Useful
Nathaniel straightened his shoulders before knocking on the door to the new tenant’s half of the shared storefront.
He felt uneasy, just as he had every day since he’d paid the carpenter to build a wall splitting the apothecary in half.
Was he really to be a guest in part of the building he’d called home since he first learned the meaning of the word?
What would his parents think if they knew he and Pru had been forced to rent out half the shop and the rooms above, where his own childhood bedroom had once been?
Nathaniel could practically hear his father’s booming laugh. “We do what we must for family,” he always said. “And we do it with pride, because family is everything.”
He was certainly doing what he must for his family, Nathaniel thought, but he couldn’t drum up much to be proud about.
The tenant—Miss Thistlewaite, he corrected himself—saw him through the shop window before she opened the door, and he winced when he saw her tense smile.
He’d gone back to the greenhouse this morning to clear out some of his storage, as promised, and marveled some more at the garden she’d grown from thin air.
He’d never seen magic quite like it before, and had spent some time studying the blooms, touching their petals as though they might be an elaborate illusion.
A potted plant in the corner had even touched him right back, wrapping its long, leafy vines around his wrist and gripping so tightly that he’d grown nervous it was about to eat him and so detached himself.
It wasn’t that the encounter scared him, exactly, only that he felt it most practical to meet Miss Thistlewaite in the shop and determine whether the plant posed any real danger before he attempted to venture back into the greenhouse.
He was still miffed about the ruined decoction, but when he’d seen the careful way she had restacked his crates, guilt rose in him, choking him like smoke. Pru had scolded him too last night, and explained that she’d given the new tenant permission to settle in.
“Hello, Miss Thistlewaite,” he said when she opened the door. He was trying to sound pleasant, though he suspected it came out a bit brusque.
Her hair was swept out of her face with a spotted kerchief, and her cheeks were pink with exertion, a broom held tightly in her grip.
He felt that unsettled feeling again, the one that had struck him last night and had him staring at her like a fool.
There was something about her that drew his eye and held him captive—and Nathaniel Marsh did not like feeling trapped.
“Mr. Marsh,” she said by way of greeting, her tone suspicious.
“Nathaniel,” he corrected. “Please.”
She nodded, studying him with those eyes like sunshine through a cup of tea. “Nathaniel, then. And you must call me Violet.”
She leaned against the door frame, and his gaze dropped to her attire, a pair of breeches several sizes too large for her and a men’s shirt and waistcoat, with a few stray flowers woven into her buttonholes like their stems had snapped and she couldn’t bear to discard them.
The clothes obviously hadn’t been made for her by any tailor, and Nathaniel let his eyes wander for a moment, wondering whose they were.
Was their owner the reason she’d come to Dragon’s Rest?
Not that he cared, of course. Her history was none of his business.
“Is there something I can help you with?” she asked, and her voice was like the unexpected scent of smoke during one of his experiments, warning him, Danger. Be on your guard.
“I’ve emptied the half of the greenhouse nearest your side of the building.” Nathaniel hovered on the doorstep. He hadn’t set foot in this part of the apothecary since the wall went up, and before then, not since—well, no use dwelling on that.
“Thank you.”
“I ask only that you keep any of your plants away from my worktable in the far corner.” Nathaniel cleared his throat, awkward under the scrutiny of her amber eyes. “Please.”
“Of course. It won’t be a problem.” She cocked her head, sheepish, and a smile teased her lips enough that he very nearly forgot his irritation. “Well, it won’t be a problem again.”
He dug in his pockets for a ring of keys and dropped them into her hand, careful not to touch those long fingers that had brought blossoms to life. “My sister asked me to give these to you. Spare keys for the upstairs apartment and the back door.”
“I appreciate it,” she said again. “I should get to work. I’m, er, clearing out the shop today. Trying to get set up. Is there—I mean, is there anything in here I shouldn’t touch? Pru said I was free to make it my own.”
He swept his gaze over the empty shelves and countertops behind her, where his parents and grandparents had once blended teas, mixed poultices, and carefully measured medicines on the brass scales he’d loved to play with. He tried not to focus on the hastily constructed wall.
“No.” His brow creased into a frown. “Do with it what you will.”
“I did find a crate of supplies upstairs. I thought they might be yours. Looks like more flasks and vials.” Her smile turned crooked. “I didn’t break these ones.”
He nodded stiffly. “Yes, they’re mine.”
“For the apothecary?”
“No. They’re my—that is…” Nathaniel cleared his throat. “I used to be an alchemist.”
Those honey-gold eyes widened. “I wondered, when I saw all the—well.” She winced, clearly trying to avoid mentioning all his smashed implements. Nathaniel probably deserved that. He’d been rude.
He cleared his throat again, wondering if perhaps he was coming down with something. “I left the Crucible last year, when I moved back to Dragon’s Rest.”
“Homesick?”
His mouth tightened, and his eyes flickered toward the worktable in the corner of the room. The phantom smell of burning chemicals filled his nostrils. “Something like that.”
Violet was already flitting over to the table in question. “Well I imagine you’ll want your supplies back, then. What are you doing running an apothecary if you’re an alchemist? I suppose it’s helpful to source your own ingredients for potions, but do you sell any of your creations in your shop?”
Memory fled him like a rabbit from a hound, and Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed.
“Absolutely not,” he said sternly. “Herbal medicine and alchemy have no place at the same table. The alchemical arts are for weaponry or entertainment, and an apothecary provides a real service to the community.” He was halfway through the sentence before he realized he was quoting his mother.
Violet’s head snapped up sharply. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t…”
“It’s fine.” Nathaniel tried to brush off his reaction. He strode toward her. “Now where are those boxes?”
“Just over here,” she said, waving him closer.
Nathaniel stepped next to her, trying to ignore the sharp floral scent of her hair as she hefted the large wooden crate onto the worktable and pried off the lid.
Ah, there was his barrier set. Used to prevent contamination, particularly when working with volatile solutions that had a high chance of exploding, it wasn’t something Nathaniel expected to have much use for in Dragon’s Rest, but the sealed glass box was a pain—not to mention expensive—to replace, and he’d thought it lost.
“I’ll just take this back to my shop,” he started to say.
Violet interrupted him with a vehement “No!” and he shook in surprise, jerking back until he felt something cold and sharp against the back of his neck.
“Put it down,” said Violet, her eyes flashing with a strange light. “Bartleby, put it down.”
The sensation left his skin, and Nathaniel turned around to find the same viny houseplant in the blue-glazed pot that had grabbed him this morning.
He would have been relieved to find she’d moved it out of the greenhouse if not for the fact that it was now brandishing a knife.
He lurched back, bumping his hip into Violet, who stared furiously at the plant.
“We’ve talked about this,” she said in the exasperated tone of a parent disciplining a child. “No more knives, or I’m going to build you a terrarium and lock you inside.”
The vine around the knife’s hilt unraveled, and the blade clattered to the floor.
“Three moons!” Nathaniel cursed. “What is that thing?”
Miss Thistlewaite flapped a hand at him, her attention still on the plant.
“That’s just Bartleby. I promise, this won’t be a problem, he’s just not used to the new place and he’s a little skittish around strangers.
Even though he promised me no more stabbing.
” She hissed this last part quietly enough that Nathaniel wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.
The plant had done this before? She tapped her foot and held out a hand, approaching the plant—er, Bartleby. “Come on now, give me the other one.”
Bartleby heaved its—his? Violet had used his, hadn’t she?
—leaves as if in a sigh and extended another vine, this one wrapped around the handle of a pair of sharp pruning shears.
Violet waited until the plant dropped the scissors carefully into her hand and then set them down on the worktable out of Bartleby’s reach.
“And the one in your pot too,” she chided.
Sure enough, Bartleby reached a vine into his pot and dug through the soil until he produced a folding pocketknife.
Violet stared him down for another hard moment, as if trying to determine whether he had any other sharp weapons hidden away.
Finally she gave a curt nod and dropped the third knife on the table next to the others.
“Sorry about that,” said Violet, turning back to Nathaniel. “He and I are going to have a serious conversation about how to be neighborly.”
“What…is he?”