Chapter 5 #2
I eased out a breath. “Most of it.” Candlelight flickered across the room as my memory spun back to the moment I’d peeked into his office and witnessed my mother’s golden threads of power wavering around her figure, her fingers clutching Florin’s arm as she stole his pain.
“But I don’t remember how we got here, or how we left. ”
Slipping my hand into my jeans pocket, I pulled out the stone from my memory of being five years old in this lair.
The same stone that had glowed red in my mother’s hand.
The same one I’d found days ago hidden in a secret compartment of her handbag.
I pinched it between my fingers and held it up.
Flat, round, and utterly dull and ordinary.
A flash of recognition widened the Horned God’s strange eyes. “Ah,” he murmured with such wistfulness in his voice that a pang of loss squeezed through my chest. “It would glow red if I ever had need of your mother.”
“When you were in pain?”
He nodded. “Years ago, she insisted on a method of communication between us, so I could alert her when I needed her to ease any agony. I didn’t use the stone often…
Only when things got really bad.” He started scrubbing again, the muscles flexing in his forearm with the rough, abrupt movement.
“That day, I’d been selfish and called for help.
I failed to realize your mother would be so worried she’d risk bringing you along. ”
I expect she and I were already in the city on one of our just-us trips, and there’d been no one else she could leave me with.
“Your knee…” My words drifted apart when I realized Florin seemed fine.
In fact, when I thought about it, I hadn’t seen him limp at all.
My gaze snagged on a tall, wrought-iron stand filled with several walking canes near the large armchair.
Tucking the stone back into my pocket, I squinted at Florin and his effortless movements. “Your knee no longer troubles you?”
He gave an irritated huff and scrubbed harder.
“It wasn’t a natural ailment. I’d been cursed centuries ago.
After Tabitha…” He faltered, discomfort straining his expression until the weight of the unspoken words faded.
“I took your mother’s advice. I apologized to the witch for the offense I’d given, and she eventually lifted the curse—if somewhat grudgingly. ”
My brows shot up. His bad knee had been because he’d been cursed?
And with the way he scowled and attacked the wooden table, muttering beneath his breath, I could tell it still pissed him off he had to apologize.
Florin was obviously fucking stubborn. He’d put up with the pain for centuries rather than ask for pardon.
He leaned into a gritty patch on the tabletop, grinding the bristles in tight, angry circles.
“Most come to me to buy or sell things, but a few come because they’ve been hurt.
Now I do for others what your mother used to do for me.
I help those who are injured.” He added quietly, his gaze sliding my way and softening.
“That was your mother. Always willing to help others.”
I stilled, my fingers reaching for a vial filled with slender stems studded with sharp thorns the color of brilliant garnet. Astonishment swelled in my chest at the thought that my mother had left such an impression on a Horned God that he chose to honor her in this way.
Florin dropped the scrubbing brush onto the workbench with a clatter and set to drying off the table with a blue shammy cloth. The kind my mother loved so much.
The glass was cool beneath my fingertips as I picked up the vial.
Among the apothecary cabinet’s tiny drawers was a cupboard, its shelves lined with rows of vials.
One shimmered with a bottled rainbow, another glowed as if it contained captured starlight, while the one beside it glittered with peacock-blue scales that shifted like liquid.
Water splashed as Florin tossed the cloth and scrubbing brush into the bucket. “Those are my very rare findings.”
The vial I’d nudged aside so I could put away the ones he’d selected for his ministrations looked like it held nothing more than a dusting of dull grains. Boring, compared to the jewel-hued contents of the others.
“That’s the salty residue from Skalki’s tears,” he said.
I shot him a startled look. “From our goddess?”
He harrumphed, crossing his large arms over his chest. “So the seller claimed. Skalki’s joyful tears. Tears she shed after saving her lover from Nine Hells.”
I squinted at the grains. “Do you believe it’s true?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. The power contained within a single speck is unlike anything I’ve felt before.”
And I agreed. The moment I picked it up, a bristly shiver of magic rushed down my hand, threading along my bones, stretching beneath my skin with curiosity. The vial practically vibrated with life. “What can it do? What could you use it for?”
He shifted, his fingers tapping a restless beat over the downy black fur on his upper arm.
His rough voice became smoother with contemplation.
“Skalki wept for centuries when Hazus refused to return her mortal lover. Her grief seeped into the earth and woke the celestial shard buried deep below. It was her heartache and wrath that birthed the Gestelt tree.”
We all knew the rest—how her mournful tears gave life to the wandering spirit, the shard unfurling from the soil in the shape of a tree whose venomous wood could bring down a Horned God. The same tree that provided the bolt I’d pulled from Sage’s body in the catacombs.
Florin made a thoughtful sound. “It stands to reason that perhaps these tears of joy could heal someone from the fatal effects of the Gestelt tree.” He hummed once more, slanting his massive head and frowning at the vial.
“Maybe. There’s only a pinch of salt, and I have no idea how much would be needed, and if indeed it would work. ”
With a grunt, he leaned forward. His talons clacked a hollow beat against the stone mortar and pestle as he picked them up from the workbench. Stooping sideways, he grabbed the handle of the bucket of dirty water and lumbered away, disappearing through a doorway at the back of the office.
The flesh at my fingertips was hot from the thrumming power coursing through the salty grains.
I eyed it closely, twisting the vial about, curious if it could truly do what the Horned God suspected.
Setting it on the shelf, I closed the cupboard and shook my hand free of the heat and the sharp-toothed might vibrating down my arm.
I wandered to the threshold of the office, tucking my hands into the front pockets of my jeans and leaning against the doorframe.
A glance over my shoulder showed no sign of Nelle in the shop bursting with opulent colors and wares, but it didn’t worry me.
It would be easy for her to disappear among the warren of tall shelves.