A Passion for Potions (Petalfall #1)

50. Fifty - An Unlikely Champion

Fifty - An Unlikely Champion

Ana

Jawn’s potion bubbles on the work bench behind me while I sort through chamomile buds, grading them by color and size. The medium-sized yellow ones will go to Sabine for her brews. The small brown ones I’ll grind up and combine with valerian root and some other herbs for Fenn’s tablets—the centaur who owns a farm to the north of town has always had trouble sleeping. And the largest, the ones that are horrifically yellow, those I’ll dry for the bath house to use in their blends.

It’s been a quiet morning, and when I take a break to give my eyes and my back a rest, I look up at the ceiling. I need to speak to Peter to see what he’ll want in trade. The carpenter isn’t the only one who could help me turn the attic space into livable quarters, but he’s the only one I trust to do it in a way that will keep Mina both safe and comfortable.

Last night proved that neither of us can stay in our mother’s home any longer, and I haven’t slept there for weeks.

The bell over the door jangles and I turn toward it, expecting to see Jawn, even though he would be early—again. But an unfortunately familiar elf looks around my shop with undisguised disdain.

The light coming through the windows makes his normally golden skin look sallow.

“Good morning,” I say, perhaps not as cheerfully as I might normally. “What can I help you with?”

I take the bowls and set them behind me, sweeping the unsorted buds back into the bag I put them in after drying.

“I don’t need any of your lotions and potions,” he huffs. “I doubt you’d carry anything of quality, anyway.”

“Well then, the door’s behind you.”

But he doesn’t leave.

He might not be here to buy anything, but it’s not idle curiosity that brought him in.

Looking me over, he sneers again. “I understand what attracted him to you, after all, I’d fuck you.”

Ew. “But I wouldn’t fuck you.”

The way his lips purse... he’s insulted.

Good.

“What is it about him that made you sink your hooks? Money? I’ll pay you to go away.”

“Is that so?” I’m curious. “How much do you think your son is worth?”

“Name your price.”

“No. You tell me what you value your son at. I want to know.” He glares at me, considering. “If not money, then what do you want?”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

The thin pretense at politeness vanishes. “You will sling your hooks or I will be forced to do something you will regret.”

“What are you going to do?” Again, I’m curious.

His eyes narrow even further. “I would rather see your name on a tombstone than on my family tree.”

“What?” The shrill question comes from behind me and I flinch at my mother’s tone. “What did you just say to my daughter?”

She rounds the counter and shoves her finger in the man’s chest, he steps back, nearly stumbling.

“How dare you come into her shop and make threats? How dare you speak to her at all!”

I watch, a little shocked at the vitriol rolling off of her.

Flinching when Morganna steps to the counter beside me.

But she, too, has her eyes locked on our mother.

She walks him straight back to the door, and he bangs against it, getting taller as he presses his spine to the wood, but height has no bearing on my mother’s ire.

“Get out of this shop. Get out of this town. No one will serve you here after I tell them what you’ve just said.”

“Take your hand off of me, madam.” He looks down to where her finger is firmly pressed against his chest.

“Whatever my daughter chooses to do, it is none of your business. Whatever anyone in this town chooses to do has nothing to do with you . You can go back to your big city and leave us all alone.”

He looks as though he’d like to shove her away, but he remains utterly still.

She finally takes a step back and Edric Illian Maseri Ceylon casts one more glance at me before he slips out the door and leaves.

Hopefully forever.

“Thank you,” I say.

I know she wasn’t defending Penny or Viggo, just me, but right now, that isn’t something I care to quibble about.

Spine still rigid, her hands clenched, I know she’s still a little too wound up.

“Take this,” I say, pulling a calming potion from the drawer where I keep them and my mother accepts it with trembling hands.

“Sorry, we came in the back,” Morganna says, softly as our mother gulps the bottle down. I keep them in single doses just because of that.

Drink too much at once, and you’ll fall asleep. Whether you wake up is in the hands of the Goddess.

“It’s fine.” They’ve always come in whichever door was closest before. There’s no reason that would have changed.

“I told you!” she says, looking at Morganna who explains.

“The half-heart pendant in her pocket was hot.”

“It told me you needed me.” My mother clutches at her side, taking gasping breaths. “I can’t believe he spoke to you that way.

“In all the years your father spoke so highly of elves,” she doesn’t finish the thought, laughing instead, but it is an ugly, bitter thing.

“One bad apple?” Morganna suggests, but our mother ignores her.

“If Miah had been here to hear that…” she lets out a shuddering breath, “The man wouldn’t have ears left.”

“I don’t think he’d—”

“Oh, yes he would have!” She takes another deep breath and Morganna and I both stay quiet. “He would have marched right over to the manor house and told that so-called forest guardian to do his job. And if he didn’t, he’d have gone all the way to the Queen herself!”

I highly doubt that, but there’s something in my mother’s conviction at the thought...

“Why would she care?”

Her brows pinch. “She wouldn’t. Of course.” She takes a deep breath again, steadying herself. “Now! Carlotta and Eryn should be here shortly. I don’t know where Mina has gotten off to.”

“Here!” Mina pulls the door wide and Jawn comes in after her, looking at my mother and sisters a little sheepishly.

“Let me take care of Jawn and I will be right there.”

Jawn tries to make himself smaller, even though it’s impossible, as my family filters out.

“Special occasion?” he asks as the door closes behind them.

“We try to get together every few months.” I think it’s partially to remind the sisters who are off on their own that our mother is that bad, so they’ll continue to stay away.

I get the potion—thankfully it’s no longer smoking—into the bottle for him and he already has the old bottle and our agreed on price on the counter in front of me.

But when I hand him the new one, he doesn’t thank me.

“I suppose there’s no point in asking to see you later, is there?”

I wonder if he’s remembering what little he would have seen from across the river. “No.”

He nods and glances at the shelves. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything for a broken heart, would you?”

I don’t think Jawn’s heart is broken... “I think the only cure for that is time.” And I don’t have anything for bruised pride either.

“I’ll see you next week,” I say, sliding the coins into my pocket and turning to take the bottle back to the wash station.

“Ana?”

I look back at him.

He pauses and then says, “Don’t go anywhere.”

“Of course not. I’d never abandon the village.”

It’s not the answer he wants, but he accepts it easily enough. And when he’s gone, I wash my hands, and join my family outside, hugging the two sisters I see least often and ignoring the way my mother looks at them when my focus is nearly all on them.

Some things are never going to change.