The Duke had loaded them down with food for the road. He even insisted they take a pony to carry the extra. Lissie listened to him telling the story again and again the night before to his guests. None of them seemed to care much. Cora was paraded around like a prize, the Daughter of Lady Llanarth that had caught the killer. It was a spectacle.
The next day’s journey through the narrow path shadowed by high stone walls, winding down through the foothills had been filled with cheer and laughter. Alexander was not hungover, he was still drunk. He insisted that to be hungover, one had to sleep. He sang songs and even got Riley to join in with him.
They stopped to camp, and Lissie cooked for everyone. Niko would only eat raw vegetables, but she made him a chopped salad. She tried to make it as pretty as she could in the small travel bowl. The carrots, cabbage, and radishes made a colorful pile and Lissie threw it in oil and vinegar.
She offered him the bowl. He looked worried. “I do not want to break your bowl.”
“We are farther south now. You may find it easier.” Lissie watched, waiting for him to try the food.
He took the bowl between his thumb and forefinger. It did not shatter. He sat the bowl in the palm of his left hand and brought it to his mouth. She watched his lips close over a thin flake of cabbage.
“You could try using a fork.” Lissie waved the metal implement toward him, handle first.
He took it the way Lissie would pick up a piece of broken glass. The tines trembled as they lifted some shredded vegetables. The bite fell off the fork. Lissie smiled. Niko tried again.
“It’s fine if something happens to that fork.” She tried to sound consoling.
He got a forkful to his mouth and tried to shake it off onto his tongue. She noticed his tongue was pink, not blue. He chewed and swallowed and said, “This sauce. It is good.”
“It’s just oil and vinegar.”
Except it wasn’t, when I tasted it. It was olive trees windswept by the sea and wine grape vines on hills.
Lissie left Niko to eat without her watching him.
Cora was popping the caps off of the mushrooms, cutting them into careful slices, slipping them in between books. She arranged the caps on a page that was inked black and placed a cloth bag over it.
“I tried taking a spore print last night, but I could barely see them. I thought they might show better on black paper, but I didn’t bring any black paper. I inked that whole page just now.”
Tell her to soak a page in water. Nelli’s voice sounded scholarly, without menace. If the page is completely wet, the mushroom will freeze to the paper and leave its spores.
Lissie sat down next to Cora and opened the bag. “You’re trying to find the spores, those shake out of the ridges on the bottoms of the cap?” She picked up a cap and examined the riffled bottom.
Cora looked at her with wide eyes. “Yes. That is like the seeds for a mushroom. They are very small.” She was watching the mushroom in Lissie’s hand with trepidation.
“If they are small, maybe they would stick to something wet. But this might work. We would catch fern spores out in the forest when I was little, in a wet napkin.” Lissie lied.
Cora took the mushroom cap from Lissie’s outstretched hand. “They use glass in the alchemy laboratory. I did not find any from the glass slide I brought. I left it all night, but we keep moving.”
Lissie shrugged. “One on a wet piece of paper might be interesting. This is what you do, right? Try things until something works.”
Lissie got up and went over to Riley and Alexander, who were engaged in a game of Writ. They had taken to playing every night. The new pony was standing by, watching intently.
Riley waved him away, and Lissie caught the pony’s harness and petted his nose.
“Guy’s knocked three pieces on the ground already,” Riley explained.
Alexander gave him an appraising look. “He seems more like a dog than a horse. What kind of name is Guy for a horse?”
Lissie stroked his mane. “The Duke happily sent him off. Maybe he’s a troublemaker.”
She watched them play for a while, but she never really cared for games.
She did not dream that night.