>>u know i didn’t mean it the way u took it. did u have to go that far?
>>srsly ur just going to ghost me? no apology?
>>fuck u I’m not drunk enough for this
Scowling, Briar typed out a solitary reply.
>>Should I post the fancy underwear through your letterbox, or was the thong you left behind a bit of charity for the lowly pleb who sucked your dick for two years?
He snapped the phone shut, ignoring the barrage of angry vibrations that followed. Vatii’s claws tickled his head as she landed in his messy hair.
“No time to mope. You should be getting ready,”
Vatii said. Briar shot up. “The Rede!”
With less than an hour to get dressed and go, Vatii flapped about his wardrobe, tugging fresh clothes off their hooks, while Briar went to shower.
Upon his return, the voicemail light on his phone blinked violet.
“Here’s your monthly reminder that you’re due a refill on Briar Wyngrave’s prescription for milk thistle elixir from Odell’s Alchemical Solutions. Thank you for shopping Odell’s and have a pleasant day!”
Briar groaned. The apothecary closed at noon. If he wanted to pick up his prescription, he had to go now.
He jumped into the clothes and cloak from the night before, grabbed his broom, and pelted out the door. Vatii winged after him as he hurtled into Wishbrooke’s streets, heading for the apothecary as quickly as his broom could take him.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t very quickly. According to his mother, the branch of elmwood had once been nippy, switching direction with the acuity of a bat on the wing. But it had been years since the branch bore the tiniest sprig of a leaf, and it sagged through the air, requiring a good kick and more prayers to get to Odell’s. Vatii’s talons dug into Briar’s shoulder in her efforts to keep balance.
It started raining.
Not a drizzle, but a downpour that soaked him through in seconds. Walking into Odell’s, he looked as though he’d swum there.
A bell tinkled to announce his arrival. The apothecary’s shelves of desiccated herbs and mummified animal bits made a grisly quilt of the walls. Common tithes, like clover and snake skins, filled jars in the aisles. Rare tithes were displayed behind the counter—powdered bat bones, claws from a nearly extinct hare. Briar had never liked the shop’s atmosphere, not only because it served as a reminder of his condition, but because everything here felt like taxidermy, toeing the line between alive and dead.
“Briar,” Odell said. “Wait outside, you’re dripping everywhere. Oh, never mind.”
With a long-suffering sigh, Odell crushed a holly berry in his fist. The spell wicked moisture out of Briar’s clothes and off the floor in shiny pearls, which turned to mist then vanished altogether. Odell’s badger familiar, curled up in a cat bed on the counter, opened a single eye to watch.
“You’re here for your milk thistle elixir,” Odell said.
“Yes, sir, and if you could—”
“How are you faring? Hopefully better, now the weather’s warmer.”
Briar never knew how to answer this question. Honesty made people uncomfortable; the polite response was a lie.
Briar was cursed.
A wasting illness had killed his mother before passing to him. It had spent the last two years devouring his magic, his health, and his future. He avoided speaking of it because it changed the way people behaved with him, acting as if he’d already died and they were communing with a ghost.
He said, “I’m well.”
Odell’s fingers walked the drawers where he kept each prescription. He stopped at N. “Hmm, isn’t the Witch’s Rede today?”
“Yes,” Briar said. “I’ve got a date with destiny, so I’m in a bit of a rush.”
“Which were your top picks, then? Bellgrave? Bit of a serious place for a boy like you, but it’s superb if you’re ambitious.”
“Pentawynn,” Briar said. “It’s been Pentawynn since I was five. Can we please hurry? If I don’t get back soon, I won’t have time to get ready, and I’d like to look fabulous on the first day of the rest of my life.”
