Drowning
What kind of monster uses a red envelope? Nathaniel wondered as he slid a finger beneath the flap and broke the bank’s official seal. It seemed unnecessarily aggressive, like leaving a bottle labeled Poison on the supper table next to a bowl of soup.
Nathaniel skimmed the short letter and tossed it aside, his heart kicking into a gallop.
He had six weeks until he had to start making the extra payments—did they have to keep sending him notices like this, as if there weren’t already a voice in his head loudly counting down the days? All it did was send him spiraling.
“What am I going to do?” he asked Daisy, who trotted over at the sound of his voice to sit perfunctorily on his feet, where she continued the imperative business of gnawing on a thick length of braided fabric Pru had made for her.
The weight of her little body calmed him a bit, giving him something to focus on besides the crushing disquiet that heated his skin like a forge and tunneled the edges of his vision.
She was here, which meant he was not alone, he reminded himself through the ringing in his ears.
Nathaniel bent to pick Daisy up with clammy hands, holding her close to his chest as she notched her head over his shoulder and began chewing on the collar of his shirt.
He was going to lose the shop, he thought with devastated certainty as he focused on the texture of her soft fur and forced another breath through his lungs.
The barest drop of relief fused through the roiling mix, asking if perhaps this was better. If he failed, he could blame it on their inherited debts. He would no longer be bound to a business he didn’t want, and he would be free to…
To do what? Continue ignoring the siren call of alchemy?
Go back to the Crucible to build weapons for the Queen?
Spend the rest of his life in the same state of constant guilt and worry for the people he cared about, only unable to provide the security that he and Pru needed?
Failure wasn’t a relief. It was defeat. It was his family’s legacy, his home, his and Pru’s livelihood—Violet’s livelihood—gone.
Disappointment sank into Nathaniel for the umpteenth time since last night.
His shortcomings were taking center stage from every angle, it seemed.
After Violet had rejected him—and so soon after their kiss on the street—Nathaniel had replayed the entire encounter in his mind until he could recall it in vivid detail.
She was attracted to him, he’d decided, at least a little, or she wouldn’t have kissed him and wouldn’t have looked at him the way she had in the greenhouse before she pulled away.
He was certain there was something between them and that she must have felt it too.
Perhaps she was afraid of more—he knew she was running from her past life with her adoptive father (who quite frankly sounded like a piece of work), but perhaps she had other reasons to fear starting anything romantic with Nathaniel, reasons that could very well have little to do with him.
Despite the logical reasoning and the answer upon which he’d landed, Nathaniel found it difficult to ease the sting in his heart when he remembered her wincing away and telling him, “I can’t. ”
He couldn’t out-logic his emotional response or the rejection he felt.
He wanted her—and even more than that, he liked her, dammit.
The flower witch had wormed her way past his defenses, and all the tonics and remedies in his apothecary couldn’t get her out of his system now.
But it wasn’t up to him. She’d made her stance clear, and he could do nothing now but give her time and space, he decided.
Nathaniel Marsh was not a man known for his patient manner, but for Violet, he could try.
“Until then, it’s just you and me, Daisy-girl,” he murmured. She looked at him with her big brown eyes and licked his face, her tail thumping against his abdomen with a flat, rhythmic thud. With a little whine, she transferred her attention to chewing on Nathaniel’s sleeve.
“No bite,” he told her firmly, detaching her mouth from his clothing with practiced ease.
Daisy accepted a toy as a suitable alternative and snuggled into his chest as she teethed.
“Sedgwick is taking my business,” said Nathaniel, pressing his cheek to the top of her head.
He had grown accustomed to talking through problems in his experiments with his colleagues in the Crucible, but since coming home, Nathaniel hadn’t realized how much the habit had grown rusty.
Although the puppy in his arms couldn’t offer any feedback other than a slobbery kiss or the occasional chewed-up pair of shoes, he still appreciated her attentive ear as he worked through his thoughts.
“But my family’s been doing this for generations.
We survived Shadowfade, we can survive this too. ”
She licked his nose by way of response.
He called Pru downstairs to watch the shop and the dog, then strode into the greenhouse with determination.
But the second he stepped foot inside, he knew something was wrong.
A foul smell saturated the air, thick and cloying.
Nathaniel rushed to his worktable and was dismayed to find that his most recent experiment on the blight hadn’t diminished it at all—in fact, it had only made it grow.
Like one of Pru’s failed bread doughs left too long to rise, the black goo had grown puffy and inflated, with a shiny green cast to its color now that reminded Nathaniel unpleasantly of pond scum.
It had taken over the glass box, filling it entirely and even seeping through the ventilation.
In one place, it appeared to have grown with such force that it cracked the tempered glass.
He’d have to dispose of the whole thing, box and all, and it would take weeks to order a new one from the Crucible.
Corrin, the glazier, could perhaps create something for him, but he’d have to explain to her exactly what he needed, and Nathaniel wasn’t sure how the box was constructed.
He slammed a fist down on the worktable with enough frustrated force that his mint plant dropped a few leaves and the array of vials and bottles along the back edge shook.
He simply couldn’t understand this thing, and it infuriated him.
That sense of drowning swept over him again like a wave, and Nathaniel felt a heavy rock of anxiety form in his throat.
They were depending on him—Pru and Violet and everyone else in Dragon’s Rest—and he was failing.
How could they possibly expect him, a failed alchemist with an already poor track record, to save the town?
He couldn’t even keep his family’s apothecary afloat, and as for his alchemy, the last time he’d tried to invent something that could really make a difference, he’d only brought disaster upon his family.
Nathaniel ran a frustrated hand through his hair, pulling until his scalp protested in pain. He needed to stop focusing on what he didn’t feel capable of and start focusing on what he could do.
He could step back and see that this most recent experiment had caused the rot to react differently than before. He could isolate the ingredient in the solution that had done that.
He could clean up the mess in the greenhouse and prop open the doors so neither he nor Violet would have to tolerate the smell.
He could start working on a few minor potions for the shop so he could make a bit of extra money.
He could march right into Violet’s shop and kiss her again.
Oh. Well.
He allowed himself a single moment to replay the memory that had been on repeat since last night.
The soft yield of her mouth, the press of her thighs against his lap, the little mewling sound she’d made when he— No.
Moment over. He simply couldn’t allow himself to be distracted right now, and that’s what Violet Thistlewaite was.
A distraction. A lovely, bright distraction that made him yearn for things he’d never before thought he might want, but a distraction nonetheless. And moreover, one who didn’t want him.
Nathaniel simply had too much upheaval in his life right now to allow himself to fall under the witch’s spell, and besides, he’d resolved to wait.
Perhaps later, after he’d eradicated his current messes, he could consider a future in which he felt happy as well as secure, but right now one of those two needed to take precedence, and as usual, his happiness would take last priority.