Silas’s potion to it. I half-expect it to smoke as it lands in the tea, or to make it change colour, but nothing happens. When I sniff it, I can’t detect it, and my mother doesn’t seem to notice the taste as I feed it to her, her red eyes on me the whole time. Once she’s locked in for the night, I pull the chest in front of the door, and with the shadows on my side, I sneak to the well and bring back as much water as I can carry, using half of it to make a vat of soup large enough to last us through the next day.
When it’s done, I return to my blankets, pulling Mama’s book with me. I flick straight to the story of the Sleeping Prince, my eyes seeking out a drawing of him. Though I know it’s a book, and the illustration might not be accurate, I can’t help comparing it to Silas’s face. They’re so similar. I look back at the pictures, staring into the golden eyes on the page. They stare right back at me as I fall asleep.
The man is holding my hands in his, turning them over, entwining our fingers so we’re linked, pressed palm to palm. He takes my right hand and opens it out, rubbing his thumb over the base of mine, then traces the lines, my lifeline, my heart line. He draws along the length of my fingers with his, his touch delicate as he makes circles on my fingertips. My chest feels tight, my skin tingling under his attention, and I feel dizzy. Despite that, I can’t help notice his hands are smoother than mine. Mine are covered in nicks and scratches, webbed with scars like fine lacework where I’ve slipped cutting up plants, or sliced myself on barbs and thorns. My nails are short and jagged, and when I see the contrast with his I pull my hand away.
“Are you ashamed?” he asks, and I keep my head bent as I shake it. “You shouldn’t be,” he adds, gently taking my hand again. “You hold life and death here in these hands. Kill or cure, that’s your gift. These are your weapons.”
I look down at my hands, and as I do he takes both of them, raising them to his face. The tip of his hood brushes the back of my wrists, and I’m about to ask him why he wears it, when his lips press against my skin and my stomach lurches inside me. It feels as though I’m falling. Then it’s over, and he’s letting go, and my hands feel cold without his touch.
“What are you working on?” he says finally, standing up, and as he walks away the room comes into focus around me. Not my old apothecary chambers but the hut in Almwyk. In the dream it looks even worse: there are cobwebs covering the ceiling, and I can hear scurrying along the edges of the room. The rushes are rotting, stinking sweet and slimy under my feet, and I stand, horrified.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, as though he can read my thoughts. He picks up the vial from the table and looks at it briefly. “You’ll have a proper apothecary again soon.”
“Home?” I say without thinking, and his lips curve into a familiar smile.
“Home.”
“But…” I turn to the door to my mother’s room. It’s dark, black in the dream; everything about it screams danger and forbiddance.
“She’s quiet tonight,” he says. “Why? Your work?”
I smile in reply. Something stops me telling him I gave her a potion I didn’t make.
The man shrugs lightly and walks to me. He folds me gently into his arms, pulling me into his lean body, and my heart swells. I think of what Kirin said and I smile. Home.
The dream ends abruptly, though the feelings linger, and I lie still, listening for whatever pulled me from it. With the windows covered I have no idea how close it is to dawn, but a glance at the fireplace shows me long enough has passed for the fire to go out. I strain for sound from my mother’s room; surely that’s what’s woken me? When I hear nothing, I move, silent as the grave, to the window and pull the cloth back. Greyish, lavender light seeps in around the edges of the slats and my mouth falls open. Dawn. It’s dawn.
I’m astonished that I slept through the night – that my mother slept through the