Page 7

Story: The Hazelwood Pact

The bell over the apothecary door jingled with the polite insistence of someone who meant to be unobtrusive but never quite managed. Rowan didn’t look up immediately. She was elbow-deep in crushed starpetal, her fingers stained blue-violet and her mortar throwing sparks like it had opinions.

When she did glance up, half-expecting another nosy villager or a Wren sister with baked goods charged with libido, the sight of Linden in her doorway stopped her heart in its tracks. Or maybe just gave it a hiccup. Same effect.

He was holding a bundle in both hands, cradled against his chest like something fragile.

The morning sun framed him with rude generosity, turning his hair into spun gold and the wisps around his ears into halos.

Of course. Of course he’d look like a soft-focus devotional painting while she looked like she'd been rolled in compost and sprinkled with glitter.

"Hey," he said, and the word landed like a soft touch to the base of her spine.

Rowan looked up too fast, irritation sparking by instinct before her brain caught up. Her jaw set. Her magic, unpredictable even on the best of days, gave a minor sizzle beneath her skin. "If that's more sympathy propaganda," she said, voice clipped, "I will set something on fire. Possibly you."

Linden didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink.

Of course he didn’t. He had always been a maddening contradiction.

Utterly unshakable and yet gentle to the point of heartbreak.

Instead, he smiled, that same calm, unbearably kind thing he’d been offering her since the day he walked back into this cursed Hollow.

"Just herbs," he said, holding up a modest bundle wrapped in muslin and twine. "Lemon balm. And a bit of ghost-thyme. I thought they might help... with the dreams."

The dreams.

Rowan went still. The kind of still that wasn’t simply physical, but elemental.

As if her magic had sucked all the movement from her limbs, frozen her fingers mid-grind on the pestle.

The mortar gave one last reluctant scrape and then silence descended.

Like a thunderhead gathering just out of sight.

"I don’t…" Her voice caught, low and splintered. Denial came easily, like muscle memory. She could have finished the sentence a hundred different ways. I don’t dream. I don’t need help. I don’t want anything from you.

But he didn’t let her lie to either of them.

"I know you don’t sleep much," Linden said gently, like he wasn’t trying to win or prove a point, just offer her something that didn’t come with strings.

Like he’d simply noticed the shadows under her eyes, the way she winced when someone mentioned the word rest , the way she flinched when the wind through the glade sounded too much like voices from the past.

The silence that followed was full of those tiny emotional barbs that clung to the insides of her ribs, catching on memories she’d buried under ten years of guilt and sheer bloody-minded stubbornness.

He stepped forward, slow and careful, like she was a feral thing that might bolt.

His boots made no sound on the wooden floor, and when he reached the counter, he didn’t push the bundle toward her or try to press it into her hands.

He just placed it there, reverently, like an offering at an altar.

Not demanding anything. Not expecting even a thank you. Just… giving.

Rowan’s fingers twitched, but she didn’t reach for it. Couldn’t.

Because if she touched it, she might soften.

And if she softened, she might break.

Linden didn’t seem to need more from her. Maybe he understood that small kindnesses were sometimes the loudest things in a room full of regret.

He lingered for only a breath longer than necessary, as if hoping, just slightly, that she’d say something. Take the herbs. Look at him properly.

When she didn’t, he turned without complaint and made for the door.

But not before she noticed the way his fingers brushed the edge of the counter as he passed, like he was leaving behind something of himself. Like he needed to anchor himself to her world, if only for a moment.

Like he still remembered how she liked her tea: strong, with lemon balm, just enough to keep the nightmares from taking root.

And stars help her, but she remembered him too.

"Thank you, Thornling," she said before she could think better of it.

The words slipped out like breath, like memory, like something stored too long behind locked teeth finally breaking free. And the second it left her mouth, she wanted to drag it back by the roots.

He froze. Just a moment of stillness, like the world had been briefly pressed between glass panes. He turned, slow and careful, as if she were a wild creature mid-bolt. As if he knew one wrong movement might send her flying into the rafters.

Rowan wished the floorboards would creak open and drop her straight into the cellar. No, deeper. The void. Tartarus. A boiling cauldron full of bat spleens and regret. Anything but this . Anything but the weight of what she’d just said.

The way her tongue had betrayed her. Rifled through old drawers and pulled out the nickname she hadn’t used in…

Gods, how many years?

His eyes met hers, and they were soft. Not triumphant. Not smug. Just soft. Like fresh moss after rain. Like he hadn’t expected the gift of that word but cherished it anyway.

"You haven’t called me that in a long time," he said, quiet as dusk.

Rowan turned sharply, nearly knocking over an entire shelf of bottled moonwort. She shoved a jar of stardust salts back into place with enough force to make the glass rattle. "It was a slip," she muttered. "Don’t let it go to your fae little head."

"I won’t," he said, and it sounded like a promise he’d keep.

She made a noise that might’ve been meant to be a scoff, but it betrayed her, came out high and choked and just this side of a whimper.

Mortified, she fled, storming into the back room with enough force to ruffle the spellpapers stacked by the hearth.

She nearly tripped over Mottle’s cushion, cursed under her breath, and flung herself against the door like a soldier bracing for a siege.

The cushion was empty.

Because the traitorous toad was at the door, watching the entire exchange like it was a sold-out play.

"So," Mottle said as the door slammed shut behind her, muffling the sound of Linden’s footsteps fading into the Hollow. "That’s what we’re doing now. Blushing at herbs."

"I wasn’t blushing," Rowan growled, dragging her hands down her face.

"Darling, your ears turned pink."

Rowan groaned.

She waited. Waited longer than necessary, pressed against the wood, heart traitorously hopeful in the quiet. But he didn’t knock again. Didn’t linger.

When she was certain, certain , he’d gone, she eased the door open.

The workroom felt too still, like it had held its breath while she was gone.

The herb bundle sat on her worktable, just where he’d left it. Tied with a bit of braided flax cord, the knot tidy and simple, with a kind of domestic grace that made her throat tighten.

Lemon balm. Pale green and fresh, the scent already soothing the edges of her brittle temper.

And ghost-thyme, nearly translucent, fine as spider silk and just beginning to shimmer in the dim light.

Rare. Maddeningly hard to harvest. Both herbs used in spells for dreamless sleep and easing spirit-burn.

And he'd just, brought them. Without fanfare. Without strings.

Rowan stared.

She stared for a long moment like the bundle might bite, or bloom into something too dangerous to name. Then, with an exhale that trembled more than she wanted to admit, she moved.

Gathered her tools: the silver-etched pressboard journal, the drying racks, her gran’s shears worn smooth from decades of use. She laid them out with reverence she would never confess to.

Snip by snip, she processed the herbs. Sorted them into bunches, arranged them to dry by the window, labeled them in her spidery script.

And then, quietly, she opened her journal.

Between two sheets of parchment, she pressed a few delicate sprigs of lemon balm. Her pen hovered over the margin for a long while before she scribbled a note beside them: gift from L.T.

Later, when the sun had dipped low and the shadows stretched long across the floorboards, Rowan went to make tea. Her fingers hesitated over the jar of lemon balm.

She could use the other herbs. The less emotionally incriminating ones.

But…

Muttering a curse under her breath, she dropped a pinch into the pot. The scent rose like a soft exhale, citrus-sweet, clean, somehow cutting through the potion smoke and the lingering tang of singed hair.

She carried the mug to the threadbare chair by the window and curled into it like something trying not to be lonely. Cradled the warmth in her hands.