The interior of The Glass Garden was suffocatingly warm. Sunlight streamed through the high glass ceiling, magnified by the humidity of a thousand exotic ferns and orchids that lined the walls. It didn't smell like an apothecary; it smelled like a jungle in the middle of a city.
Elyana kept her posture rigid, her chin high. She was Lady Blackwood. She was impatient. She was rich.
"This way, my lady," a young attendant whispered, guiding her past rows of mahogany shelves filled with pristine glass jars.
They led her to the back of the conservatory, where a heavy velvet curtain separated the public shop from the private office. The attendant pulled the curtain back.
Master Vane sat behind a desk of black obsidian. The room was cooler here, shaded from the sun. The walls were lined not with plants, but with books and intricate alchemical equipment—brass piping, bubbling beakers, and rows of the distinctive cobalt blue vials.
Vane didn't look up immediately. He was writing in a ledger with a quill that scratched loudly in the silence.
"Lady Blackwood," he said finally, his voice dry and precise. He looked up, the light catching on his wire-rimmed spectacles. His eyes were a pale, watery grey, devoid of warmth. "I do not recall a Lord Blackwood on my client list."
"He is a man of old money and new anxieties," Elyana said, breezing into the room and taking the chair opposite him without being invited. "He prefers to keep his... reliance... on your tonics discreet. As do I."
Vane studied her. It felt like being dissected. "And what ails you, my lady?"
"Everything," she said, leaning forward, letting a tremor of genuine fear enter her voice—fear of him, which she masked as withdrawal. "The noise. The sleeplessness. The shadows in the corners of the room. I was told your Blue Label brings... silence."
Vane smiled. It was a thin, joyless expression. "Silence is a precious commodity. And an expensive one."
"Cost is not the issue." Elyana reached into her purse and placed a heavy bag of gold on the obsidian desk. The clink was solid, authoritative.
Vane reached out, his fingers long and stained with ink and chemicals. He didn't open the bag; he just weighed it in his hand.
"Very well," he said. He stood and walked to a cabinet. "You are fortunate. We have just received a fresh shipment from the production facility."
"Production facility?" Elyana asked, keeping her tone light. "I imagined you brewing these yourself, Master Vane, toiling over a cauldron."
"I design the perfection, Lady Blackwood," Vane said, his back to her. "But the demand is too high for one man. We have... expanded operations to the Cellars."
The Cellars. Elyana filed the word away.
He returned with a small wooden box. inside, nestled in black velvet, was a single blue vial. The liquid inside was viscous, glowing with a faint, unnatural luminescence.
"For the nerves," Vane said, sliding it across the desk. "One drop under the tongue. No more. It is potent."
Elyana reached for it, but Vane's hand shot out, covering the box. His eyes narrowed behind his glasses.
"You have the look of the North about you," he observed softly. "The accent. The bearing. Tell me, how are the crops in the High Pass this season?"
It was a trap. If she said they were fine, he'd know she was lying—the blight was everywhere. If she said they were dead, she admitted to coming from a blighted zone, which might make her a spy.
"The crops?" Elyana laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. "I haven't looked at a field in months, Master Vane. I stay in my parlor with the curtains drawn. Let the peasants worry about the wheat. I worry about my sanity."
Vane stared at her for a long second. Then, slowly, he removed his hand.
"A wise philosophy," he said. "The world is dying, Lady Blackwood. Why watch it happen when you can dream through it?"
Elyana took the box. Her fingers brushed against the cold glass. "Thank you."
"One thing more," Vane said as she stood to leave. He tapped the ledger on his desk. "If you find the relief satisfactory, I will require a name for the delivery registry. We are beginning direct shipments to the noble houses next month. Total coverage."
Elyana glanced at the open ledger. It was upside down, but she was trained to read maps across a table. She saw a list of names. Baron Kaelen. Duchess Vanya. And beside them, notes: 'Accepted.' 'Refused - liquidating.' 'Under influence.'
"I will let you know," she said.
She walked out of the office, past the attendant, past the guards, and into the street. She didn't run, though every instinct screamed at her to flee. She walked two blocks, turned a corner, and then slumped against a brick wall, clutching the wooden box to her chest.
She had the poison. And she knew where it came from.
Kyle was waiting in the room at The River's Bend when she returned. He was sharpening his sword, his face grim.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," he said as she bolted the door.
"Worse," Elyana said. she placed the box on the table and opened it. The blue vial glimmered in the dim light. "I met the architect."
Kyle looked at the vial with disgust. "Is that it? The stuff killing the land?"
"This is the version for people," Elyana said. "But the base is the same. I can smell the corruption in it. Vane—the man running the shop—he called it 'silence.' He's hooking the southern nobility on this stuff. Half the names in his book are already compromised. They aren't stopping the blight, Kyle. They're selling the sedative to make people forget it's happening."
"Control," Kyle spat. "While the world burns."
"He mentioned a 'production facility,'" Elyana said. "He called it 'The Cellars.'"
Kyle stopped sharpening his blade. He looked up, his eyes widening.
"The Cellars," he repeated. "I heard that name tonight."
"Where?"
"I was at a tavern near the docks," Kyle said. "The Broken Oar. Rough place. A couple of barge captains were complaining about a new contract. They're hauling massive crates of glass and strange herbs downriver, into the Old Sewers."
"The Old Sewers?"
"Beneath the city," Kyle explained. "Oakhaven is built on top of ancient ruins. There's a labyrinth of catacombs and drainage tunnels down there. The locals call them the Cellars. They say the Guild of Masons sealed them up years ago because of structural instability."
"Or to give Vane a fortress no one can see," Elyana realized.
She looked at the map of the city she had bought. She traced the line of the river.
"If they are moving cargo by barge," she said, pointing to a section of the map where the river disappeared beneath a massive stone archway, "they have to enter here. The Westgate Sluice."
"It'll be guarded," Kyle said. "Heavily."
"Then we don't go in through the front door," Elyana said. Her fear was gone, replaced by the cold, tactical clarity of a commander. "If it's a sewer system, there are drainage grates. Ventilation shafts. We find a back way in."
"Tonight?" Kyle asked, standing up and sheathing his sword.
Elyana looked at the blue vial one last time, then snapped the box shut.
"Tonight," she said. "We burn it down."