Page 12 of The Unseen Hour (The Unseen Hour Duology #1)

T he three of us made our way through the darkened streets and toward the apothecary, where two lanterns lit the sign in front.

“I’ll get the physician,” Charlotte promised, dashing ahead.

Marie walked slowly next to me, fretting.

“Surely the physician can fix this. He must.”

I heard the familiar clop of hooves on cobblestone as Marie stepped into the street ahead of me, still talking to herself.

“Marie no!” I lunged forward, grabbing the maid around her wrist and hauling her back onto the side of the street as a carriage sped by. All four horses were running, the driver whipping them on. He didn’t even turn to look at us.

Marie stared, wide-eyed, at the spot where she’d been standing, directly in the path of the carraige.

She started to shake.

“I almost. If I had. You saved me.”

“You would have done the same,” I said, blushing.

After all, it was my fault we were out late to begin with. I’d never intended to get anyone hurt. I was the only one who was supposed to be in pain, and that was fictional .

I gave a moan and reached for my head again as I remembered my supposed crushing migraine.

Marie helped me across the street. Charlotte was rapidly knocking on the physician’s door.

It creaked open, and we were met by Dr. Stephans.

He had impeccably styled brown hair, and silver-rimmed spectacles gleaned in front of hazel eyes.

My mother had seen him a number of times for her debilitating headaches.

He hadn’t been the most sympathetic of all the physicians in town, but he’d been just as willing to accept payment for treatment as any of them.

He stared at the three of us, one eyebrow raising almost to his hairline. Marie strode to the front of our trio.

“I’ve brought Celia Hipnosi. She’s suffering a dreadful headache and said you’d know what to do. She says her mother has the same affliction.”

“Bring her in,” he instructed.

While the apothecary was a place that reminded me of ailments and illness, I couldn’t deny being intrigued.

There were wooden shelves lining each wall.

Small cutouts and large, housing tiny vials, oddly shaped jars, wooden boxes, and all manner of containers.

Some of the glass ones glinted in shades of teal, turquoise, and red from a lantern that the physician had lit.

A library of medicines instead of books.

Charlotte and Marie assisted me to a chair within the shop. I knew, from previous visits, that the physicians disappeared into the back when they needed to look for additional inventory or check instructions for a specific medication. That was where I’d need to go, and I knew just how to do it.

“The light is too blinding in here. I can’t possibly stay in this room.

It’s an onslaught to the senses, truly it is.

” I threw a hand over my eyes, cringing away from the relatively dim lantern light within the shop.

I knew it wasn’t overdone; my mother was sensitive to light for days when she had her migraines.

She remained in her room with the curtains drawn, and a second set of curtains behind the first to block as much light as possible.

Dr. Stephans frowned, his forehead creasing, then gave Marie a hard stare.

“You really should have brought her as soon as she displayed symptoms. I can put something together, but it will take some time to have an effect. She’ll need to remain here for a little while.”

Marie’s face reddened as she bristled.

“Of course I brought her as soon as she expressed a need for medical care! I am not irresponsible, Doctor. We have had quite an evening. Loose horses and waiting in the cold and runaway carriages. She’s no doubt overwrought.

And she expressed full confidence in your ability to assist in this matter. ”

Now it was Dr. Stephans’s turn to bristle.

He sputtered as he tried to recover from the maid’s tirade.

No doubt it wasn’t the usual level of respect he was shown.

I had no idea whether Marie was acting out of thanks toward me, or whether her nerves had caught up to her, but I liked the more assertive attitude she was displaying.

“Of course I shall assist the young lady. I’ll begin putting together a remedy for the pain immediately and?—”

“And I am feeling rather off. My stomach is rolling. I fear I may be ill.” I clutched a hand over my mouth.

Dr. Stephans sighed, looking past me and at the darkened street, no doubt thinking of all the sleep he wouldn’t be getting.

“Yes, and I’ll give her something for the nausea as well.”

He spent a few minutes shuffling around the front of the apothecary, pulling things off of shelves.

“This is most unfortunate. I’m out of one of the herbs needed. We sold it all just a few days ago, and I haven’t had the opportunity to collect more. Is the medication for nausea truly necessary? ”

I lurched forward, and made an incredibly unseemly retching noise.

“Truly I think it is,” Charlotte insisted. “Is there none in the gardens?”

The apothecary kept its own gardens for some of its ingredients, in a space just outside the town walls of Fox Haven. They had an enclosed greenhouse and made use of the fields closest to the town gates.

Dr. Stephans sighed again.

“I’ll go retrieve what I need. If this had happened during the day, I’d have an apprentice available.” He grumbled the last bit to himself.

Dr. Stephans retrieved his coat.

“Oh Marie, Charlotte, I don’t know that I can handle these lights. Surely we can find somewhere darker?”

“Is there nowhere else she could wait without the lanterns?” Charlotte asked.

“It’s quite irregular, but she could utilize the sleeping quarters in back, with her chaperone of course.” Dr. Stephans sounded uncomfortable, but I felt a thrill zip through me. One step closer.

He left for the gardens, and Marie accompanied me to the back room.

“My, it is gloomy in here,” Marie commented in the darkened room as she felt around for the cot and lowered me onto it.

“Truly, Marie, you don’t have to wait in here. There’s no other way in but through the shop. You shouldn’t have to sit in the dark.”

“Well, I?—”

“And even the slightest noise is hurting my head. With no one else in here it will be quieter,” I insisted.

Marie didn’t need too much convincing and soon swept out the door .

“I will be just out front,” the maid promised.

I counted a full minute in my head and then swung off the cot.

I felt my way along the wall and out of the room.

The apothecary was small in the back. There was a doorway leading to the front of the shop, and one on the opposite side of the hall.

I pushed it open and was just able, as my eyes adjusted, to make out a desk and several sets of shelves and drawers pressed against the walls.

“Day and Death be praised,” I whispered.

I’d need more light to find what I was after, though.

Thankfully a lantern hung off a hook inside the door, and it lit when I twisted a small mechanism on the side that felt like a key.

I’d gotten lucky. Not all homes and shops had lamps like this that could be lit without a ready source of flame.

It made sense for the apothecary to have one, with the need for light at all hours and the urgency of their work, but I was thankful all the same.

Otherwise I’d have been toting papers to and from the hall where a bit of the shop’s light lingered, and that would have been riskier by far.

After a few false starts, I discerned the organizational system.

Various cures and ingredients were listed based on malady.

The most dangerous substances were on shelves back here, along with warning labels.

I found the shelf with Thipp’s quickly and shoved a stoppered glass container of the stuff into my dress pocket.

Then I searched for the paperwork that would tell me how much I needed to take.

I rifled through a drawer until I found a file for Thipp’s root.

There was a shuffling outside, and I froze.

“—should check on her,” Marie’s voice sounded. I dropped the file, prepared to hurry into the hall and state that I’d gotten up to be sick.

“Marie, we should let her rest. She’ll call for us if she needs us,” Charlotte’s voice answered .

Day and Death preserve you, Charlotte, you absolute gem.

I didn’t catch Marie’s response, but their voices moved away from the doorway to the back rooms, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I picked the file up and brought it close to the lantern, where I could see better.

“Here we are. Precautions due to dosage complications. Suggested dosages based on height and weight. Only referenced for men, of course. Come on, come on … yes!” I threw a hand over my mouth; I’d been louder than intended.

After a few moments, when Charlotte and Marie didn’t come running back in, I continued reading.

The antidote was listed as well. Both gods be praised, all the ingredients I could either buy in town, without the need for all this sneaking, or find them in our garden at Scops.

A chime rang at the front door, signaling the physician’s return. I stuffed the paper listing the antidote ingredients into my bodice, next to my glove. I was going to have things falling out of every nook and cranny in the fabric of these layers when I returned home.

After shoving the rest of the files back into a drawer, I doused the lantern and scurried back to the physician’s quarters.

I’d barely made it inside when he came to the back rooms. I leaned against the doorway, feigning as though I’d been on my way to the front of the shop.

“I heard a noise.”

“Yes, I have everything I need now. Come back to the front and have a seat, Lady Hipnosi. We’ll have you sorted in no time.”

He was much cheerier now, and Thomas trailed on his heels .

“My brother promised him double his usual fee,” Charlotte leaned down to whisper in my ear as we passed.

Guilt gnawed at me. Retrieving my father helped my family, but it did nothing to make up for the hurt I would bring to those closest to me.

If I could, I’d gather information on the hour itself while rescuing Father.

Surely I could learn something useful when I was wherever it was that the souls were Taken.

Maybe there really was a way to rescue even more souls, or take royal troops to the mysterious destination of the Taken and wage war on a god.

Either way, I owed my friends a great debt.

One remedy for headache pain and an ironically stomach-churning treatment for nausea later and I was seen safely to the inn, accompanied by Charlotte, Marie, and Thomas.

Thomas took a room down the hall from the three of us, an exception to the ‘ladies only’ boarding policy, since he was technically responsible for the lot of us.

I didn’t have to feign exhaustion. The headache medicine caused extreme drowsiness. The horrid aftertaste of the nausea medication lingered on my tongue, but it had been worth it.

I had a few weeks left to gather the antidote ingredients, and now I knew my plan was possible.

In less than a month, gods willing, I’d see my father again.

For the first time, I was looking forward to midnight.