Page 89 of Flowerheart

His brows rose. “No, no! Not that. I’m proud of you. But what if... what if the Council says no? After all that work?”

I shrugged. “We aren’t there yet.” I spun in a circle, gesturing at the cauldron, the ingredients, everything laid out in our makeshift potion shop. “First, we’re going to cure the symptoms of Euphoria, then tonight, I’ll become a witch, and tomorrow, we’ll get to work creating a proper treatment for melancholy. Simple as that!”

He laughed.“Simple.”

I settled by his side, letting him peer into the notebook. “So let’s begin. Tell me about the other Euphoria cures you’ve tried.”

“I’ve written down possibilities, but I haven’t tested allof them—I’ve tried to brew three a night for the past three months.”

As I turned through the pages—dozens of them; dozens of recipes—dread pooled in my stomach like icy water. “How would you know if they worked?”

“I stayed in contact with the families of the first few people I gave Euphoria to. I usually spent Sundays giving them my attempts at making a cure.” He slowly pushed back another page, marked, like all the others, with a black X in the corner. “I hate building their hopes up every time, only to disappoint. I don’t know what’s missing. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

I stilled his hand. “You’retrying,” I said. “Tell me about these attempts. How do they work? What symptoms are you trying to address?”

He sighed through his nose. “Ideally, I want a potion that will calm the patient. That will do exactly the opposite of what Euphoria does—it turns a patient’s mind frantic.” He gestured to a jar full of long sprigs of goldenrod, fresh from our garden. “So I want ingredients that will inspire concentration and calm and balance. That is also why I’ve been adding every ingredient in equal portions.”

At the counter, he pulled a cutting board filled with peppermint leaves before him and began chopping them into little squares. “Let’s try to make potions number one hundred and six through one hundred and eleven.”

Over a hundred variants. A hundred attempts to undo the wrong he’d done a season ago. I bit my lip and opened to the proper page. I read aloud:

“Entry one hundred and six:

“To counter mania: calm—chamomile and lavender. Sing a lullaby; whisper over the potion.

“To counter restlessness: contentedness—pink roses. Profess something you’re grateful for.

“To counter a lack of control: focus—forget-me-nots to prompt memory, and peppermint for concentration.

“To counter delusion: clarity—white chrysanthemums. Add pure water. Add ice to cool anger. Imagine peacefulness.

“To counter imbalance: all ingredients should be in equal parts.

“To counter a lack of fulfillment: include all parts of ingredients.”

I lifted my head. Xavier was scouring our pantry for ingredients, plucking jars and boxes off of shelves and adding them to the cluttered table before us.

“I don’t understand why this hasn’t worked,” I said. “This recipe seems perfectly viable.”

He sighed. “I’m glad you think so. Most of those are variations on that same recipe. I’ve added ingredients, substituted them, changed the order in which they’re added...sometimes I try to cast in Albilan to see if that will make a difference.”

I set down the book and twisted open the jar of chamomile. “We’ll find a way.”

“We’ll need a spoonful of each ingredient,” he said, using the blade of his knife to sweep aside the shavings of peppermint leaves, stems, and roots.

He looked at me when I touched his arm.

“Wewillfind a way,” I said.

He pressed his lips together.

“You have to be confident,” I insisted. “That’s what you’ve told me all along. About blessings, about enchantments... we have tobelievethat we can fix this.”

His hair flopped against his cheek as he nodded. He straightened his back. “You’re right. We’ll find a solution. We’ll make ittoday.”

The tea kettle whistled. I hummed in harmony with it and poured it out over the infuser he filled with chamomile and lavender.

“Our latest patient, Miss Kinley,” I said softly. “Was there nothing more to be done for her, aside from giving her a sedative?”

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