The heavy iron shears stayed cold beneath my fingers, resting right against the scarred grain of the pine counter. Levin did not blink as I leaned into the dim light of the hanging fern baskets, waiting for him to justify his intrusion. My teeth ached with an entirely different kind of pressure than the usual hunger, a dull, thrumming pull behind my jaw that had nothing to do with feeding. He simply crossed his arms over the fine silver embroidery of his tunic and smiled like a man who had already won a game I hadn't agreed to play.
“You collect strange things to fix a very specific problem,” he said, his voice dropping into that maddeningly calm cadence. “People talk in the eastern markets, Lilly. They say the botanical shop owner trades only in rare blooms and vials of heavy, dark plasma.”
I narrowed my eyes, keeping my grip locked around the rusted handle of the shears. “People talk about a great many things in the markets, and most of them lose their tongues before the week is out. You didn't answer how you tracked my stock to this specific floor.”
“I didn't track your stock,” Levin replied, shifting his weight so the scent of spring grass and crushed pine needles washed over the counter again. “I tracked the smell of the blood you use for currency. It clings to your apron like ink on a printer's fingers.”
“That is all you know?” I asked, testing the sharp edge of the iron against my thumb just enough to draw a single bead of silver-tinted red that vanished before it could drip. “You think I am merely a street-corner alchemist trading night-soil for weeds?”
“I think you are a woman who needs what is inside this glass,” he said, tapping a long, pale finger against the side of the obsidian vial. “Take the tears, Lilly. Plant whatever you wish in your little pots, and stop pretending you have time to waste on threats.”
The silence stretched between us until the antique grandfather clock in the corner sounded its muffled chime. I let go of the shears slowly, watching him with every ounce of cold authority I usually reserve for the culling pits below. If he knew about my collection of monster blood but remained entirely ignorant of the subterranean throne room and my royal crown, he was merely an observant fool playing with forces he could not measure. But the sheer desperation of my people, starving in the dark because my synthetic formulas kept turning to grey slush, outweighed the risk of a stranger's games. I reached across the wood, my fingertips brushing against the cool, dark surface of the obsidian stopper as I pulled the vial toward my chest.
“If this is poison,” I whispered, “I will drain every drop of green from your veins before the sun clears the rooftops.”
“It isn't poison,” Levin said softly, his bright eyes dipping down to my hands as they closed around the glass. “It’s an investment.”
The moment the stopper came free, the room stopped smelling of damp soil and dried lavender. A thick, sweet vapour rolled out of the obsidian neck, smelling intensely of summer grass and old, scorched earth. I pulled the glass back, my breath hitching as the golden light inside flared from a gentle pulse into a blinding, solid beam. It struck my chest right over my heart, warm and heavy like a physical weight pressing me back against the shelves of bottled fertilizer. I dropped the vial, but it didn't fall to the floorboards; instead, it hovered in mid-air, spinning slowly within a cage of woven golden threads that sprouted straight from my own skin.
“What did you do?” I gasped, clutching the fabric of my canvas apron as a strange, burning heat spread outward from my ribs. My pulse didn't just quicken; it stuttered and locked onto a completely foreign rhythm, a slow, deep thud that echoed in my ears alongside my own heartbeat.