Page 2 of Beautiful Beast

Holding out my hand, the little dragon tucked in its wings and sniffed delicately. “I have no idea how you ended up here,” I said quietly. “But I’m one of the few people in this city who won’t attack you. I’ll do my best to keep you safe.”

I would have Helena reach out to one of the smugglers and see if we could ship something else out and tuck the dragon inside.

It still stared, like it was unsure I told the truth. Old words appeared in my memory from long ago. Bedtime stories I hadn’t known were far more than stories. “I swear on the seven Fallen I will do everything in my power to keep you from harm.”

Tilting its head, it looked at me for a beat longer before scrambling up my outstretched arm and into my hood. Despite the rain, the small body was warm against the back of my neck, and the tiniest vibration of a purr made me smile.

I glanced at the sky, wondering what I’d done for the stars to drop this kind of complication on me. I was one of the only people who wouldn’t harm the creature, but I was also one who could do very little for it.

The street was still clear, so I pulled my hood further around my face and stuck to the shadows as I made my way to the busier streets. The rain thankfully kept most people inside. The small shop tucked between a butcher and a cobbler, marked only by a fern with seven fronds on the hanging sign, drew no notice.

I inhaled as I stepped through the door, savoring the rich scents of earth and spice that were such a shift from the damp outside.

Despite its humble appearance, the shop glowed cozily, shelves filled with bottles of every size and color, stuffed in between bundles of herbs which threatened to knock those bottles over. Colored lamps hung low you had to step around them or get knocked in the head, and the ground was equally cluttered with barrels of ingredients someone much stronger than I would have to lift.

The worn wood counter stood empty, but beyond it was a workshop filled with mortars and pestles in various stages of use. Pots bubbled over the fire, distilling the ingredients before they made it to the shelves, and a pile of plants so large it looked like a bush swelled in the corner.

I would live here if I could.

Every ingredient at my fingertips and no one watching my every movement and reporting it to someone else. Not to mention?—

I slammed a wall down on my thoughts. For the hour it would take for me to buy what I needed and get back, I wasn’t going to let myself think about the rest of it and how life in this shop sometimes felt like heaven to my hell.

A familiar voice filled the shop from out of view, most likely from the hidden doorway to the living quarters. “You must be desperate if something we have for sale has you out in this weather.”

I smiled, knowing Taia didn’t know who was here yet. “I would never describe myself as desperate. Determined, maybe? Resolute? In a hurry?”

Taia came around the corner with her mouth agape. “Have you lost your stars-riddled mind, girl? This is the last place you should be, today of all days.”

Rolling my eyes, I stepped up to the table. “I’m aware. And while I’m not desperate, the urgency required the trip. Hence why I’m short on time.”

“Who is it?” Baris, her husband, called.

Taia opened her mouth, and I saw her start to say my full name and change her mind. “It’s Lena.”

He came out too, a bowl in his hands and a rag thrown idly over a shoulder. “She’s right, you shouldn’t be here.”

Frustration clawed at my chest. “Thank you,” I snapped. “I know. I’m trying to ensure the situation doesn’t become worse, and I can only do that if I finish what I’m brewing. Today.”

The man looked properly chastised. They told me I shouldn’t be here every time I came, but that hadn’t stopped them from teaching me everything they knew and letting me spend hours in their small kitchen studying texts few people remembered. We were all aware that I shouldn’t be here.

I still was.

Taia sighed. A sound that said it all. Sympathy and her own frustration. Resignation. “What do you need?”

I pulled the piece of stripped parchment from inside my bodice and placed it on the table. She wouldn’t touch it, and as soon as I left, I would toss it in the nearest puddle. Not even ashes could be left.

Invisibility was no longer something that could be achieved. Tracing something through ash and the remnants of one’s soul that stamped everything you touched? Easy, for the right person with the right ingredients.

She looked up at me. “You’re sure?”

“I am.”

Given what was on the list, she had every right to ask.

Thym de Sariette

Sikala

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