“What was he doing here?” I growled as I walked up to the counter.
Avis had her long brown hair, streaked through with a few grays, tied into a side braid and draped over one shoulder. She’d been grinding herbs of some sort, the pestle lying abandoned to the side, as she leaned in to speak in a low voice.
“Seems someone put a bug in his ear today about the overflow of people from the clinic on the West Side needing healers.”
I scowled at the door. What did Hayes care about the West Side? Though I’d hoped The Gilded City would have been more enlightened when I’d arrived here a few months ago, I’d found out that there was a strict line between the West Side and the East Side: one had money and powerful magic and even royal blood in some cases, and the other did not. Even though I had “Bane blood” and was “royal,” my father and I had been living on the West Side, so I knew how little they had access to medicine and other things that the East Side was used to. It was one of the many reasons why I wasn’t thrilled to move to Bane Manor on the East Side.
“Hayes wants to heal Westies?” I asked her, my brows knotted in confusion.
She nodded. “If he and I can convince Master Hart to allow it, it would be a great training opportunity for the students, and the people of the West Side would benefit as well. I’ve been dreaming up a way to make it happen ever since your father was injured.”
She’d been amazing that night, accompanying me to help with his injury but also bringing all sorts of healing potions and tinctures and more to the clinic to help the other West Siders who were sick and injured that night. We talked about wanting to do more and open an apothecary shop on the West Side, but there was too much stacked against it.
I frowned. “Wait, what are you saying? I thought that was illegal.”
She grinned. “I’m saying that I’ve thought long and hard about this. We should open an ice cream shop on the West Side.”
Wait, what? Ice cream?
“I love you Avis, but have you been drinking? You’re not making sense.”
She tipped her head back and laughed long and hard at that. “Oh, Fallon. Thank you, I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.”
“What is going on? We’re opening an ice cream shop with healing students from The Academy?” I looked at her, perplexed.
Avis shrugged. “Well, it’s illegal to open an apothecary shop, isn’t it?”
A light bulb went off in my head, and now I was wearing a matching grin to hers. “You evil genius!”
Avis nodded. “We will sell ice cream for avery lowfee, and as a free gift with purchase, patients, er, I mean, customers can choose a tincture or hands-on healing to go with it.”
Excitement thrummed through me. Was she serious? Was Hayes serious?
“Wait, how do you know Hayes?”
Avis beamed at me. “Every year for one semester, I take on an apprentice from The Academy. I mentored Hayes his first year. He’s a good kid.”
I scoffed. “He dumped my best friend an hour before the dance.”
Avis nodded as if she knew. “He’s a good kid,” she pressed, and gave me a look. A look that said not to judge him by this one mistake.
Ugh, I hated that she was probably right. I didn’t want to be judged for the fact that I burned down the student dance. It was an accident. And if Hayes really was trying to open a clinic on the West Side, maybe he was a decent person.
Maybe.
As I helped pour chopped rosemary into little glass bottles, I told Avis about the fact that I had agreed to take responsibility for the Bane family and that had somehow turned into the queenwanting me to move into Bane Manor. I left out the fact that I thought the house was actually a cage.
“Interesting,” Avis mused. “It’s like she’s reinstating your family’s royal lineage before you pledge your allegiance. Very smart, likely thought up by her council.”
“You think it’s okay that I’m doing that?” I hedged. My dad didn’t really know anything about the magic world, so he wasn’t the best to give advice on these matters, and Master Clarke had seemed a little doubtful.
Avis walked around the counter and stood before me. “I think you make Solana nervous. She doesn’t know what to do with you, and so the more you can do to make her feel like she’s in control, the better.”
I relaxed then. If Avis thought it was a good idea, then I too was feeling better about things.
“Oh, before your shift is over, I have a book for you. It may have some information that could help get Ariyon back. Remind me, and I’ll give it to you,” she added.
Everyone knew about our late-night study sessions to find anything that might help me fix what I’d done to Ariyon. The queen’s council, scholars, and anyone with any knowledge of healing or Bane powers was working overtime to try to figure out how to return their prince.
