The Potion Diaries (37 page)

I’m just admiring my handiwork, when the door opens again. I expect it to be Grandad, but it’s not, it’s Mum. Her hair is dishevelled and she’s in her dressing gown and slippers.

‘Did you hear?’

‘Hear what?’

‘The synth potion passed all their tests. They’re about to administer it to the Princess now.’

‘No!’ I shout. ‘No, they can’t!’

‘Oh my god, Sam, what happened to your hand?’

I look down and it’s gushing blood now. I open it out, and my mum rushes forward, grabbing a tissue from the side table and pressing it onto my palm.

‘Mum, you don’t understand,’ I say, barely noticing my hand. ‘They can’t give her that potion. It won’t work. It will damage her more. I have the right one.’

I spin around, and grab the beaker from the table. But instead of the liquid I expected, the mixture has turned completely to powder, and the colour has changed to a dark, deep indigo.

‘Are you sure?’ Mum says, looking from my face to the powder in my hand.

‘I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.’

‘Then you’d better hurry.’

I race out of the lab, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge door in the kitchen. I take a moment to measure a teaspoon of the powder and mix it with the water. Then I run to the Summons. If I don’t get there in time, the Princess is going to be lost, for ever.

Once I get to the Summons I touch the surface tentatively at first, and then harder, until I’m slamming my hand against the glass-like surface.

I scream Renel’s name, but if he’s there, if he can hear me, he’s not listening.

‘Renel!’ I scream again. ‘You’re making a big mistake! The ZA potion is wrong. You’re going to poison her!’

‘He’s not going to answer,’ says Grandad. ‘Come with me.’

I have no better option than to follow him, even if I debate whether I can run to the castle from here and scream and shout until I’m let into the Palace above. I follow him into his bedroom, which is just as jumbled and full of books and alchemist paraphernalia as the lab.

But there, on the dresser, is a small television screen. Except, as Grandad quickly makes clear, it’s not a TV screen at all. It’s another Summons.

He places his palm on it, and it immediately jumps to life.

‘Ostanes? Is that you?’

The wrinkled face on the other side of the Summons takes my breath away.

It’s the Queen Mother.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Samantha

‘
T
ABITHA.’

‘Ostanes.’ The look of relief on the Queen Mother’s face is apparent. ‘What have you been waiting for? They’re about to administer that vile synth abomination. For a moment I thought you might have failed me.’ She puts her hand through the Summons, ready to pull me through.

‘The Kemi family have never failed you,’ my grandad says. He keeps his hand firmly on my upper arm, not letting me move. ‘You failed us.’

‘Ostanes, please. This is my granddaughter we’re talking about.’

‘And it is my grandchildren that you have endangered by not taking care of your own family.’

Fire blazes between the two old titans of the world, and if I know anything about my grandad – and from what little I know about the Queen Mother – this stand-off could go on for a long time. But I don’t have a long time. Neither does Evelyn. I tug at my grandad’s sleeve. ‘Whatever is going on here, I don’t care. I need to get this to Evelyn.’

His mouth doesn’t shift from its firm line. But he releases me, and I take the Queen Mother’s wrinkled hand. She pulls me from my home straight into her bedroom. My jaw drops as I look around. There’s a big crack down one wall, pictures smashed on dark hardwood flooring, glass sprinkled everywhere. One of the posts on her four-poster bed has fallen, bringing down with it a heavy woven tapestry and leaving it in tatters.

It’s chaos.

‘Quick, child.’ For someone who can look so frail on the casts, she’s fast. I struggle to keep up with her through the twists and turns of the Palace corridors.

At one point, she walks straight through a brick wall.

A moment later, she reappears. ‘I forget you ordinaries have to use doors. How inconvenient.’ She doesn’t magic a door for me to use, though. She simply blasts a hole through the brickwork, leaving me to pick a path through the smoking rubble.

We arrive where Princess Evelyn is being kept. Guards line the corridor on both sides, and an alcove is filled with cameramen and reporters. I’m surprised that they’ve been let so deep into the Palace.

As soon as they spot the Queen Mother and me, there’s a flurry and rush of activity as they turn their cameras on us to get a good shot. It’s rare enough to get a video of the Queen Mother under normal circumstances.

‘Get out of my way,’ the Queen Mother says, commanding so much power despite her small stature. Her isolation from the press also means that she suffers none of their nonsense. I find it refreshing.

She passes through the wall of the Princess’s room, and this time a door appears for me to step through. In the room is Zain – the first person my eyes find. Zol is there too, along with Renel, the Queen and the King.

They all look shocked to see us.

Princess Evelyn is asleep on her bed. Renel has the synth potion in his hands.

Evelyn stirs, fluttering her lashes, letting out a low moan of pain. Zain keeps staring at me, and although my eyes flicker back to him, what I read in his expression is exactly the last thing I ever thought I’d see there. It’s relief.

‘You’re too late,’ smirks Zol. ‘Our potion has been administered—’

The hair on my arms stands up on end, shivers running up and down my skin. It’s power building, gathering. A smell of roses fills the air, so thick, sweet and cloying it almost chokes me. Magic, pure and raw and uncontrollable.

A bolt of lightning explodes in the room, sending us all flying to the ground. I shield my eyes with my hands and when I look over at Evelyn, I see her floating above the bed, lightning sparking from her fingers.

‘It didn’t work!’ Zain cries out. He leaps to Evelyn’s bedside, trying to control her.

A storm gathers inside the room, the ceiling threatening to break away from the walls. The trembling ground sends objects flying around the room; everyone’s attention is focused on Evelyn, but mine is focused somewhere else: on Auden’s Horn, which has been relocated to the Princess’s room.

I make a dive for it, the potion in my hand. In what I hope will be a moment of calm, I open the bottle over the Horn but another wave of energy surges from the Princess and sends the liquid spraying everywhere.

‘No!’ I scream.

‘Sam, hurry!’ says Zain. ‘I trust you. Administer the potion!’

There is just enough left. I take a running leap towards the Princess, and at the same time the earth lifts beneath my feet. A gaping hole opens in the floor, leading into the bright blue sky. I jump onto the Princess’s bed, grabbing Zain’s outstretched arm and pulling myself along, like we’re trying to fight against a hurricane. Finally I reach her. She’s screaming.

I tip the potion into her mouth. At the same time, her eyes fly open and bore into mine, and then a blast of her magic flings me from the bed, all the way across the room until I land with a crash against the podium, sending Auden’s Horn clattering to the ground.

I lie there in a crumpled heap. I can barely move. But I can see the Horn. And I can see that it’s gold.

The noise; the wind; the lightning; the storm stops.

‘Zain?’ I hear Evelyn say.

‘Hey, Evie,’ he whispers back to her, and the tenderness in his voice breaks me. ‘How are you feeling?’ Zain leans down and picks up a shard of broken mirror that has fallen on the ground. We all wait with bated breath, scattered across what’s left of the room. If it hasn’t worked, it could be the end.

‘Oh wow,’ says Evelyn. ‘I look dreadful!’ She pushes the mirror away, and there’s a collective sigh of relief. ‘Hey, what’s going on? What happened in here? Did my eighteenth get a bit out of control?’

Now I know she’s safe, the pain hits. Darkness edges at my vision and I feel every lump of broken stone under my back. Someone kneels down beside me and cradles my head in their hands.

‘You okay?’

It’s Zain.

‘Unrequited love,’ I say, finally able to finish the answer to the question Zol had asked. ‘That was the missing ingredient.’

‘You did it, Sam,’ he says. ‘You won the Hunt.’

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Samantha

I
’M STANDING, AWKWARDLY, IN A BEAUTIFUL dress that they had couriered up from one of the most expensive shops in Kingstown. Nothing in my closet was good enough for one’s first Royal dinner apparently. I refuse the heels though. I’m already going to be the ordinary in the room, better not to be the ordinary giant.

But before the dinner, I’ve been asked to wait. My stomach rumbles in anticipation. They’ve healed my scrapes and broken bones and applied a top-notch glamour to give me colour, but they can’t use magic on my weary brain. I feel like I could sleep for a year. Renel ushers me into this mirrored receiving room, adjacent to the Princess’s bedroom. There’s an uncomfortable, lion-footed sofa that I try sitting on, but it’s so hard and bulbous that I return to standing. I’m also a little bit concerned that I’ll ruin my dress.

There’s a snap of electricity, and suddenly the Princess is in the room with me. I swallow hard. Despite having been close enough to thrust a love potion down her neck, having her awake and looking at me is intimidating. She’s so incredibly beautiful up close.

She rushes over to me, and takes both of my hands like we are long lost best friends. ‘Samantha Kemi.’ She kisses me on both cheeks. Up close, she smells of Elixir No. 5. ‘So you’re the wondrous brain that saved me.’

I blush a deep crimson. ‘I think it was more of a team effort thing . . .’

She waves her hands around dismissively. ‘Are you kidding me? Do you know how long it took for me to find a recipe for a love potion?
Years
. I mean, to figure out about the unrequited love.’ She regards me steadily through her steel-grey irises. ‘That takes skill.’

I bite my lip, considering what to say. The Princess stops me with a hand. ‘You saved my life. And I’m sure it made the potion extra potent for me, that we just so happened to be unrequitedly loving the same person.’