Page 52

The poker will likely do very little against a man built like a church door, but that is hardly the point.

“Get out of my jars” feels far too feeble for the occasion, and I refuse to arrive empty-handed.

Another scrape of glass against wood comes from the shop, followed by the faint clink of one bottle touching another, and by the time I step off the final stair, my blood is boiling. I push the door open with my shoulder and march through with the poker gripped at my side, prepared to find Iscairn elbow-deep in something expensive. But the warm scent of smoke stops me.

The little hearth beneath the chimney is lit, casting an orange glow across the cramped shop, where a blackened iron kettle hangs over the flames, its water beginning to bubble. Iscairn stands with his back to me at the counter, one of my tincture bottles cradled between his gloved hands as he works a rag around its sticky neck.

“If you intend to split my skull with that iron, Ophelia Harrow, I suggest you do it before I pour the tea. It would be unfortunate to waste good boiling water.”

My grip tightens. “I wasn’t going to hit you.”

He continues polishing the bottle. “Then why else do you have a poker in your hands?”

“I—well, because I thought—” Oh. Idiot. Idiot. “It’s uh… It’s a cane.”

He sets the rag aside and finally turns, his gaze dropping from my face to the poker still clutched stiffly against my hip. “Then why are you holding it up,” he asks, perfectly calm, “and not leaning on it?”

“I couldn’t fit it round the turn in the stairs.” I drop the end of the poker onto the floorboards and shift some of my weight onto it, which would probably be far more convincing if it didn’t look exactly like what it is: a length of iron I brought downstairs in case I needed to clobber him with it.

“That explanation makes very little sense.”

“It makes perfect sense.”

“You have just told me you could not carry it round the stairs, despite having carried it round the stairs.”

Heat flares up my neck. “Oh, for pox’s sake. Stop that.” I point the poker at him. “Why am I the one being questioned? You are standing in my shop while it is still dark outside, going through my things without permission. How did you even get in here?”

The kettle rattles on its hook, drawing him back towards the hearth. He lifts it from the coals and pours the steaming water into one of my chipped clay cups, leaving me standing behind him with the poker still raised and wondering when, exactly, I am supposed to put the bloody thing down without looking like an idiot.

“You helped yourself to my satchel,” he says, sprinkling herbs into the water. “I helped myself to the spare key.”

My jaw tightens. After a night spent trying not to think about him, I come downstairs to find him using my spare key to clean bottles and make himself tea beside my hearth.

Well, at least it wasn’t my bedroom hearth this time.

He slides the cup across the counter, stopping a good six inches from my hand before withdrawing his own with exaggerated care. Then, with an extravagant sweep of his cloak, he takes an enormous step backwards and dips the beak of his mask in a little bow.

“Your brew, Apothecary.”

I lower the poker, eyeing him suspiciously. “What are you doing?”

“I am merely observing the terms of our previous conversation,” he replies smoothly, picking up the rag and folding it over the counter’s edge. “You expressly forbade me from touching you and threatened to reduce me to poultry feed should I so much as brush your sleeve. I am an orderly creature, Ophelia. I keep to terms.”

“You’re being an insufferable arse.”

“That, too, is within my nature.”

I pull the cup closer and peer into the amber liquid. It smells good, but… strange, too. There’s honey. Maybe chamomile. But a warm, spiced note lurks beneath the chamomile that I can’t place at all, and it’s making my professional pride itch. I lean right over the steam and sniff it again, frowning.

“What the bloody hell is that?” I ask, looking up at him over the rim. “Is this demon tea? Have you put a soul in it?”

“If I knew how to catch a soul long enough to steep it in hot water, I assure you I would have found a better use for the knowledge.” He sets the kettle back on its hook. “Though I imagine it would leave an unpleasant film on the teeth. This is merely chamomile, honey, and bruised cardamom.”

“Cardamom?” I glance up. “I don’t stock cardamom. It costs a king’s ransom.”

“I brought my own. A merchant in Damascus taught me the blend. It is excellent for settling the stomach, and given you spent the entirety of yesterday looking at me as though you might vomit, I thought it a prudent choice.”

“Damascus,” I repeat, the word sounding thoroughly absurd in the middle of my damp Beswick shop. “Where in the back garden is that supposed to be?”