The Herbwitch's Apprentice Ireen Chau (best life changing books txt) 📖

tent, I let the colors bloom from the cluttered table of ointments and herbs, enraptured. Slowly but surely, I deciphered the words that came from them. Mend. Protect. Cleanse. Some words were vague and some specific, and when I tried to decipher the lemon-yellow oozing from the canvas ceiling, nothing came. Still, there was progress, some semblance of control—and excitement—that wasn’t there this morning.

I went back to the picnic to grab what was left of Narcissa’s punch. Prince Ash was a few feet away, cleaning his bow as Samantha chattered and hovered over him like a hummingbird. I skirted around the pair and found Narcissa, who was sitting on a blanket at the far corner of the shelter, tossing bits of bread to a group of squirrels. She was relatively isolated, which I was grateful for. I tapped her shoulder.

“Amarante. I see you decided—”

I thrust the glass toward her, hard enough to fling the remaining liquid over her dress. Narcissa screamed as the punch dripped down her bodice.

“A peace offering,” I said, twisting my lips into a smile.

Without waiting for a reply, I turned to the gaggle of shocked debutantes. My hands shook as I marched past them. There was power in confrontation, that I knew now. But where there was power, there was price. Narcissa ran to Duchess Wilhelmina, shrieking. For a second, the duchess’s eyes met mine.

I had made a dangerous enemy.

12

The jingle of silver bells sounded. Through my fuzzy vision, the palace ballroom took form. Perfume and anticipation hung heavily in the air. I floated past nondescript faces and voices.

Then I saw her. A flash of wine purple eyes and a laugh sweeter than a nightingale. She was with a man, tall and familiar but his face was a blur. I reached out, but the more I tried to touch her the further I drifted. Some invisible force pulled me back into the ocean of tulle and silk and featureless faces. I cried out but the force suffocated me. I shoved and kicked, desperate to escape.

Fire and ice seared through my bones. An explosion of light flooded the ballroom, then everything disappeared.

I woke up.

A cotton quilt weighed over my face. The pocket of air I was breathing had long gone stale. Shifting in my sweat-drenched shift, I sat up and blinked hard, wondering why my blanket felt ten times heavier and why it looked like a pile of ruffled fronds. And why they were glowing purple.

A fresh film of sweat dampened my neck when I turned to the window. The bird’s-nest fern that sat in a pot on the windowsill had an explosive growth spurt. The pot lay shattered. From the cake of dirt that remained, thick tendrils of fronds snaked across the floor, up my bedposts, and wound themselves over my quilt. My jaw hung open. Was this what Theodora and Rowena meant when they said my magic was bound to show itself?

Genevieve’s soft breathing brought me back to reality. Thank heavens she was a deep sleeper.

The sky had barely lightened. Slipping quietly from my bed, I began pulling the fronds into a heap on the ground. It was laborious work for someone who had just woken up and especially difficult with an injured knee. My leg and back ached by the time I shoved the hefty pile under my bed frame. I would have to take it outside later.

Light began to stream in through the window. I surveyed the room and deemed it satisfactorily un-magicked. But when I touched the quilt, a flash of vermillion sparked from the fabric. I clutched my hands to my chest, gnawing my lip. There was only one witch who could help me figure this out.

After pulling on a dressing gown and cloak, I penciled a quick note to Genevieve. Soon enough I was out the window and through the gates of the Strongfoot’s mansion with a leather pouch stuffed with fronds.

THE POUCH DUG INTO my shoulder as I hopped off the horse chaise and marched through the buildings at the outskirts of Delibera. My thoughts strayed to the dream. Somehow, I couldn’t remember the whole thing—only snippets. The ballroom. A laugh as clear as a bell. Something that thrummed and vibrated my very bones. I had dreamed of a person but also a time and a place. And my magic. Swirls of purple emerged from my fingertips. My bag pulsed with the same energy.

I walked into the building I was looking for.

“Hello, and welcome—”

“Miriam, I need you to take me to Lana,” I said.

She stared at me in shock. “Amarante? What are you doing here?”

“I have to see Lana now.”

The witch looked askance and fiddled with her snail shell necklace. “You heard what she said last time, child. We’ve angered her enough.”

I shook my head. “You don’t understand. It’s different now.” I opened my bag and showed her the curling, engorged leaves of the bird’s nest fern. Miriam raised her brows. “My magic is getting harder to control.”

Miriam sighed. “Lana will have my neck if I bring back an unwelcome guest. You should leave. Go to your nannies and see if they can suppress your magic,” she said.

“But I don’t want to suppress it,” I said. “Please. At least show me the way. You don’t have to come with me.”

“No,” she said. “Your nannies will have my neck. I only have one neck! They’ll split it three ways, the lot of them,” she said.

I made an impatient noise at the back of my throat. “Fine, I’ll go myself,” I said, walking past Miriam to the back room. I pushed aside the ratty tapestry and narrowed my eyes. Five bricks glowed gold. I pressed them in.

“How did you—?”

The wall began to shift and part until it formed into the archway that led to the tunnel. I stepped in and turned back to Miriam whose jaw hung agape. “I’ll be back soon,” I said. “Don’t worry. I won’t mention your name to Lana.”

The bricks resealed before she