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“Yarrow,” Adrien said before I’d finished laying the sprigs out. “Achillea. Staunches bleeding. The healers use it for⁠—”

“I didn’t ask if you knew what it’s used for,” I interrupted. “Hold up your hands.”

He held them out, baffled. I put the mortar in front of him and dropped the yarrow in. “You’re going to make something with it. So get to work.”

Adrien looked at the mortar. Then at me. And I watched the joy come over his face.

“Crush it until it darkens, and the smell turns sharp. My Gran always said the plant tells you when it’s ready, if you’re paying attention. And you’re good at paying attention, aren’t you?”

He shrugged, but continued to work, focusing on the task in front of him.

Della hopped onto the workbench and snatched the beeswax before I could cut it. “Excuse me, I was using that.” She stared at me before dropping it into my waiting palm. “Thank you.”

Between Della trying to thieve anything not bolted down, Adrien asked forty questions about the salve he was making, but not once did he complain. The boy they called unable to sit still worked all afternoon.

“Did your Gran teach you about demons, too?” he asked.

At the mention of demons, I held very still. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re a Dark Witch. Your magick comes from them.”

Adrien’s questions were coming from academic curiosity, I reassured myself. So long as I didn’t teach him anything about summoning one, I supposed it was alright to discuss magickal theory.

“Well, dark magick doesn’t come from demons. It comes from Damien. He showed his witches how to transmute desire into magick. Every Witch of the Darkness has the power to charge her own magick without a relic.”

Adrien stopped stirring. “Then why do you need one?”

“Because that kind of power can overwhelm a person,” I explained. “If you have a single insecurity that isn’t in check, when you look at the bottom of your heart and offer up your deepest desire, it can change you, and not for the better. That was how the first demons were created. They were just witches who were consumed by want.”

Adrien watched the salve bubbling over the brazier. “And?”

After a quiet moment, I continued.

“And Damien taught the witches who remained how to draw their magick through demonic relics imbued with power. The relic puts something between the witch and her own desire. We use the demon’s power instead of feeding our own hunger.”

He considered this, then asked, “So relics are safe?”

“Safer,” I corrected.

I thought of the demon blood in my own veins. The blood of Gorrath. And the relics I possessed. His three demonic spawn. I could feel them, even here, far away from where they were hidden in my room. My fingers itched to touch the material of the bodice, to know that they were safe.

“Why did witches make deals with demons if they are so dangerous?” Adrien asked, breaking into my thoughts.

I set a hand on my hip and threw a question back. “Why do sailors go out on the ocean if they can drown?”

Adrien had an answer ready. “Because there are places they can’t reach if they stayed on shore.”

“Exactly. They decided the adventure or the treasure or whatever they were after was worth the danger.”

I understood the pursuit of desire better than most. I had flown across an entire continent following my mother’s ghost.

Adrien lifted the spoon. The salve clung to it in a thick green ribbon. “Is it finished now?” he asked.

I leaned closer and breathed in its sharp, grassy scent. “It is.”

We poured it into a small glass jar, and Adrien carefully wrote Yarrow Salve across the label.

“What are we making tomorrow?” he asked.