, Esmond did so.
    Oddly, it was pointing toward Civilla’s bedroom. It was hard to imagine Eryx would hide anything there, but Esmond had learned not to assume anything where his brother was concerned. He knocked, listened, and cautiously opened the door.
    Inside lay a serene, rose-tinted space with mirrors on every wall, presumably so his sister could view her fashionable self from all angles. A dressing table stood in one corner, with a padded stool in front of it and a matching lounge chair stretched out beside. The only pictures were still life paintings, modern in style but utterly devoid of personality. If not for the feathery toe of a slipper peeking from under the bed, he might have taken it for a forgotten guest chamber or a display in Simkin’s Category Store—anything but the bedroom of a living girl.
    The last time he’d come here, he’d been eight and Civilla thirteen. Her walls had been crammed with mapsand botanical sketches, her bed heaped with cloth animals, and they’d thumped each other with pillows until they could barely breathe for laughing. But then she’d started at Tarreton College and Lady Nessa began taking her out in society, and his sister had changed.
    First she’d grown self-conscious, always on her dignity and determined to do everything right. She’d won academic awards for dull subjects like sociology, religious studies, and civics, and started a gardening club to help beautify the uglier parts of the city. She’d even nagged their father to stop drinking, and corrected Esmond’s posture so many times that he’d started slumping just to annoy her. In short, she’d become a towering bore.
    Yet even that dreary, self-righteous Civilla had been better than the sister he had now. Perhaps she’d grown tired of trying to live up to her own standards, or perhaps Eryx’s gentle reminders of her inferior taste, judgment, and social skills had finally worn her