Averlain was the sort of village that made you feel the world had forgotten it. The river ran silver at night, and the valley held its breath under the moon. People here were simple, tied to their land, their routines, and whatever rules they had inherited. Herbal remedies were respected, so long as you didn't claim so many miracles. Healers muttered strange words while brewing salves, but magic? That was for stories, not for the village square.
I, of course, never listened. Or maybe I did, too closely. As a child, I'd heard the elders' tales of lost arts and forbidden knowledge, careful not to seem too excited, because curiosity could get you in trouble. Sometimes, when I went to the woods, I thought the trees leaned closer, watching me. Shadows moved in ways they shouldn't. And sometimes, I swore I heard my name carried in the wind, when no one was near. They said it was nothing. Tricks of the mind. I liked to think otherwise.
I didn't have many friends in Averlain, unless you counted cows, moss, or that one cat who hated everyone equally. Judith was the closest thing to a companion. She was a clever girl with a fondness for gossip and an alarming ability to make me feel like I was being interrogated by a chatty executioner. Thomas, the baker's son, was fond of telling jokes. Unfortunately, none of them were funny. Peter, well... Peter was the reason I learned how to walk faster than most girls.
And then there was Victor.
Victor Darkstone was a boy of few words and even fewer facial expressions. The villagers thought he was odd. I thought he was intelligent-mainly because he didn't speak unless he had something worth saying, which, in Averlain, was considered a radical personality flaw.
People whispered about his family, too. Mrs. Frances Darkstone had passed away under mysterious circumstances, which in Averlain meant she'd perished in any way that wasn't old age or the flu. Mr. Maxwell Darkstone claimed it was childbirth complications. The fact that no one ever dared question him probably had something to do with the fact that he looked like a man who could make your taxes disappear, and not in a good way.
Instead, we spent afternoons in the meadows: me, picking herbs and pretending not to look like a witch-in-training; him, reading books with titles longer than most Averlain wedding speeches. He was the only person who knew I liked medicine. I never told him how much I liked the other things...stranger things. I wasn't sure if he'd understand. Or worse, if he would.
Then, when he was fourteen, he vanished. He was sent off to a distant port city called Dravenmar, allegedly to be educated under the care of a wealthy uncle. I suspected it was less "education" and more "escape." No letters came. No word at all. And just like that, Victor Darkstone became one more ghost in my life, just better dressed than most.
By the time I was sixteen, the opportunity had come knocking. Aunt Genevieve, a woman with the soul of an accountant and the warmth of a snowstorm, agreed to take me in. Not out of maternal instinct or sentimental affection—don't be ridiculous—but because she needed help in her millinery shop, and I was cheaper than hiring a girl with actual experience. Thus, I was shipped off to Amberfield, one of the largest cities in the country, where the gas lamps glimmered and the people had better places to be than staring at you in judgment, as they did back in Averlain.
Her husband, Uncle Benedict, was a solicitor of some repute, though one might hardly know it from his presence at home. He spent most of his days in his office or at the courts, returning only in the evenings to sit in his study, a newspaper in hand and a pipe smoldering at his side. He was a quiet man, not unkind but distant, offering me a nod in passing and little else. If he had opinions on Genevieve taking me in, he never voiced them.
Aunt Genevieve had three children, each more different than the last. Vivien, the eldest, was a master of the elegant insult. Her smiles could cut glass, and her words were sharper still. Matthias, my age, was a walking riddle wrapped in a waistcoat. He spoke as though he lived in a world five degrees removed from ours. Once he asked me if shadows could lie. I still don't know if he was joking. Sabine, the youngest, had the ambition of a royal courtier and the soul of a fashion magazine.
For three years, I endured that household: stitching ribbons onto bonnets, enduring Vivien's cutting remarks, and trying not to be swallowed whole by the suffocating world my aunt had built for herself.
When I turned nineteen, I told my aunt I was leaving. I had weighed the decision for weeks. In the end, it was not courage that drove me, but the quiet, growing certainty that if I remained, I might vanish entirely.
"I'm leaving," I told her, standing as tall as one could while holding a half-finished bonnet.
She didn't flinch. She didn't blink. She merely looked up from her tally book, sighed through her nose like someone who'd just been handed an extra column of expenses, and said, "If you've made up your mind, I won't waste my breath."
Vivien scoffed, arms crossed over her embroidered bodice. "About time," she muttered. "You were never cut out for this business."
Matthias tilted his head, watching me with his usual, unreadable expression. If he had thoughts on the matter, he kept them to himself.
Sabine, lounging on the velvet settee, flicked her gaze toward me. "Where will you go?" she asked, not with concern, but with a curiosity that felt sharper than it should have.
I lifted my chin. "I'll manage."
"Manage," Vivien echoed, laughing under her breath. "By doing what, exactly? Stitching in some back alley shop? Or perhaps something even less respectable?"
Aunt Genevieve set her pen down with a quiet click. "That's enough, Vivien," she said, though there was no warmth in her voice, only the finality of a closing ledger.
And then I was gone.
I drifted. From boarding house to boarding house, job to job, dignity barely intact. Until, one day, I walked into the apothecary of a man named Mr. Errol Hawthorne.
The shop smelled of herbs, ink, and dried ambition. I felt immediately at home.
Mr. Hawthorne, a man with an intimidating knowledge of every root and remedy known to man, took one look at me and-oddly-decided I was worth training. Perhaps he saw my potential. Or perhaps he just needed someone who wouldn't faint at the sight of a jar labeled "crushed bat spleen." Either way, I accepted.
And for the first time in my life, I had something that looked suspiciously like a future.
Almost two years had passed since then.
Amberfield no longer terrified me. It merely annoyed me, like a loud relative one could neither escape nor fully ignore. The market streets which was once an unsolvable maze of shouting, smoke, and unexpected horse droppings, had become tolerably familiar. I could even navigate them without being trampled. Most days.
The cobblestone streets thrummed with life, or perhaps just a particularly stubborn chest infection. Market stalls lined the avenues, their vendors competing to see who could shout the loudest and offer the most suspiciously shiny produce. The air was thick with the scent of roasting chestnuts, warm bread, wet stone, and the unmistakable aroma of too many people living too close together.
I moved through the crowd like a seasoned eel; swift, silent, and slightly damp from the morning fog. I had long since learned how not to make eye contact with street performers or overly enthusiastic sausage vendors. This, I considered, was true survival.
I quickened my pace, drawn by the scent of warm pastries. My worn cloak billowed as I wove between passersby, my boots scuffing against the uneven stones. The city was a ceaseless tide of movement, a place where one could vanish into the crowd if they wished.
"Ah, young lady!" called a merchant, with a voice like butter and ambition. "Finest pastries in all of Amberfield! Your taste buds shall write you thank-you letters!"
I glanced at the golden-crusted confections, my soul briefly leaving my body in longing.
Then I remembered my coin purse. It was lighter than my dignity during a street puddle mishap last week.
"Perhaps another time, sir," I said with a diplomatic smile. "My business cannot wait."
He gave a good-natured shrug, hands dusted with flour. "Remember-life's hardships are easier with a little sweetness!"
I smiled again, the way one smiles at distant relatives or suspicious dogs, and continued on my way.
A little sweetness. Yes. That would be nice.
Just as soon as it fit into the budget. Right between rent and not starving.
Turning down a narrow alley that smelled faintly of damp cats and questionable decisions, I made my way toward the apothecary. The city was, as always, teetering on the edge of chaos. There were children shouting, carriages nearly colliding, and someone yelling about cabbages. (There was always someone yelling about cabbages.)
Nearly two years had passed since I first entered the shop, half-frozen and slightly suspicious, only to be greeted by the scent of dried herbs, old parchment, and something that smelled suspiciously like regret. Mr. Hawthorne had seen something in me back then, likely a stray who could read and didn't knock over bottles. He offered me training. And more importantly: stability.
I had drifted through Amberfield in those early months like a slightly bitter autumn leaf, fluttering into cramped lodgings, bruising my fingers with endless needlework, and narrowly avoiding matrimony proposals from people with suspiciously few teeth. Mr. Hawthorne's apothecary became my sanctuary. It was one of the few places in the city where your worth was measured in competence, not coin.
The sign above the apothecary door creaked in the wind as I approached, its painted letters weathered but proud. I stepped inside, the familiar scent wrapping around me like an old friend.
The city held its dangers, its secrets. But here, within these walls, I had carved out a place for myself.
For now, at least.
Today, though, my triumphal return was slightly dampened by the fact that I'd failed. Entirely. Utterly. I had not found the herb Mr. Hawthorne required, despite combing every herbalist's stall, overgrown garden, and suspicious alley on this side of the river.
Emrys would have found it, of course. He had the maddening talent of locating rare plants with the ease most people found breadcrumbs. But Emrys was away, tending to a sick relative in Velmire in the west, and I was left to bear the full weight of his competence like an ill-fitting cloak.
I knocked thrice precisely and with a confidence I did not feel. Then I waited. And waited. And reconsidered my life choices.
The door creaked open, and there stood Mr. Hawthorne, looking as he always did: composed, sharp-eyed, and ever so slightly ageless. I had long suspected he either had a portrait aging in the attic or drank something stronger than chamomile in the evenings.
"Late again, Masha," he said, with the disappointment of a man who had just found out his tea was over-steeped.
"I apologize, sir. I encountered unforeseen delays, but I am here now and ready to begin," I replied with a hopeful smile.
His eyes dropped to the black bag in my hand. Unfortunately, it contained nothing but a few sprigs of disappointment and an overwhelming sense of guilt. He stared at it-and at me-as if trying to determine which was more underwhelming.
Then, without a word, he stepped aside.
The scent of dried herbs and sage wrapped around me as I stepped inside, the warmth of the hearth casting flickering shadows against the wooden walls. The shop had long since become familiar, a refuge from the city's noise, yet today, the air felt heavier. Perhaps because of my failure, or perhaps for reasons I could not yet name.
We settled into our usual spots, Mr. Hawthorne taking his seat across from me, his gaze unyielding.
"So," he said, his eyes narrowing with the intensity of a hawk that's just spotted a particularly disappointing field mouse. "Did you find the silver lotus?"
Ah. That.
I swallowed, gaze dropping to the floor, as if the answer might be lying there in shame. "No, sir. I'm afraid not. I looked everywhere-stalls, shops, one suspicious man selling dried mushrooms that may have been socks-but no lotus."
Mr. Hawthorne's expression darkened, which was impressive, considering it already hovered somewhere between thundercloud and tax audit. He steepled his fingers under his chin, a sure sign the Disappointed Silence was coming. And indeed, it arrived right on schedule.
"Our patient is deteriorating," he said solemnly. "Without the silver lotus, the potion is incomplete."
Guilt pressed against my chest, heavy and unrelenting. "I know," I murmured. "I've been asking around, visiting every apothecary I could think of, but no one has it in stock."
He leaned back in his chair with a sigh that suggested I was the latest in a long line of disappointments dating back to the fall of Atlantis. "Keep looking. The outer districts, the docks, the black market if necessary. I don't care if it's guarded by a dragon and requires a blood oath. We need that plant. You know I can't leave the patient."
I nodded solemnly, fully prepared to sign up for dragon negotiations and/or blood oaths by morning.
A pause followed, filled only by the sound of my dignity crawling away. Then he spoke again. "You mentioned something... about focused intention?"
Ah. Yes. My great gamble.
I perked up, determined not to sound like I'd read it on the back of a tea packet. "Yes, sir. It's a healing technique. It channels energy through intention, sort of like... focused hope. But with more hand gestures."
Mr. Hawthorne's brow arched in the way all skeptical scientists do when someone mentions 'energy' in a sentence not immediately followed by 'conversion efficiency.' "Unorthodox," he said at last. "But your dedication to healing is commendable. You may try."
I very nearly curtsied in relief. "Thank you, sir. I promise."
Upstairs, the candlelit guest room waited. Christine lay pale and still beneath the blankets, like a heroine in a tragic opera, minus the dramatic singing (for now).
I drew up a chair beside her, inhaled deeply, and reached out my hand, thinking serious healer thoughts and hoping the universe was listening.
And then—
Her eyes snapped open.
I very nearly perished on the spot.