“Oatmeal raisin cookies. It’s an heirloom recipe from the mid-1900s.” I punch the ingredients into the oven’s control panel for a second batch. By now, the scent of cinnamon and brown sugar is wafting through the entire kitchen and common room. Vera and Cy find the kitchen pretty fast. Hex’s voice sounds from the walls.
“Don’t eat them all! I’m coming! Save me six! SIX!”
“Of course,” I say. “It’s the least I could do, after ruining the babka.” The last ingredients are in, and I type in the order to mix, separate, and bake the next dozen. They’ll be done in a few minutes. “Someone grab the milk and I’ll bring the next dozen out to the table,” I say.
The cookies cast a strange, forceful spell because everyone immediately obeys me, grabbing glasses and the two pitchers of synthetic milk from the fridge. They file out as I turn my back to them, reach into the ion oven, and take out the steaming, fragrant cookies. I take one from the tray and put it on the countertop. In one quick movement, I pull out a bottle of fentocaine from the band of my pants, flip the plastic cap off, and stab the protective foil across the top with a fork.
I let the clear liquid drizzle over the remaining eleven cookies, disappearing into the landscape of raisins and oats. The bottle disappears into the trash can, and for extra measure, I open up the second bottle, then stop. No, it would be too much. I don’t want to overdose them. I pour the bottle into a mug of milk as a backup, just in case. If I’m lucky, the scent of baking cookies will fool Marka before she even knows what hit her.
That’s a big if.
I take one unadulterated cookie off the countertop and jam it between my teeth for effect. It dries out in my mouth, and the cloying sweetness nauseates me. A protective, silicone cooking glove goes over the hand that carries the mug of milk. If I spill this on myself by accident, it would be the worse kind of poetic justice ever. Hex bounds into the kitchen.
“Sweet! I’m not too late.” He takes the cookie-filled plate from the counter and whacks the door open with two hands. Vera, Wilbert, Marka, and Cy are passing around goblets of milk. The other dish of cookies is now a battlefield in ruins, crumbs everywhere.
“Help yourself,” I say, but it comes out as “Helff your felff,” sloppy and innocent-sounding. Everyone reaches for the new plate of cookies. For a moment, I know exactly what Snow White’s evil stepmother felt like, offering that shining ruby apple. Only the evil queen never felt as sick as I do now, knowing what’s about to happen.
The cookies are taken by everyone but Marka. Crap. She’s making sure everyone else gets a portion first. I panic, because if she isn’t drugged, my whole plan is screwed. Hex manages to get one into his mouth, but none of the others make it that far. The fentocaine goes straight through their skin, entering their bloodstream and darkening their vision.
Hex falls backward, crashing onto the carpet. The cookie bounces right out of his mouth. Vera hits the table, her lovely head bouncing on her arm. Even knocked out, she’s exquisite, and her perfect green skin doesn’t fade a bit.
“Oh my god!” Marka shrieks, shaking Vera’s arm, then running to Hex on the floor. She touches Hex’s face. He’s unconscious with his arms splayed out in an X. She whirls around, only to see Cy fall next.
The cookie drops out of his hand, and there is an eternal second in time when his gaze meets mine. Just before blackness takes him, I see terrible things in his eyes. The realization about everything—each lie, why I pushed him away too much. All the trust between us obliterates like a splinter burned to ash. A beat later, his eyes close and his head falls onto his arm.
“What’s going on?” Marka yells, frantic. She crouches by Hex, batting away the cookies still clutched in his hands with her shoe-covered feet. She already knows not to touch them. When she sees me standing there, watching with a calm terror that only the guilty possess, she croaks, “Zelia? What have you done?”
Her accusation is heavy and sharp. It slices into me without resistance. I start to cry. “I’m so sorry.” I hold my mug of poisoned milk, ready to throw it on her, but my arm doesn’t move.
“This isn’t going to get your sister back,” she says hurriedly, checking Hex’s pulse, then moving to Wilbert. Wilbert is sprawled comfortably on the table, snoring peacefully. It could be the first time in his entire life both heads have been asleep.
“I won’t let anyone get hurt because of me. Not again,” I say, letting the tears dribble down my cheek. I take a step closer to her, lifting the mug of milk. Marka sees what I’ve got in my protected hand, and she shakes her head.
“Don’t.” Her hand goes up and she starts to back away from me. “Please, Zelia! You’re throwing yourself away. You have a new family here, one that loves you.” Her perpetually stoic face breaks into a sob. “I’ve already lost your father. I’ve lost your sister. Please. I’m begging you. I can’t lose you too.”
I pause and stop walking toward her. I’ve never seen Marka cry, and it’s killing me. My shoulders start to shake as tears obscure my vision. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I can have this family, and Dyl and Cy . . .
No. I know that’s just a dream, like the fake ones induced by Wilbert’s elixir. I have to give this all away. The tiny chance to get Dyl back rests on me, and me alone. I wipe my tears away and look around at the sleeping forms of Hex, Wilbert, Cy, and Vera.
“They need you, Marka. And Dyl needs me. I’m sorry.”
“No!”
I thrust the mug forward. An arc of pristine, white milk sails into the air. Marka twists around to run as most of the milk splatters far away from me on the ebony floor. A single splash of liquid darkens the fabric of her pearl-gray pants. She takes only three more steps before she collapses on the floor.
I cover my mouth, horrified by my success.
Before I leave, I kiss Cy tenderly on the cheek. My tears dampen his hair where they cling like clear jewels. For the first time in a week, he’s put more tattoos on again. His neck bears a fading image of bodies frozen in concentric rings of a lake. Lower down on his arm, the bodies cry in torment. During one of my middle-of-the-night rambles, I figured out that the rings of Dante’s hell have always been his images of choice. I know this ring of hell, because I saw it in his room yesterday. The ninth ring. Treachery.
Callie trots over to me, the pig incarnation of all things normal and happy. She’s the yin to my yang.
Callie snuffles Wilbert’s inert leg with curiosity, and I run for the door without another glance back.
I can’t see anyway. I’m crying too hard.
IN THE LAB, I MOP MY SODDEN eyes and nose with a sleeve.
“Time,” I call.
“Nine thirty p.m.,” the room responds. Prompt to the end, even when I’ve poisoned the owners of these curved walls. I have less than three hours. In the center fridge, hiding behind a wall of phony vials, are two plain bottles that contain my real elixir. I stuff them into a tiny cooler bag programmed to the same temperature as the fridge. Before I leave, I pause before the shelves full of other Carus experiments. Cy’s one vial sits alone on a shelf.
I hold it in my hand, hesitating. It’s not mine to take. Then again, nothing of Cy’s, including his affection, has ever been mine to have. The bottle is so small, weighing only a few ounces. No. I shake my head and put it back, talking out loud to no one.
“I can’t.” As I put it back on the cold shelf, something weightless brushes against my shoulder. A soft voice enters my head.
“Sure you can.”
Behind the giant metal door of the fridge, Ana sways unsteadily on a single foot. Her plum nightgown is hardly more than a wisp of fabric on her lean body. She balances as if walking an invisible tightrope on the floor. Oh no. I didn’t drug Ana. I didn’t even think of it. Ana reads the mistake on my face. And now—