Poison Read Free

clean up herself. No servants were allowed in here.
    Her gaze grazed the sparkling glass cabinets that housed her possessions. Some she had brought with her on her reluctant journey into marriage, others she had purchased surreptitiously, her nose always checking the wind for the scent of magic, but of late most had come from the boy she sent to search them out. Soon he’d be back again. What would he have found this time? As her great-grandmother had taught her, a wise woman could never have enough magic.
    She got to her feet and tugged her black robe tighter, moving through the room and taking comfort from the items and bottled potions and poisons. It wasn’t enough to own them, you had to know how and when to use them. More than that, you had to be prepared to use them. Her face was reflected in the glass like a ghost on water; fascinating and untouchable. She was beautiful. She had always been the most beautiful woman wherever she was. Ethereal, that’s what they called her, both in her own lands and in this new one which she had been forced to take as her home.
    Her mother had the same beauty and it was perhaps only that which had saved them both from burning when her father had discovered that they were cuckoos in the royal nest. When he’d found out about her great-grandmother in the woods, the crone in her candy house, where Lilith had spent childhood days learning the craft and playing with the bones of lost children. When he’d realised a witch’s curse ran through their blood, he’d locked them both away for days. But her mother was no fool. She’d used her beauty against him. Lilith had been banished into marriage and her father, the king, had declared that cottage and part of the forest out of bounds. Men would do a lot for beauty, that’s what Lilith learned in that time. Beauty had a magic all of its own.
    ‘I know you’re in there!’ The words were accompanied by a pummelling fist on the door. The queen jumped, her reverie broken. She looked down at the mess on the floor again.
    Snow White.
    ‘I know you’re in there! Open the door!’
    How did she know about this room? No one knew about this room! The king might have, once, but he’d have long ago forgotten. His interest in his wife didn’t extend very far. She stared at the thick wood and remained silent. The fists beat out another angry round on the other side.
    ‘You fired Maddy! You sent her home! I’m not going anywhere until you open this door. I’ll wait until you come out. You can’t hide from me forever!’
    The queen heard the first hint of tears in the girl’s voice, and only then did she pull back the bolts that separated them. She stood in the doorway blocking her possessions from view. Not that it mattered. All of Snow White’s attention was on her step-mother. Tears spilled from her eyes, but her skin wasn’t blotchy. Her thick dark hair was like a wild mane around her shoulders. If Lilith’s beauty was ethereal then Snow’s was earthy. Raw and sensual. Standing there, anger and upset making her whole body tremble while her eyes were wild and full of rage, Lilith thought Snow had taken on the spirit of one of the magnificent horses she so loved to ride.
    But horses were breakable. They had to be broken. That was the way of things. Snow White would be no different in the end.
    Lilith remained impassive, a wall of cool ice before the pacing animal. Air and earth. Light and dark.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, eventually, pleased with the mild irritation in her tone. ‘This is a private place.’
    ‘This is where you hide,’ Snow said. ‘I’ve known about it for ages. Why did you fire Maddy? She’s been here since I was a child. You can’t fire her; you just can’t! I took the food to the forest, not her. It’s my fault. If anyone should be punished it’s me. And I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’ She paused. ‘I never mean to upset you, although I seem to do it all the time.’
    Now