Three days had bled away into the floorboards since we first opened the old brass-cornered ledger in search of a plant that could hold magic. The oil lamps had burned low through seventy-two hours of uninterrupted work, leaving our fingers stained with dark green chlorophyll and the metallic tang of iron filings. Levin sat across the scarred wooden table from me, his long light green hair tied back with a strip of frayed twine while he carefully measured dried crane-root into a porcelain mortar. The scent of spring meadows that always followed him had grown heavier, mingling with the bitter smell of crushed stems and our own exhausted sweat. Neither of us had spoken in an hour, the silence between us filled only by the rhythmic scrape of pestle against stone.
“You are grinding that too fine,” I said, not looking up from the page where I had crossed out three separate propagation formulas that required sunlight. “If the cellular walls rupture before we introduce the blood-bind, the magic leaks right through the roots.”
Levin paused, the stone pestle hovering an inch above the green paste. A faint, tired smile touched his lips as he set the tool down with a soft click. “You worry too much about the structure, Lilly, and not enough about what the plant actually wants to do once it is breathing.”
“What it wants to do is stay alive long enough to keep my entire kingdom from tearing itself apart,” I muttered, turning another brittle page of the ledger. Memories of the northern caves flickered unbidden in my mind, recalling the bitter winter of two centuries ago when three rebellious fledglings had tried to burn my greenhouse down just to prove a point about my rule. I had dealt with them swiftly enough, but the ash from that night still seemed to cling to the edges of my shop whenever the wind turned east. Levin reached across the table, his cool fingers brushing against my knuckles as he pulled the ledger toward himself to check my math.
“It will work,” he said softly, his voice carrying that steady, forest-breeze calm that always managed to quiet the frantic hum in my chest. “We just need the right conduit. The ordinary seeds in this book were never meant to carry elven vitality.”
A sharp chime from the front of the shop cut through the quiet air of the back room. The brass bell hanging above the front door rang once, short and uneven, telling me instantly that whoever had just walked in was neither a regular customer nor someone accustomed to opening doors with care. Levin straightened immediately, his hand dropping from mine to rest lightly against the hilt of the small hunting knife he kept tucked into his belt. We both froze, listening to the heavy scrape of boots against the gravel-dusted welcome mat near the counter.
“Stay here,” I whispered, already rising from my chair and smoothing down the front of my canvas apron. “Let me see who wanders in at midnight before we start carving anything.”
“I am not hiding in the back room while someone knocks on your door at this hour,” Levin replied, his tone dropping into that stubborn register that brooked no argument. He stood up beside me, taller than I remembered, his elven attire catching the dim yellow lamplight in a shimmer of woven silver threads. We walked out through the beaded curtain together, stepping into the dim, shadowy showroom where the rows of glowing ferns cast long, twisting patterns across the floor.
A tall figure stood near the front counter, draped in a heavy travel cloak that smelled faintly of old snow and wet stone. The stranger did not turn around as we approached, instead reaching out a gloved hand to touch the delicate crystal petals of a moon-orchid hanging near the cash register. Under the heavy hood, I could catch the sharp, unmistakable scent of northern pine and something metallic, like blood left too long in the cold. I rested my hands flat against the top of the wooden counter, keeping my voice light and professional despite the warning bells ringing in my mind.
“We are closed for the evening,” I said, offering the practiced smile I used for daytime browsers who lingered past hours. “If you are looking for nightshade or root-stocks, you will have to come back when the sun is up.”
The stranger slowly turned around, throwing back the damp hood to reveal a scarred face and eyes the color of winter ice. He did not look like a regular buyer from the city or a courier from the southern trade routes. He was carrying a small, tightly sealed iron box under his arm, cradling it as if it held something both extremely fragile and immensely heavy. “I did not come for nightshade, Queen Lilly,” the man rasped, his voice sounding like grinding stones. “And I know you do not keep your real stock out on these pretty little wooden shelves.”
I didn't flinch at the title, though I let my posture stiffen just enough to remind him where he was standing. Next to me, Levin shifted slightly, his presence a quiet, solid weight that kept me from reaching for the silver shears under the counter. “You have the advantage of me,” I said coldly, letting the warm shopkeeper persona drop away entirely. “And you have five seconds to tell me why you are standing in my shop using words you shouldn't know.”