The experience was quite liberating.
Bree stopped walking. Aradella, between Mekos and Tam, was far ahead of her—and they’d not noticed she wasn’t with them.Is this how the world has seen me?she wondered.The most desirable woman commands everyone’s attention? No wonderAradellahates me!
“Is it two boros of moringa or one?” she heard a man say. The voice came from behind a curtain hanging across a doorway.
“It’s one and a half,” she said without thinking.
There was a pause, then the voice said, “Get in here!”
She pushed aside the curtain and saw a room that made her feel comfortable. There were pots, vials, glass jars, and bunches of herbs hanging everywhere. Just like Reena’s house.
Behind a long, stone-topped table set close to a wall was a man. She was relieved to see that he wasn’t heaven-sent beautiful. He was short, his head barely reaching Bree’s shoulders, with a long gray mustache, and one arm was longer than the other. On the table was a tall stone mortar surrounded by bowls of ingredients. On the side was a cloth doll of a woman with babies sewn all around her.
“I assume you’re making a fertility potion,” Bree said.
The man frowned at her. “Who are you?”
She was hesitant to tell him her name. “A Book.”
“Ah. For Reena?” When she nodded, his smile filled his round face. “Brilliant woman but very lazy.”
“True. She doesn’t want to deal with all those volumes.”
“She still have a spell on her books that burns the hands of anyone who touches them?”
“Oh yes! It’s easier to put some bored, useless girl under a forever spell than to try to memorize them herself.”
He raised his bushy eyebrows. “Do you knowallof the books? Even the ones she stole from her father?”
“Yes.” Bree was surprised that he knew about those dusty old volumes. “I sneezed all the way through them.” She looked at the bowls. “Do you have wild rose? Hibiscus? Any dirt?”
“Taken from the grave of a woman who had twelve children.”
“What about a snakeskin? It helps the man last from how this excites the woman.” She watched as he opened a box that looked ancient and pulled out four snakeskins, each a different color. “Just a tiny bit is all that’s needed.”
He used his thumbnail to snip off a piece, put it in the mortar, then picked up the pestle to begin mashing. The table was tall and the mortar made it taller. The man had to stretch to reach the top of it.
“Let me do it.” She started to go behind the table.
“There’s not enough room,” he said.
Bree picked up one end of the heavy table and moved it a few inches farther from the wall. Then she moved the other side. She went behind the table and began to crush the ingredients.
The man was staring at her in awe. “It takes two of my big male assistants to move that table.”
Bree shrugged. “I inherited a bit of strength from my father. He’s a giant and very strong.”
“Do you always explain what you can do by giving the credit to your father?”
“I guess I do.”
“I’m called Cappie. It’s for Copernicus. Ridiculous name, but everything from the Empyreans is absurd.”
“I’m Bree Varlon from Pithan. We’re trying to find a man named Qip.” She began stuffing the doll full of the contents of the mortar.
“Qip doesn’t like to be found. Why do you want him?”
There was so much to that answer that Bree didn’t know where to begin. “Have you ever heard of Queen Olina?”
