I dropped to my knees and felt the damp carpet. Then I brought my fingers to my nose. The familiar scent of anise overpowered everything.

There was too much glass on the ground. It had to be more than one bottle. I’d only brought two.

I frantically pushed aside clothes in the wardrobe, but there was no sign of the bottles. They all too clearly lay in shards on the floor. The rug had soaked up every drop of the elixir. There was none left.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Someone knew my secret weakness. And they were trying to kill me.

I plucked glass shards uselessly from the rug, then let them slide through my fingers. One sliced my hand, drawing a thin line of blood, but I didn’t care.

I had less than three hours left before the poison resumed the deadly work Ignazio halted years ago.

Uncle Ignazio. Relief flooded me. He was home; he could make more elixir. It might take him time, and I might not have a pleasant night ahead of me; but I wasn’t going to die. He’d been able to concoct the elixir in time when I’d first been poisoned ten years ago, after all.

I hurried to his study, running my hand along the wall to touch something solid in a world gone unsteady as a sinking boat. The fading light of the luminaries filled the hallway with ghosts and shadows. I tried not to think of the several emergencies riding my back like demons—the children, the murder, the elixir—and focus on the simple task of reaching Ignazio’s door.

I couldn’t keep my urgency out of my knock, hammering harder than I’d meant to. “Uncle Ignazio? Are you in there?”

He opened the door himself, alarm in his eyes. “Amalia! Come in. Are you well?”

His warmly lit study, lined with books and the occasional jar of herbs, enfolded me with welcome relief. I sank into a chair without invitation, my knees trembling from shock.

“Uncle Ignazio, someone broke in to my room and smashed my elixir bottles.”

His face went still and serious. He closed the study door and pulled a chair up close to mine. “Did they get all of them?”

“Yes.” I clenched my hands together in my lap to keep them quiet. “There wasn’t a drop left, and I already took my only grace vial. I’m late with tonight’s dose.”

“Ah, yes, those little emergency vials. How long will it buy you?”

“Three hours from when I took it. Then the poison starts working again.” Or so my mother had warned me. I’d never been more than a couple hours late with my elixir before. The memory of agonizing cramps and terrible hallucinations kept me on schedule.

“So, perhaps nine or ten hours before it kills you. Good.” He stood, clasping his hands behind his back, and started to pace. “We have time, then.”