Annie Philaxis's Arc

Chapter 168 of 6

The morning after the feast, the inn still smelled of woodsmoke and stew. Annie thought the danger had passed. Then Zev came down the stairs holding a bowl, her face gray. "The families ate the greens I picked by the river," she said. "I chopped the wrong caps into the pot. The bright ones." Annie looked at the cluster on the counter—neon pink and orange, dotted like wet glass. The hallucinogenic mushrooms. Zev's hands shook. "I served it to everyone last night. And I gave the recipe to two others to make for their own tables today." Upstairs, a woman laughed at a wall. A rescued father wept over a chair he swore was his drowned brother. A boy screamed that the frost was crawling up his legs, though the room was warm. Tobi ran to Annie, wide-eyed. "They think the walls are melting. Veruca won't stop spinning." Even the Sprouts had eaten. Their leaf-hair had flushed a sick, glowing purple. Annie made herself think. "The spores are water-proof," Zev said. "I can't wash them out. They're already in the blood." Annie remembered how her sister read earth and bone. "Then you don't wash the spore. You draw it. Like drawing frost from a name." Zev's eyes cleared. "Root magic. I pull it into the soil, not the water." But they needed the whole inn awake and still, all at once, or the panic would spread the dosing further. Annie's gaze fell on the crackling orb Zev had built for the children's games—a ball of neon light wrapped in sparks. She lifted it. "They followed the snail's glow before. They'll follow this." She carried the orb to the center of the room and set it spinning. Its light snapped and hummed, bright as a small sun. "Look at the orb," Annie called. "Only the orb." The staring faces turned. The weeping father stopped mid-sob. The spinning girl slowed. Lumina Frostcrawler crawled to the orb's base, her shell blazing, and the Sprouts crept toward her cold light out of habit. With everyone gathered and fixed, Zev knelt and pressed both palms to the floorboards. "Down," she whispered. "Give it to the ground." The warmth of the wood answered her. One by one, the neon flush drained from the Sprouts' leaves. The father blinked and knew the chair was a chair. The boy touched his own legs and found them whole. The room came back. Zev sagged, spent, the sickness pulled through her and into the earth below. Annie caught the mushroom cluster and threw it in the fire, where it hissed and shriveled. But the families were awake now, and they knew what had happened. "You dosed us," the father said, not cruel, only afraid. "Every one of us. Our children." He looked at Zev, then at Annie. "How do we ever eat at your table again?" Annie had no answer. The frost above them had not moved—but the trust below had cracked, and a queendom could not stand on a table no one would sit at.