Page 48 of Sore Throat, Slight Fever

Poke berries - LC

Cowslip - forest

Adder stone - Kane? Lake?

Purified water - Lake?

Salt

Gum arabic powder

Neutral spirits - Go-Go

“LC is Lyon’s Cross, yes?” She sees Rory’s nod out of the corner of her eye. She bites her lip as she scans the rest of the list, then looks again at the first item. “I can get the first bit right now.”

She moves too quickly for Rory, though that doesn’t stop him from trying. She feels his icy touch against the back of her arm, but she is already out of his grasp.

“It’d be safer to use a representation of the item,” he says, chasing after her, his boots oddly heavy against the stone steps. “You could draw something—”

“It’ll be okay,” she says over her shoulder. She stops on the bottom step and kneels, dipping herhand into the warm water, almost as warm as her. Eyes closed, she focuses on the Ether, a solid, dark presence at her back even as the sun shines down on her face. She slips inside the nothingness easily, frost quickly gathering around her lips. She is there, by the lake, but also there, in the Ether, her limbs cushioned in nothingness. Just as before, the kelpie is a green glow in the distance.

“Hello?” she calls out.

It feels like a lifetime before she hears the kelpie’s reply, a soft whisper of a thousand voices, a hundred years of spirits stolen by the kelpie’s voracious appetite. The green light becomes stronger, gaining in strength as it approaches, and the creature slowly solidifies in front of her, the darkness siphoning away from the green light until there is a horse standing in front of her.

The horse is a little taller than her, with a smooth dark coat that ripples with emerald green energy. A swath of dark coarse hair trickles down between its ears, stark against its milky-white eyes that glow softly in the darkness of the Ether. The horse blinks at her, tail swishing back and forth like seaweed caught in the tide. The kelpie’s hooves are backwards, but it steps forward with a smooth gait, the expected clopping of its hooves muffled by the nothingness. Nose, eyes, and ears point straight at Calliope as it sniffs in interest at her. She feels a puff of its breath, cold and sweet-smelling, hit her face.

Who are you?asks the kelpie. As it speaks, the voicestrains down into a single note. Feminine, but old.

“I’m Calliope. Who are you?”

You may call me Effie, the kelpie replies.

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