This is a partner chapter to WYSTWOOD's chapter of the same name. It is written from Raeph's perspective and may contain spoilers.
Fennel, saffron, and rosemary. Raeph hated them all. He hated that he’d been made to come to the Este Lyceum at all, that he had to see the herbs withering on their tables and bent into boxes. The Lady had warned the fae folk about their marketplaces, where Agrestal ingredients could be hidden amongst the plants and poultry. Raeph could only look across the meagre market with pity, doubting that any of their dying flowers could be used for potent Casting.
When he’d been younger, Raeph’s family had woken early to walk to far pastures, waiting to feel the loam soil grow soft and crumble beneath their bare feet before choosing plants for Agrestal Casting. Fat stems of rosemary would be dotted with lilac petals, bittersweet in the bright, morning air. Not like the sun that was falling over the Este Lyceum, sharpening the shadows under the needles of rosemary that littered the dirt.
He bent to pick up a stem that had been tossed up in the breeze, grimacing at the leaves that bristled grey between his fingers. Still, pale petals poked up between them, and Raeph shuddered. Without the flowers, rosemary had no use when Casting. With them, their possessors could earn themselves a death sentence.
Raeph glanced up and saw the yellow caravan, stopped in the same place it had been the previous month. He had been watching Florentin for weeks now, the comings and goings of his patrons and their hard, desperate eyes. For all his skill, Florentin had never been subtle. It was only a matter of time before the Hounds would be sent to collect him, though the Lady was still waiting on Raeph’s report before she sentenced the man.
It was seeing the child that had made Raeph falter. He had always assumed Florentin was growing and Casting on his plants alone, with little care for consequence. But then Raeph had seen his daughter, had watched the way her hands had held flowers like skims of silk, and he had known. He had known and he hadn’t said a word. Not yet, anyway.
He walked towards the caravan, a huddle of chickens shrieking as he passed. A young man looked up and almost fell backwards when he saw Raeph’s face. The fae folk would also begin to scatter soon, and Raeph wondered if he should’ve worn his mask. He would still be recognised, but he felt better when his face was covered. When he felt like he could slip into the shadows and finally lose himself in the darkness.
He raised a hand to the coarse stubble on his throat, then felt his sharp breath at the sight of the young woman. Her velvet cloak and tangled hair. The traveller from the Wystwood.
Mask forgotten, Raeph came to an abrupt halt in front of the woman. There was a table between them, but he couldn’t stop himself from leaning closer to see her face. She looked so unlike the fae that Raeph had thought he might’ve imagined her. It was his missing dagger that had kept him searching.
Her eyes snapped up, still so blue despite the seeping twilight, and she stumbled back into Florentin’s caravan. She reached for the door and Raeph could scarcely believe that she should be here. As if she had been waiting for him just as he had waited for her. Though there was no mistaking the fear in her eyes.
“It seems I’ve managed to catch two birds with one stone,” he said, unable to stop looking at her. Unable to stop from confessing, “I’ve been searching for you.”
She was looking at him too. And for once, Raeph didn’t care that someone should see him. The mask, the Wystwood, the caravan—inexplicably, he didn’t care about any of it.
“You have my letter,” she said, forcing Raeph back to the marketplace with a frown.
“We both have things that don’t belong to us,” he countered, finally dragging his eyes from her face to look for the ebony dagger. “Perhaps we could make a deal and get back what we desire.”
For a ragged heartbeat, it seemed she might agree to the deal which was already taking shape in Raeph’s mind. But then, she shook her head, just as the caravan’s door swung open. Florentin paled at the sight of Raeph and, as the man choked on a breath, Raeph returned to his role as the Wolf.
“Just the man I came here for. To think you’d be returning to the Lyceum so soon,” he said, abruptly angry at the sight of lemongrass swinging in the doorway. “ I’ve heard rumours that the Stone Circle have moved again. Set up a new hold in the Sourn Quarter. The Hounds are near desperate to find it. Did they catch your scent a little quicker than you would have liked? Maybe the next summons from our Lady will be for your own audience, Florentin.”
“You’re no better than a Hound yourself, traitor.”
Raeph felt something snap between his fingers. He looked down to see a stem of parsley fall into the dirt, thin and wasted.
“Perhaps we should take this conversation inside. I think we’d all prefer to be out of the open.” His eyes had shifted back to the traveller, though she turned her face away as she stumbled into the caravan.
Raeph saw the little girl peer through tired eyes as he followed Florentin, and he stayed in the doorframe, keeping his distance as he shut the latch. He shuddered, the small room abruptly closing in and capturing him. No, he reminded himself, he wasn’t locked in the tower anymore.
He turned and saw a shelf of vials, each filled with powders and poultices. Raeph grimaced—definitely not in the tower anymore. But it was the closest one that caught his attention, fair and finely ground dust. His mother’s old nursery rhymes drifted through his mind, unforgettable despite his attempts.
Rosemary for darkened dreams,
Burdock to clear your head.
Take thyme to find your courage,
As sage guides you up to bed.
“What’s this?” he said, silencing his mind before it drifted too deep. "Rare to find burdock root these days. In fact, if I recall correctly, it's also rare to find any use for it at all. Completely ineffective in cooking, brewing, medicinal purposes... That is, it's useless until imbued with magic to create a potent form of sleeping powder. Which, as we all know, would be wildly illicit within our good city. And dangerous, of course, if found in the wrong hands."
Florentin only said, "What is it that you want from us?"
"What could I ever possibly want from you?" Reaph snapped, wanting to send the shelf shattering to the floor. "No, it's what you've been so generously providing others."
When the man refused to reply, Raeph repeated the Hound’s report that had forced him to the Lyceum, "Was it worth your travels to get the calendula by the canal?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't play coy, Florentin. Acting the fool will get you and your spawn killed before the Lady can even be bothered to cast her sights on you. I know you're Casting on calendula because the man you sold them to wound up with the Hounds no less than four hours later. The Lady wasn't too happy to find out that that sort of magic was floating around the outer city, and we're all aware of how closely healing lies to blood magic." He glanced down at the child, then across at the traveller who looked as if she was about to impale herself on a kettle. "Although, the Stone Circle could be considered a plausible origin for the plants were the right rumours to be spread. By the right individual. For the right price..."
Florentin rasped, "My daughter holds no great power, she'll be of no use to you, I swear it—"
"I have no desire for your amateur magic," Raeph interrupted, the thought of the child Casting making his heart burn. "Though you just so happened to have stumbled upon someone I've been looking for. The human's coming with me. You can buy your daughter another day of life with your silence."
"You've obviously managed to hide your travelling with her well enough, or else I would have come by for a visit far sooner. But if word gets out that there's a human now with me, I won't be the next one to call at your door." Raeph watched Florentin come to the decision he knew he would choose. Pathetic and predictable.
"You'll have no need for her. She found her way into the city by accident. She knows nothing of our world or history."
Raeph reared up, fingers flexing even as he forced himself to slow his breathing. "Don't presume you know anything of my needs."
He stepped into the caravan, kicking aside a stool as he finally closed the distance between himself and the traveller. "Well then, looks like you'll be coming with me."
"I don't think so," she spat, drawing his dagger from her pocket.
Something rose up in his chest, a wildness he’d long tried to lock away. "I wouldn't suggest you start playing with things you don't understand."
"I know well enough how to use a knife," she replied, even as he saw her fingers shaking. "And you mentioned something about cutting a heart out? Maybe I'll test your sincerity."
He could scarcely keep his thoughts straight. His hand fisted tighter as he said, "As delighted as I'd be to see you try, I'm short on time."
He heard the crack of glass before he knew he’d broken the vial. It was only the warm blood seeping from him palm that kept him focused. He brought up his hand and blew across the powder, as soft as his mother had done when she’d Cast himself and his brother to sleep as children.
Too late, he saw how much burdock power had been in the vial. And the traveller gasped it all in, her eyes already glazing as the ebony dagger fell limply to her side. She swayed, and Raeph’s stomach lurched in time, disgusted at himself. Unable to acknowledge what he'd done. He could only hear the nursery rhyme as he lurched forwards and caught the traveller before she fell.
He held her against his chest all the way back to the Bonneville, haunted by the scent of rosemary.
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