She shuffled over to the potatoes, careful not to disturb the one squash that looked half-decent. Orelia knelt and used her long skirt as a cushion while plunging her hands into the soil, feeling for the round knobs of potatoes. Since she could only summon what was visible, the buried vegetables wouldn’t come to her. Orelia enjoyed getting her hands dirty in nature, so she didn’t mind the work. She just prayed they’d actually grown.
“Please be enough,” she recited as she pulled out a few potatoes and brushed them off. She dug out a few more, but most were barely bigger than a coin, and the largest one didn’t exceed the width of her palm.
“Ah, tredablo, this won’t do.” It was easier to blame the Three Hells when something went wrong, especially when she’d done exactly what the gardening book had said. She placed the potatoes in the bucket beside her and foraged the rest. When the last of the potatoes had been accounted for, Orelia examined the contents. The brown lumps rolled around their container, scarcely covering the bottom.
She sighed. Orelia repositioned herself so she was sitting and pulled her knees to her chest. She’d be lucky to make a single coin off the yield, but the bigger concern was feeding herself. She’d been able to stretch out her money since being dismissed, but now she was dangerously low on coin.
Perhaps she could rid the tomatoes of their pests, but most of the squash weren’t faring any better, the potatoes were barely two bites each, and the carrots didn’t bother growing at all.
She tapped her chin with the tip of her pointed nail, ignoring her painfully rumbling stomach. “Think . . .” No idea came. Except one.
The thought was immediately tossed aside. She didn’t have the mettle to be a pleasure girl. Orelia had only slept with two men, one of them a passing traveler she’d convinced not to go to Beron’s and stay the night with her instead, and Tommen—her first love.
Not letting her still-healing heart succumb to the memories, Orelia carried the bucket of potatoes up the porch steps and into the kitchen. She dunked the small offerings in the water basin and began washing them. At least she had enough for a meal for tonight, but she needed a real answer, not a temporary solution to her food and income problem.
Something in her pocket clinked against the counter as she scrubbed the potatoes. She pulled out an empty glass vial, the kind she used for healing salves at the brothel.
An idea jolted her into action. Orelia dried her hands, grabbed her purse off the bedside table, and hurriedly checked herself over in the mirror. She scampered out the front door, ran down the hill through the wildflower field and across the bridge into town, not stopping until the bell rang above the door in the apothecary.
Morton, approaching three-hundred-and-twenty something, pushed his wire glasses further up his nose. “Light Above, Orelia, did you run all the way here?”
The wall mirror revealed a windblown mess of hair and sweat glistening on her forehead. She wiped her brow with her long sleeve and tried to steady her breathing. “I did, actually. Sorry if I scared you.”
Morton beckoned her over as he stirred a bubbling pot over a fire. “I think it would take a lot more than a little fright to end this ‘ole ren’s heart, so consider it forgotten.” His lips stretched into a smile, hidden beneath a gray mustache that connected to a long beard twisted into a braid adorned in silver rings. As a ren, Morton was naturally blessed with noctavision, echolocation, and evocation abilities, but his thirst for knowledge had led him into wizardry. He’d spent the majority of his life learning robust spells and charms to accompany his gods-given gifts.
The familiar scent of herbs and fresh potions welcomed her like a warm blanket in winter. Morton’s shop was like a second home, and the wizard had sold her many supplies over the years that she used in the ointments for Beron’s girls.
“What are you making today?” Orelia asked as she drew near.
The wizard’s rosy cheeks raised to meet the rim of his glasses. “I’m trying something new. Something to bring luck. I figure I can make a lot of silver off people willing to put their faith in a potion like this.” He gestured as he spoke, the end of one loose sleeve accidentally dipping into the pot.
“Oops.” He snickered and squeezed out the green liquid from his robe back into the pot.
“You mean you’re making a trick? Something to fool the good people of Minro?” Orelia asked.
He lifted a bony finger. “Not a trick, my dear. I am simply giving the people hope. Belief is half of it, you know.” He never was good at recognizing her sarcasm, but she adored him all the more for it.
Orelia leaned over the cauldron, watching the bubbles pop as she sniffed the air. “It smells like . . .”
Curious blue eyes watched her. Morton always liked when she guessed what he was up to.
“Peppermint.”
He nodded. “And?”
She wafted the scent with a wave of her hand. “Is that . . .cranberry? And clove?”
He clapped his pale, wrinkled hands together. “She does it again! How you have such a keen scent of smell is beyond me.”
“Just one of my many talents.” Orelia added a sardonic grin for some flair.
Morton removed the pot off the hook and set it on the cooling stone nearby. If he wasn’t coming up with new concoctions, he had his nose in one of the books kept in disorderly stacks all around the apothecary. He’d accumulated quite the collection on plants, but most of the tomes were on Omnimagia—the study of all magic. Morton was just the person she needed.
“What can I help you with, my dear?” he asked. “Or did you come by just to visit Polly?”
Orelia scanned the spiral staircase leading up to his bedchamber, but Polly wasn’t sitting on the steps like usual. “Where is my furry little familiar?”
As if Polly knew she was being sought, the lynx hopped down from the top of a bookshelf and rubbed her side against Orelia’s leg, purring in that deep, feline way of hers.
