She slips the paper under the door. It stops halfway. She gives it an extra push and it passes into the room beyond.
Eleanor waits, but nothing happens and the nothing happening becomes quickly boring so she leaves.
Eleanor is in another room, giving a biscuit to a cat, the note half forgotten, when the door opens. A rectangle of light spills into the soot-covered space.
The door remains open for a moment, and then it slowly closes.
ZACHARY EZRA RAWLINS half wakes underwater with the taste of honey in his mouth. It makes him cough.
“What did you drink?” he hears Mirabel’s voice from far away but when he blinks she is inches from his face, staring at him, blurry, her hair a backlit halo of pink. His glasses are gone. “What did you drink?” blurry underwater Mirabel repeats. Zachary wonders if mermaids have pink hair.
“She gave me tea,” he says, each word slow like the honey. “Intimidatey tea.”
“And you drank it?” Mirabel asks incredulously as Zachary thinks maybe he nods. “You need more of this.”
She puts something to his lips that might be a bowl and is definitely filled with honey. Honey and maybe cinnamon and clove. It’s just liquid enough to drink and tastes like cough-medicine Christmas. Always winter never nondenominational seasonal holidays, Zachary Narnia-thinks and coughs again but then Princess Bubblegum—no, Mirabel—forces him to drink more of it.
“I can’t believe you were that stupid,” she says.
“She drank it first,” Zachary protests, the words almost at a normal pace. “She poured both cups.”
“And she chose which cup you got, right?” Mirabel says and Zachary nods. “The poison was in the cup, not the tea. Did you drink the whole cup?”
“I don’t think so,” Zachary says. The room is getting clearer. His glasses weren’t missing after all, they’re on his face. The underwater feeling fades. He’s sitting in an armchair in Dorian’s art deco room. Dorian is asleep on the bed. “How long was I…” he starts to ask but can’t find the word to complete the question, even though he knows it is a little word. Oou. Tout.
“A few minutes,” Mirabel answers. “You should have more of that.”
Out. That’s the word. Sneaky little word. Zachary sips the liquid again. He can’t remember if he likes honey or not.
Behind him the dumbwaiter chimes and Mirabel goes to check it. She removes a tray filled with vials and bowls and a towel and a box of matches.
“Light this and put it on the nightstand, please,” Mirabel instructs him, handing him the matches and a cone of incense with a ceramic burner. Zachary realizes it’s a test as soon as he tries to light the match, his coordination failing him. It takes three attempts.
Zachary holds the lit match to the incense, reminded of all the times he performed the same action for his mother. He concentrates on holding his hand steady, more difficult than it should be, and lets the incense catch before softly blowing the flame down to a smoking ember, the scent rich and immediate but unfamiliar. Sweet but minty.
“What is it?” Zachary asks as he places it on the nightstand, curls of smoke wafting over the bed. His hands feel less shaky but he sits back down and takes another sip of the honey mixture. He thinks he does like honey.
“No idea,” Mirabel says. She puts some liquid on the small towel and places it on Dorian’s forehead. “The Kitchen has its house remedies, they tend to be effective. You know about the Kitchen, right?”
“We’ve met.”
“They don’t usually include the incense unless it’s serious,” Mirabel says, frowning at the curling smoke and looking back at Dorian. “Maybe it’s for both of you.”
“Why would Allegra poison me?” Zachary asks.
“Two possibilities,” Mirabel says. “One, she was going to knock you out and send you back to Vermont so you’d wake up with mild amnesia and if you remembered anything you would think it was a dream.”
“Two?”
“She was trying to kill you.”
“Great,” Zachary says. “And this is an antidote?”
“I have never encountered a poison it couldn’t counteract. You’re feeling better already, aren’t you?”
“Just a little blurry,” Zachary says. “You said he tried to kill you once.”
“It didn’t work,” Mirabel says and before Zachary can ask her to elaborate there is a knock at the open door.