Toledo, Kingdom of Castile
Spring, 1201

Ada of Keyworth stared at the poppy pod, the one the apothecary rolled between his skeletal fingers. "What would you have me do for it?" she asked him in Arabic.

Seated, Hamid al-Balansi lolled the pod in his palm, around, around. A halo of sunlight from the doorway at his back left his aged, bearded face in shadow. But she could see his voracious eyes and the arch of his rank smile. "When was your last taste, inglesa?"

Englishwoman.

She licked chapped lips, darting a glance to his wide pupils. "Two evenings ago."

"Ah," Hamid said, his grin widening. "Without your ration, I do not envy your suffering come nightfall."

"Then don't make me suffer. Give me the tincture."

"The question is not what I would have you do for it." His sharp voice held none of the pity she sought. "Instead, I should ask what you are willing to do."

The cramped alcove at the rear of the apothecary's shop pressed closer around her. She cringed, the tapestry-lined walls threatening like ominous sentinels. Angled rays of intense afternoon sunshine illuminated the ragged edges of the tapestry covering the doorway, shining around it like a corona, polluting the air with the stench of heated wool. Seated on a scatter of worn brocade pillows, Ada hugged her knees and concentrated on the pale green seedpod.

"Please." The plaintive word grazed the parched tissue of her throat. "I have no money."

"Worse than that, pretty one. You have debts. Bad debts to unsavory men."

Panic caught fire in her chest, at war with the chills. "My debts are no concern of yours."

"Oh, but they are. If I give you the tincture for free, I keep you from asking for another loan." Hamid teased one of the pod's seams with a ragged thumbnail, releasing a drizzle of milky liquid. "Your creditors won't appreciate my taking business away from them."

"Do they have to know?" The grotesque little whisper hardly sounded like her.

"They always know. These people you owe, they are the eyes and ears of Toledo--not the high-minded courtiers you count among your patrons." He raised a bushy white eyebrow. "Why haven't you asked Doña Valdedrona for the money you need?"

"She is at the Alcázar in Segovia with King Alfonso, and most of the household with her," Ada said. "But even if she was here, I could never ask such a favor."

"And you have nothing else to sell?"

She thought of the scrolls, the ones she had pilfered from amongst the belongings of Daniel of Morley, her mentor. The English scholar had helped her and Jacob find patronage with the Condesa de Valdedrona, then spent the better part of a year tutoring Ada in the half dozen languages of Iberia. A ragged bit of her conscience had not let her bring the man's scrolls. They sat in a satchel in her room. Now she wished she had.

"No. I have nothing."

He laughed without mirth, the squawk of a crow. "More's the pity. We shall have to come to an agreement, you and me."

His fingers steady and sure despite his age, Hamid picked up a bowl from the squat table at his knee and placed the poppy inside. With a mortar, he crushed the fragile, unripe pod until nothing remained but moss-green filaments bathed in creamy resin. He added two more pods, pulverized them, and sluiced wine over the mash. Deep burgundy muted to a paler shade, swirling around the bowl. After draining the liquid to a flask, he added pinches of cardamom and cloves.

Ada absorbed the scene, taking in every familiar movement. She imagined tasting the foul, stinging tincture, feeling the blissful release of the opium. Relief washed over her. Soon. Soon, she would be free of the wicked torture of unending dreams, that terrible nightly spectacle.

The only remaining matter was what Hamid would ask of her. She closed her eyes. A distant part of her mind--the part that hovered above the pain and the insatiable cravings--recalled a very different life. Ada of Keyworth, the scholar. The translator. The woman from England who had once lived for reasons other than opium. But what had those reasons been? She could no longer recall, a failing that only added to her despair.

And what would Jacob do when he found out? He had asked her to make one promise, one ridiculously harmless promise for her own safety. And she could not keep it.

Hamid capped the flask. The liquid sloshed as he shook it vigorously, the fluff of his shabby white beard shivering with the movement. Watching, waiting, Ada faced an unassailable truth. She lived in that bottle. She would do anything to have it, devil take the consequences.

"And now the small matter of my fee," he said.

"Whatever you ask. I'll find a way to pay."

His rodent grin sent frissons of fear up her arms--or was that the sickness? Anything but the sickness of withdrawal.

If need be, she would stab the grizzled apothecary in the neck and steal his goods. She had killed once before, and memories of Sheriff Finch's bloody end revisited her nightly. Finch's ornamented dagger still dangled at her waist, the last item of value she possessed. But she would never part with the macabre souvenir, a talisman against those who would do her further harm.

Tension curled in her muscles. She clutched the hilt, patterns of inlaid jewels and raised scrollwork gouging her damp palm. One quick strike and Hamid would fall dead. One quick strike and she would steal every poppy pod in his shop.

Movement at the curtained doorway caught her attention. Two giant men in black robes swished the tapestry aside, blinding her with a stab of bright sunshine. She released the dagger to shield her eyes. When they dropped the faded wool into place, the burly guards stood at either side of Hamid, his bony limbs and parchment skin.

And the flask was gone.

"Where did it go? The flask? You said we could come to an agreement!"

"But our agreement had naught to do with murder," he said, the dark pools of his eyes alighting on her dagger. "I felt you were liable to become unreasonable."

Fingers, hands, arms--she could not stop shaking. "You know I need it."

Hamid removed the flask from the folds of his white linen robe. He removed the cork and set it on the table at his knee. "Keep your peace, if you would. A hasty move might upset the table, and then your tincture will be no more."

"Please!"

Once she had been able to read people very well. Particularly men. She had read them like her beloved languages, knowing just what they needed to hear. But all she heard was a watery streak of hysteria in her own voice.

"Now here is my proposition," he said. "Will you hear it?"

Struggling for a breath, she looked up at the stern guards, their impassive faces and broad shoulders. One wore a massive mace at his hip. They made the tiny alcove seem even more confining. Backed against the rear wall, she would not be able leave without their consent.

But she had no desire to escape, not without the tonic.

"Yes, I'll hear it," she said flatly. "Name your price."

For the first time, pity washed over the old man's withered features. His toothy grin faded. With steady hands Ada envied, he gestured to the open flask. An invitation.

She snatched it from the table. Greedy swallows bathed her tongue in bitter, spiced wine, trailing a path of fire to her gut. The warm wash of opium soothed her tattered spirit and quelled the shakes. Warm. Floating and free. The price he would demand, how she would satisfy her next, inevitable appetite--none of it mattered.

As the tincture enveloped her senses, she smiled and retrieved the dagger from her belt. It was no use, holding onto that grim reminder. "For you. My payment."

"Keep your blade, inglesa," he said. "Where you're going, you will need it."