I take my coat off, hang it up on the hook, and pull out the bottles and pouch. When I make eye contact with him again, it seems like he wants to say something and isn’t sure how to phrase it. But before he gets a word out, Aarya barges into the hall.

Her eyes light up when she sees the bottles. “Well, just look at that! It’s a holly jolly Christmas,” she says with an enthusiasm that seems out of place with my nerve-racking evening.

Ash gives her a look like he doesn’t quite agree as we head into the living room.

Ines sits on the couch, surrounded by masquerade masks and piles of gauze, lace, and various trimmings. “I’m trying to adjust these so that they cover more of our faces,” she says, and I’m reminded of all the time she spent with her sketchpad at the Academy.

“Yes, yes, Ines is impressive. Always has been,” Aarya says. “But what I want to hear is how in the hell you got that necklace. I never thought you would pull that off in a million years. And what exactly is in those bottles in your hand?” She’s practically falling over herself to get to them. It’s amazing how Aarya can be both nice and awful all at once.

“Two darts of lightning poison,” I say, laying the burlap pouch down on the coffee table.

Aarya snatches it up, clearly delighted. “You must really have done something right.”

“ ‘Doing something right’ is not the way I would describe my evening,” I say.

“Well, you’re wrong. This stuff is exceptionally rare and nearly impossible to procure,” Aarya says, and her voice has more pep to it than it’s had all day.

I frown at her.

She turns the small vials around, examining them. “Most poisons take a while to go into effect and most have antidotes. Lightning poison is instantaneous and has no antidote. It’s a well-kept secret of Strategia apothecaries.” When I don’t join in on her excitement, she huffs. “Jag is exactly the type of person who probably keeps antidotes on his person just in case. But this is something he can’t prepare for.”

“Oh,” I say, still deeply uncomfortable with the killing talk. I place a small jar on the table. “Also, Drunken Confessions.”

Ash picks it up and opens the lid, smelling the oily paste inside.

Aarya stares over Ash’s shoulder. “Never heard of it,” she says. “Does it need to be ingested?”

“It gets rubbed on the skin,” I say. “It disorients you, makes your legs go completely weak, and makes you spout just about anything that comes to mind. It’s kind of terrible.”

Ash looks up at me, his interest shifting from the ointment to me. “How do you know it’s terrible?”