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Chapter 57

IRIS

The next night, I was perched back on my favorite stool in the apothecary.

Both of my hands stirred the solution in front of me, but my mind was elsewhere.

Once I finished the base of this potion, I had no idea where to take it.

Journals full of scrapped recipes. Recalculations. Adjustments. Theories.

Every single reagent had failed.

This had been the most successful batch yet—almost every round remained stable.

Until the last step.

And then they hadn’t.

Should I stop at the addition of murkbane and recalculate from there? A strand of hair slipped from behind my ear, and I threw my head to the side, attempting to throw it back over my shoulder before it could contaminate the ingredients.

The scrape of a chair was all the warning I needed before cool hands found my neck, pulling the tangle of waves out of the way. Aspen placed a kiss on the sliver of skin at the nape of my neck—the only exposed part of me in the heavy garments I wore in the palace and began to braid. His hands moved quickly, and before it was time to add the new ingredient, he’d pulled his own chair closer.

His rustling and the slight snagging informed me that he was, once again, sticking all sorts of things into the long plait. Usually, it was flowers from around the room, but he’d gotten inventive when he was bored, and I was too focused to allow any help. Dried herbs, pieces of lavender, stirring sticks, once I’d even found a piece of cutlery wedged in there.

“You’re being an ass to your friend,” I said over the roar of the boiling cauldron.

“Which one?”

“The only one.” I stirred the contents three times before removing the cauldron from the smaller fire source.

I expected him to protest, defend his anger at his friend. Instead, Aspen sighed, fingers stilling as he said, “I know.”

“Good,” I replied, steeling my surprise. “You were wrong.”

“He refused to give me any information about why?—”

“Did he give you information necessary to help me in that moment?” I interjected, plucking the mer leaf from its container and placing it into the brew.

“Yes,” he grumbled.

“Then he did what was necessary.” I’d explained to Aspen that I was training my magic, though he’d figured it out with the stay in the infirmary. I did, conveniently, leave out the original purpose of the arrangement.

The slight pull on my scalp left as two cool arms wrapped around my middle, and Aspen rested his chin atop my head. “I thought you were dead.” His voice was gravelly, and a chill enveloped me as the warmth left his body.

“Please, don’t.” I reached up with my free hand, pressing it into his icy cheek. He relaxed into it and his skin became a hint warmer, enough to no longer burn my fingertips. “I’m all right, I’m right here.” I brushed my thumb across his cheek, and it warmed a fraction more.

“I will stop at nothing for you,” he breathed into my ear. “ Nothing .”

I set the ladle aside with my other hand and looked at the five reagents in front of me. One of each time. Stabilizing, binding, fortifying, neutralizing, and identifying. I felt the cool of Aspen’s cheek, no longer an alarming bite. Instead, it was the refreshing reprieve I’d come to associate with him.

My essence, especially when full, felt tortuous underneath my skin. The heat seared me, and I often wanted to crawl from my own body to escape it. The attacks, the fear I felt when one would come on, only heightened the sensation. The chill of Aspen’s skin on mine brought me back to comfort, like two ends meeting in the middle. It always made it easier to concentrate.

It anchored me back into a state where I could work from.

Allowed me to…

I stared at the bottles that littered the table.

There were five types of reagents. Each had its own properties that made it uniquely capable of completing a certain recipe. A catalyst to the reaction that would interact with the contents and make it viable for its intended purpose. There was never a reason to use more than one in any particular potion, except…

Except maybe both pieces of this recipe needed their own.

I’d been sure that it warranted either a binding or a stabilizing reagent, but didn’t have success with either. The lotus was the last step before the reagent, but if the solution itself was too unstable for its addition…

It would destroy properties of the lotus.

If I added a stabilizing reagent first, before the lotus and then used the binding reagent?—

“All I could think when I saw you like that was that I would do anything to prevent it.”

The panic in Aspen’s voice forced me to look up.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” I said, smiling softly at him.

“Iris, if the Trials pass and you don’t ascend?—”

“We don’t need to worry about that right now.” I pushed up onto my toes to kiss the sharp edge of his jaw.

“I worry about it every moment I’m reminded of it.”

“Don’t,” I said, pulling back down to face the workbench again.

There were far more important things to concern ourselves with. Answers existed, fit between pages of gilded journals, I just needed to find them.

“There is probably no reason to be concerned anyway. I may just ascend at a later age,” I offered.

“Iris—”

“Besides,” I said, as I added the stabilizing reagent one step earlier and stirred.

The solution didn’t smoke, or curdle, or any of the other indicators that it had spoiled. I held my breath, adding the crushed powder of the Blight Lotus petal before slowly dropping in the binding reagent.

“I’d prefer not to focus on our unanswered questions, when we finally have something to celebrate.”

“What do you—” His words cut off as he stared down at the cauldron underneath my shaking hands.

The solution was the exact color as the petals of the Blight Lotus and remaining so. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.

“It’s purple,” Aspen breathed.

I nodded. “It’s purple.”