Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,238

tidy worktables and how Garver had sanded them smooth, how the air grew steamy when they were brewing new mixtures to be bottled and put away.

There was the cheerful garden of flowers and herbs outside the windows, and now, in early summer, it was bursting with color. Sometimes Atheria’s shadow would pass across the window as she flew about, searching the skies for lunch. There was the bright silver bell hanging at the door, and there was the broom Garver kept in the corner, and the kettle of tea warming over the fire.

But out of everything in the shop, as wonderful as it all was, Eliana liked Simon best of all.

She snuck a look at him while he worked. He had a very solemn face for a thirteen-year-old boy, everyone said. Rather severe, Eliana had heard. But she liked his face and its seriousness. His pale brow furrowed when he read lists of ingredients, and his hair was a dark golden color, falling messily over his forehead. He had deft fingers that chopped up roots and herbs so quickly and carefully that a feeling of warmth came over Eliana as she watched him. The feeling told her that she was safe. When she was with him and his sharp little knives, nothing could hurt her.

“Can I try?” she asked, scooting forward on her stool.

He glanced at her. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because the knives are sharp. Do you want to cut off your fingers?”

“No.”

“Well, then.”

“But someday I can use the good knives?”

He smiled a little, finished chopping his pile of yarrow leaves, then scooped them into his palm and dropped them into the crushing bowl.

“Maybe,” he replied. “For now, you’ll use the bad knives.”

He raised his eyebrows, looking at the knives next to her. They were kept dull for her use and therefore were not good for cutting, which meant that when she used them, she was slow and stupid-looking, and she hated looking stupid in front of Simon.

“They’re not bad knives,” Garver said from his own table. “They’re knives for learning.”

Eliana made a face at the knives, and then Simon laughed under his breath and bumped her with his elbow. This sequence of events cheered her considerably, so much so that she chopped up her own pile of leaves faster than she ever had before, then shot Simon a look of haughty triumph.

And that made him laugh aloud, his big laugh that he hardly ever used. She beamed at him, watching him smile. It was a rare thing to see him so happy. Often, while they waited for roots to boil or while they hung leaves to dry, Eliana caught Simon looking out the windows with a terrible sadness on his face.

It happened most often when the winds were high, carrying the scent of pine down from the mountains. Simon was quiet on those days, strange and serious, and not serious in the way she liked. On those days, he hardly talked at all. There were shadows on his face, and his eyes were sharp and angry, or else flat and full of sorrow. When this happened, he hardly looked at her.

Once, he had even snapped at her. “Is it possible that you could stop talking to me for once in your life, for even a few minutes?” he had shouted, and then his face had crumpled in horror, for she had immediately burst into tears. Garver had sent him upstairs to his room, not even letting him try to apologize, and then had sat quietly with her until Zahra came to bring her home.

Later, tearful and sniffling on her father’s lap, Eliana had asked him why Simon had done this. Why he grew so sad some days, so cruel and short.

And her father—her dear, gentle father, who always had the answers to her questions—held her for a long time, cozy on his lap beneath their favorite blanket. She thought maybe he had fallen asleep.

Then he said softly against her hair, “My darling, you may not understand all of this just now, but I’ll tell you anyway, because that’s what we do, isn’t it? We talk to each other. We tell the truth.”

“Yes, Papa,” she said, staring up at him. She had heard her father sound sad and serious many times, especially when they visited her mother’s tomb, but this was different. This voice held secrets.

“Simon, I think, grieves the loss of his power. You remember what I told you about what your mother did when she died?”

Eliana had seen paintings of her