She tried not to think about the fact that someone was in her home. This was the second time now that her window had been opened without her being the one who opened it. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. Perhaps both times she truly had left it open. The only thing keeping her from fully believing that was the circumstances behind the visits. The first time she had been sick. This time she had nearly been attacked. Remembering the flash of white earlier she was starting to think someone might be watching her. Why? Solenne was far from the kind to be stalked and she had no enemies she knew of. Well, except the Aureate but even then, they would surely take her out in some other way and not in broad daylight.

  Solenne pushed the thoughts from her mind. There was no reason to dwell on it. Perhaps she truly did need to speak to Leander about that dagger he offered her so long ago. She had plenty of knives in the shop but they were used for her work and cutting meat, not people. Having a dagger, combined with her rarely used knowledge of poisons, should be more than enough protection from whomever was after her. So long as she could get close enough to break skin. That seemed easier said than done.

  "This is almost ready to strain. Can you get one of the larger jars, the squat ones, and some of the cloth from the cellar? You're going to open the door and it will be directly to your right. Grab two bundles. This needs to be finely strained." She directed Emrys.

  He looked surprised. Emrys looked to the cellar door and back to her. She nodded her blessing to go in. It was not lost on her how it could seem like a test of some kind. Turning her back to him, she grabbed one of the long spoons that hung on the wall behind the coil. Solenne began to stir the bubbling mixture in the pot. She slowly lowered the heat, taking the boiling to a simmer, until the coil clicked off. Behind her she could hear the sound of the jar on the counter followed by a few footsteps and then the cellar door opening.

  She took a deep breath. It was fine. With the healings becoming more frequent, she had taken the mattress from the nest. That meant it no longer stuck out at the end of the half wall it hid behind. If Emrys only glanced about and grabbed what he needed, he would see nothing but storage. When she realized he was starting to stare at her hands, she knew she needed to let him go to the cellar. She could hear him coming back up the stairs.

  Emrys appeared from the cellar in a reasonable amount of time. Solenne had a feeling that he did exactly as she had directed him to. Part of her assumed he would snoop. She would have but she also wasn't steeped in the Light the way he was. Snooping could be considered unholy by the Doctrine if you looked between the lines of certain passages. Sometimes she wondered what her life would have been like if she hadn't been cursed.

  "Okay. I'm going to leave the rest up to you." She told Emrys as she turned to look at him again.

  "What?!" He squawked. His hand shot up to cover his mouth after the outburst. "I'm not ready for this. I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to do. What if I mess it up?" It seemed just the thought of messing up had sweat already forming on his forehead.

  She stepped away from the pot. "Its no different than making the other salves you watched me do over the last few weeks. Come on now. You don't want to have to re-boil the mixture. It lessens its efficacy if you have to do that."

  "But... I... Light be..." Emrys rushed over to the pot. He slipped on a glove that was used to protect his hands from the heated metal of the handles and grabbed the pot from the coil.

  She watched his eyes go wide in panic as he realized he hadn't put the cloth over the top of the jar. He looked to her, pleading with his gaze for her assistance. Solenne wasn't going to let him suffer. She walked over, gathered up the cloth, and secured it properly over the top of the jar, pushing some in to cradle the mixture as it strained into the jar below.

  "Thank you." He breathed out in relief. Emrys slowly poured the mixture out, stopping only to let it settle a little in the cloth before pouring more.

  Solenne took a step back. She observed silently, taking in how he worked. He mumbled to himself. Most of it was words of encouragement or trying to recall how he had seen her make other salves. He was walking himself through the next steps. They were simple enough, he needed to get his oil and get it warmed over the coil using a double boiler once the current mixture was strained properly. She found herself smiling the entire time.

  Emrys wasn't like most of the men she knew. He was soft, anxious, and seemed to want to believe everyone was good. She wished that was the truth. Solenne had once thought everyone had some good in them herself. That belief was tested over and over again until it finally snapped. Now she understood that people had darkness within them and that they were capable of bad things. There were times she wished she was raised like the scholar had been, fully sheltered in the church, believing its words that so long as someone believed in the Light, they were good and holy. She also wished that Emrys had experienced the bad so perhaps he wouldn't be so naive at his age. If she could even call it naivety.

  Yet, even so, Solenne found herself attracted to him in a way she had only experienced one other time in her life. That attraction had been fleeting when she realized later that she would never see that man again. It didn't stop her from thinking about him from time to time when her mind wandered. She wondered if he hated her for leaving that scar on his chest.

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  "Okay I have everything ready, I think. Are you sure about me putting it together?" Emrys' voice broke through her thoughts of the other man. Solenne blinked a few times, bringing her focus entirely back to the red head in front of her. How long had she been in her own mind?

  She nodded. "Of course, Emrys. You can do this. You wanted to know how to make it so please continue. If you mess it up, we can make batches until you get it right. I can sell the others at a discount or give them out to those who need them. Nothing will go to waste."

  Her words seemed to reassure him as he poured the heated oil into the jar. Emrys grabbed a clean spoon and stirred the salve to combine the oil and the mixture they had made. Once it was incorporated, he took the spoon out, wiped it off, and grabbed a small, metal container from where she kept them under the counter. Solenne was surprised he found one so easily. She had never kept things organized down there.

  He poured the salve into the container to solidify. This was where they would find out if he mixed things properly or not. If the salve didn't solidify then his measurements were off somewhere. If it did solidify but didn't scrape out easily, well, that was a whole other set of issues and they would need to figure out exactly what went wrong.

  "What do we do with the leftovers of the Haylin?" He asked, noting the cloth that had the solid parts of the root left.

  "That will be dried and I will grind it to a powder that I give to Leander. He uses it in his dye making. I'm not entirely sure how he does it or how the other additives don't ruin the blue. I don't dare ask either. That is his magic and I leave it to him." Solenne said as she moved to gather up the leftovers.

  "His magic? Magic is forbidden by the Aureate."

  His suddenly serious tone made Solenne paused in her movements. Surely he wasn't taking her words literally. As she looked at him, she realized he was.

  "Emrys... I don't mean he actually has magic. I just mean he has his ways that he does things and I probably wouldn't understand it even if he tried to teach me. Therefore, its like magic to me."

  He frowned at her explanation. She walked over to him, stepping toe to toe with him, and reached up to grab his chin to make him look down at her. His eyes widened as red bloomed across his cheeks and down his neck. He didn't try to pull away from her as she held him there.

  "I know magic, real magic, is forbidden Emrys. Just because I don't go to Midday doesn't mean I don't know the Doctrine and what it says." She had to choose her words carefully.

  Solenne didn't want to have to explain why she quit going. He had tried to broach the subject once. She had told him that her reasons were her own and she would appreciate it if he respected that. Emrys, being the man he was, respected that boundary.

  "Maybe one day you will tell me why you stopped going." He spoke softly, lower than he usually did. Hearing that bit of deepness to his words made her stomach flutter.

  "Maybe one day." She replied with a bit of a huskiness to her own voice.

  He started to lean down towards her. She let go of his chin as she glanced towards the container that held his salve. "Look at that , Emrys. I think you succeeded." She took that opportunity to step back as he excitedly turned to look at it.

  His eyes lit up as he examined his work. "I did it!" Emrys ran his finger over the pale blue mixture. It spread like it should. He took what came off and wiped it from the hollow of his clavicle down into the tunic he wore. She watched the movement of his hand as he rubbed it into his chest. Solenne looked away as she felt her face get warm all of a sudden.

  "I knew you could. I never once doubted you." She hoped this would make him more confident in his abilities. This was also good for her as well as it meant that she could get him to help with making more things. Solenne hated to admit it but the extra set of hands even just in keeping things clean and stocked had made her life much easier.

  Emrys closed the tin and let it sit on the counter. It still needed to rest a little longer before it could go into his pocket. He kept looking at it, even going as far as to bend over and rest his arms on the counter so he could rest his chin on them to just stare at it. Solenne felt a warmth in her chest seeing how excited and proud he was of his own work. She remembered when she first started figuring things out. There were times she felt exactly as he did now while other times she was left crying and frustrated that nothing was going right.

  "You keep that tin." She told him despite assuming he was going to do so anyway. Solenne knew he usually sought permission for such things so giving it to him now saved him asking for it later on.

  "Thank you." He grinned. It was toothy and bright and she wondered how many others got to see it. Some part of her hoped it wasn't too many others.

  "Now. Are you ready to make more?" Solenne clapped her hands after asking. They still had plenty of work to do.

  Night rolled across Caelora lazily. It felt as if it were taking its time on purpose, giving the two in the little apothecary shop in Veil more time together. Solenne wanted to ask for more but she knew it was futile to do so. She could already play out how the entire conversation would go; she would ask, he would say no, and then she would tell him she understood and he would go back to the inn. There was no amount of wishing that would change it. Emrys was painfully predictable.

  They did just as she thought. When he left the shop, she stepped outside and watched as he walked down the road. Solenne wasn't used to feeling an ache in her chest when someone left. She wished he would look back at her, smile, and then just as he is going to continue walking, stop and run back to her to pull her into a tight embrace. Never in her life had she wished for so many things. It was too bad she couldn't pray anymore. Perhaps a Seraph would take mercy on her and grant her request. Solenne snorted at the thought.

  "Mercy is only holy if the Choir decrees it and I am the most unholy thing in this city."