Page 21 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
Dear Anya,
“Do opposites attract”—really? Have you MET Idris?
Thank you for the update from home. I admit I’ve been quite homesick—about the ducklings and everyone else. It’s lovely to hear that Richold and Kara are getting on—and I can’t wait to hear all about Illian’s wedding. As you know, I love Waldron weddings. Perhaps yours will be next? (Hint, hint!).
Whatever Martha’s done to my kitchen, please put everything back BEFORE I return; I do not wish to witness the insult of her “improvements.” And please thank Idris for lending his green thumb to my herb garden—if they’re still alive under your care, he must’ve intervened somehow!
Also, what happened when you visited the Well of Fate?
What do you know about Mariana’s Order?
Something happened here involving Hylder that I
The vinegar recipe is on the back of this letter; be careful with your ratios.
Your sassy friend,
Hattie
8
Love Potion
Hattie
What’s imperative for you to understand,” Professor Farkept said, striding across the length of the platform at the front of her classroom, “is that alchemy is notwilledinto existence with your magic, it iswoventhrough a delicate process of mental knot-tying.” She scribbled a formula onto the pale slab of slate mounted on the wall behind her, charcoal squeaking. “Every material in existence possesses the potential to be woven with magic, but herbs are unique. Any guess as to why?”
My pencil paused above my notebook paper, and I tucked my chin, waiting for my professor’s expectant gaze to sweep over me—and past me.
Sunlight slanted through the swirling tracery of the arched windows that lined one wall of the classroom. Instead of theater seats, Phina’s herbology class consisted of five rows of narrow lab benches. Glass vials, jugs of liquid, bundles of dried herbs, and jars of powder were arranged in neat, identical clusters before each student.
Today, I’d chosen a stool in the back.
I hadn’t heard from or interacted with Phina since the incident in the alley two nights ago, but I still wasn’t fully convinced I wouldn’t be dismissed for what I’d uncovered about her research. I’d concluded it was best to keep my head down.
“Yes, Poppy?” Phina called, pointing to a young brunette seated up front, right beside Sani and Uriel—in my usual spot.
“They’re alive?” the apprentice asked.
“Precisely. Herbs are unique because they’re alive.”
Phina drew two rectangles on the slate, one with a fringe of hair-like lines and one without. Then she drew the rough outline of a person with a squiggle emanating from their outstretched hand—magic.
A person’s innate sensory magic wasn’t just a heightened ability to see in the dark or smell pheromones—magic was a thread of potent energy, something a trained practitioner could manipulate.Wield.
“When an alchemist imbues an inanimate object—like a metal—with magic, that process is known asbinding,” Phina continued.
The charcoal screeched as she dragged it from the person to the plain rectangle, circling it to demonstrate the binding.
“But when you work with something living, like a plant—especially a magically potent plant, which we call herbs—you are weaving your threads of magic with the herb’s threads of magic in a process known asbraiding.”
With confident, practiced detail, Phina drew a line to the fringed rectangle this time, looping the charcoal in a braid-like pattern.
I copied her drawing in my notebook.
“While arcane magic comes solely from the wielder, alchemy is the blending of magic between the alchemist and a material.”
None of this was new to me. By the time I was fifteen, I’d memorized all the salient points in the five-hundred-page unabridged volume ofFundamental Principles of Herbal Alchemy—but Phina’s description was far more eloquent.
