Chapter 3
Idabel
The gargoyle hadn’t taken the herbs in her apron. At least that was something. She hadsomethingleft.
Eyes hot and stinging, she hurried down the narrow, winding streets as fast as her sore feet would carry her. She dodged weedpickers and stray dogs and the urchins selling burnt buns they’d filched from the baker’s discards until she reached the apothecary shop. Its warm, glowing window had gilt-and-green lettering, and hanging herbs framed a glimpse of the cluttered shelves inside.
Candles flickered with the rush of air that accompanied her entrance. Betje looked up from her scroll, her quill poised above it. She was a striking woman with dark-brown skin and coily auburn hair, and her face had an ageless aspect that looked young and old at once. Ever practical, she wore a pristine linen apron to protect her tailored bodice, and her sleeves were rolled above her elbows.
Her eyes softened in sympathy behind gold-rimmed spectacles when she noticed Idabel’s devastated expression, and she put down her quill to stand. “What is it? Did something happen?”
Idabel barreled into her arms. Though she had no children of her own, Betje had a soft, maternal figure, and she wrapped Idabel in a comforting embrace. Still clutching her apron of herbs, Idabel buried her face in a shoulder that smelled of rosemary and ink and sobbed.
Betje murmured sympathetically, patting her back. “There, there. Anything broken can be mended. Anything lost can be found.”
The words were meant to soothe, but the blatant falsehood dried Idabel’s tears faster than any comfort could. The events of the past year had taught Idabel that everything, no matter how strong, could be broken irreparably. Everything, down to the smallest seed, could be lost forever.
She pulled back, her breath still shuddering. “I b-brought you some herbs.” She opened her apron to show her bounty.
Betje smiled cautiously, a line deepening between her brows. “I see. Are you well?”
“I grew them,” she said more pointedly.
Instantly, Betje gripped her upper arm, her eyes flicking to the lanterns illuminating the room. “Do I misunderstand you?” she asked in an urgent whisper.
Idabel shook her head, and Betje shot her a brief, panicked look. “Hush then!” she hissed, tugging her toward the low-ceilinged back room where Idabel spent a lot of her time washing bottles and affixing them with fresh labels.
Once inside, Betje snuffed the candle in the lantern. She pushed open the window to wave out the lone moth that had been fluttering around it, and then checked to make sure the door was shut behind them. Her breath gusted out after a few beats of silence. “You can speak freely now.”
There were rumors that moths spoke to those who could hear them, spreading gossip lantern-to-lantern and house-to-house, all the way to the top of the gargoyles’ tower. Whether or not it was true, Idabel had no idea. She’d always assumed it was an old wives’ tale, but Betje seemed to take it seriously.
Her eyes slowly adjusted as the dregs of moonlight and streetlamps leaked into the dark room. “It doesn’t matter what the moths say now. I’ve already been caught. A gargoyle destroyed everything I had planted. This is…what’s left.”
Betje’s tongue clucked in disappointment. “Can you afford the fine? I can loan you some coin if you find yourself short.”
“There was no fine.” She put the herbs on the oaken workbench, lining their cut stems up neatly. In the dim, the green leaves looked like a purple-black stain. At that work, all the collecting and hauling and watering and waiting… Her disappointment was solidifying into something like anger.
“How odd,” Betje remarked.
“What is?”
“That you have no fine. Your gargoyle does not intend to report you.”
Idabel snorted. “He’s notmygargoyle.”
The apothecary hummed thoughtfully, the edge of her cheek painted silver and gold in the low light. “Isn’t he? He’s guarded you well by my estimate. Kept your secret.”
“He destroyed everything! He ground my garden into nothing beneath his beastly foot.”
“Likely believed he was doing you a favor. Growing things is prohibited inside Solvantis, and enforcement is strict. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of the Nadir, or you’ll find yourself on the wrong side of the wall as well.”
Idabel had never met the Nadir, the gargoyle who acted as a liaison between the human residents of the city and their inhuman protectors. She had cleaned his office, of course, but she had never seen him with her own eyes. She did not know if he was cruel or just excessively devoted to the law. But she was glad enough to avoid a fine that she could not afford.
Her anger faded into irritation, though her throat still ached. “Why are they so afraid of magic when it doesn’t even affect them?”
Betje was slow to answer. “Because it affects us.”
“There’s tael in everything we eat! Every plant harvested from a field outside the walls. Every bull who grazed on grass or ate a pail of corn. Every leaf of tobacco smoked,” Idabel railed. “What’s a little bit more?”
