Dawn had barely begun and the house was already breathing differently. In the room she'd claimed for herself, Nyala buckled her straps with ritual precision. Leather creaked, buckles chimed, the short blade tested its sheath. Mie yawned wide on the threshold, plush clutched to her chest, ears drooping with sleep and worry.
"How many days… are you leaving?" she asked, muffled.
"Not long, little ears," Nyala promised without looking up. "Two, three, maybe four. Depends how fresh the tracks are. Rovan doesn't like to dawdle."
"Is Rovan strong?" Mie pressed.
"Strong and not stupid. Rare combo." (She smiled sideways.) "And he snores like three bears."
Terence leaned against the doorframe, watching in silence. At last he stepped in, caught the shoulder strap Nyala was struggling to pull through, and set it with a sure motion. The leather slid into place, neat. She measured him, amused.
"You're good at that. You could almost be my squire."
"I'd rather cook," he grumbled—yet a smile escaped him.
Her voice dropped, suddenly more serious."I know what you're going to ask, idiot."
He blinked."I haven't said anything."
"Exactly." (She stepped closer, close enough for that scent of leather and forest to press against his chest.) "With Rovan, there will never be anything. He treated me right when I was a lost kid at the guild. No sleazy offers, no wandering hands. He even let the thickheads think I was his sister—sometimes his daughter. So stop frowning like that. Makes me look old."
Heat rose in Terence's cheeks. He meant to protest he wasn't frowning at all, but Mie got up and wrapped herself around Nyala's waist.
"You'll come back soon, right?"
Nyala set a hand on the girl's head and rubbed softly behind the base of an ear. Mie closed her eyes a moment, like a kitten in bliss.
"Obviously. You think I can leave you unsupervised for long? If I'm not here, who's going to stop Terence from burning the soup?"
"I don't burn the soup anymore," he muttered.
"Mmm…" (Nyala raised a finger.) "Then promise me something else."
"What?"
"That you'll take care of yourself. And of her." (Her gaze slid to Mie.) "And that if you need me… you wait. I'll come back."
He nodded. She smiled, satisfied, grabbed her cloak, then—on impulse—tapped her forehead to his, light as a secret salute. Terence went still, surprised by the intimacy of it.
"Come back," was all he said.
"And lock your door at night," she teased as she turned away, her tail sketching a mocking circumflex in the air.
She crossed the common room, opened the main door, and vanished into the cold. For a heartbeat the house seemed to deflate, as if someone had removed a weight that, paradoxically, had been holding it in shape.
The next day began without her—tidier, quieter. After breakfast, Terence gathered a small lot of jellies and dried fruit.
"Let's try the market," he said. "Before it spoils."
"We're going to sell!" Mie chirped, instantly buoyed, ears straight. She tugged on her beige dress, grabbed her plush, and took the stairs three at a time, stumbled on the fourth, bounced, pretended nothing happened.
The road to Orvenne was a ribbon of questions."How many people live there? Are there kids with ears? Can we buy crunchy bread? Do mint candies exist? What is mint?"
Terence answered sometimes seriously, sometimes joking. The city wall rose—gray and reassuring—then the gate, the churn of voices, the smack of hooves on stone. Mie slipped her small hand into his; he squeezed gently.
At the market they had no proper stall—only a makeshift table rented by the half-day. The refusals fell like stones dropped in water: a shrug, a distracted "no," a smirk. A mustachioed merchant sniffed the jelly with the tip of his nose.
"Pretty, but fragile. And who wants sweet stuff when they need to buy nails?"
"Someone who likes to eat well," Terence replied without heat.
"Hm. Not at that price."
He walked off. Two more pretended to taste, then set the spoon down shaking their heads. Terence felt the old burn of humiliation rise slow as a fever—the novice's ache of being transparent, out of tune. He breathed, let the bitterness pass. Mie watched him, lips pressed, ready to bite.
"We hold," he said calmly.
The fourth merchant—a fruit seller with hands like old roots—tasted without a grimace, chewed slowly, lifted his eyes.
"Honest. How many you got?"
"Six jars."
"I'll take three. At the price you said."
Terence bowed his head, surprised by a rise of gratitude. Coins chimed in his palm. Not much—but enough for Mie to hop in place and whisper, as if afraid to scare luck away:
"We're rich… a tiny bit!"
They were packing up when the scene cracked open two streets over—sharp as a slap. In front of a herb shop with dulled panes, two aprons were throwing a young woman out. The door slammed. Her satchel struck the cobbles and popped open, vials rolling and clicking like tossed dice.
Chaos flared in the side street. Two men in dark smocks shoved a young woman outside. Behind them, a small workshop door banged, a crooked herb sign still swinging.
"Guild order!" one shouted. "This shop is seized! You're barred from practicing here!"
The woman stumbled on the threshold; her satchel hit stone and several vials rolled into the dust. A bluish liquid splashed in brief, luminous spatters, then guttered out.
She straightened quickly, but her face remained tight, stiffened by shame. Light chestnut hair had come loose in strands along her cheeks. Her worn dress, stained by powders and herbs, clung too close, compressing a chest the fabric no longer knew how to hold. Bending to catch a vial before it broke, she exposed a shape Terence turned from at once, ears burning.
Mie darted after the still-rolling vials."Wait, I'll help!"
Terence crouched too, picked up a small intact flask, and handed it over."Here."
The woman took it with painful dignity."Thank you…"
One of the agents snickered behind her."Clear out. The guild struck you from the rolls—you're no longer an alchemist."
They went back inside, locking the door. The young woman stood straight a moment, fists clenched on her satchel, then exhaled—refusing to shatter in front of passersby.
"You had a workshop?" Terence asked gently.
She nodded, eyes dark."Not anymore. They seized everything. Equipment, stock… all of it. When the guild decides you're out, they make sure you can't work."
Her rough voice still stood, but her fingers trembled slightly as she tightened the strap.
Mie held out a small jar of jelly, ears pricked with childlike gravity."Do you want to taste?"
The woman hesitated, then accepted. One bite. Her brow furrowed at once with analytical focus.
"Low heat… reduced in three stages… stabilized without spirits… texture still uneven, but the flavor's honest." (She looked up, surprised.) "Interesting."
Terence stared."You guessed all that in an instant?"
A brief, bitter smile."I was an alchemist. My name is Aveline."
"Terence. And this is Mie."
"Hello, Aveline!" Mie said with the exact politeness of a very small person.
The silence that followed had the weight of a decision being born. Aveline adjusted her satchel. She was about to say "thank you, goodbye," and walk away with dignity on fire. Mie tugged Terence's sleeve, whisper-low:
"She doesn't have a house…"
A shadow crossed Aveline's gaze; she lifted her chin, ready to refuse even pity."You owe me nothing," she said. "I'll find something."
"Come see," Terence cut in. "Not stay. See. After, you decide."
He didn't yet know what he was doing. Only that it was the one thing that wouldn't leave him regretting, tonight by the fire. Aveline studied him a long moment, as if searching for the flaw, then nodded.
"So be it."
The road back suddenly had the glints of a stroll. With Mie tucked between them, questions skipped from subject to subject like stones over water.
"Can you make potions that glow in the dark? Does mint smell exist? Is mint magic? Is magic dangerous? Can you make water sweet without sugar?"
Aveline answered—sometimes serious ("Yes, mint exists; it isn't magic, it's a lively plant that likes shade"), sometimes amused ("Making water sweet without sugar is a charlatan's promise"). Once she broke off with a barely audible curse: a vial had started to leak in her satchel. She bent, fumbled for the stopper, and the too-tight fabric protested again. Terence wrenched his gaze away, focused on moss on a rock, the shape of a cloud—anything but that blunt, short glimpse of reality. He felt foolish—and intensely alive.
"Sorry," Aveline murmured, genuinely embarrassed. "These are the only clothes I have left."
"It's… fine," he stammered, certain he'd never spoken a more idiotic sentence. "We… have a way… I mean, we'll see."
The inn appeared—plain and true—the clearing around it breathing in the wind. Aveline paused on the threshold the way one pauses at the edge of a cold river before stepping in. The common room, swept, had clean lines again; the counter shone with oiled gratitude; the hearth purred with patient fire.
"It didn't look like this a few weeks ago," Terence said—almost apologizing. "But it's holding up."
"It's more than holding," Aveline answered, surprised. "It's… lived-in."
He showed the rooms, Mie's—where an over-long dress waited on a chair—then his own—too big, yet right—then the hallway, and finally the little room at the back: the former empty chamber he himself hadn't yet given a soul.
"This one," he said. "If… if you stay a while."
Aveline stepped in. Dust lifted in a thin veil. She set her satchel on the table, opened it, and in a blink the neutral room became a forward post of a workshop: vials, jars of dried herbs, small balances, wooden spoons, a dog-eared notebook. The scent of angelica, sage, spirits, and something pleasantly bitter filled the air. Mie sneezed, then apologized so hard it became funny; Aveline apologized too, which made everyone laugh.
"You can look," Aveline told Mie, "but don't touch without asking. Some things sting. Others pop. Deal?"
"Deal!" Mie answered with a military salute of Olympian seriousness.
That evening, Terence chose simplicity: a straightforward broth, vegetables cut evenly, a little meat, dried fruit he had managed not to scorch this time. Aveline tasted like one reads—attentive to rhythm and pauses.
"Vegetables reduced properly," she said. "You're compensating for a timid stock with a longer cook. Missing a touch of acidity… (she searched her memory) a fresh herb. A leaf of something that wakes the tongue. But it's very good." (A beat.) "I'd like to eat this every day."
Terence, braced for an autopsy, went mute a second—then laughed, short with relief.
"We don't have mint," Mie whispered, stricken she couldn't improve it.
"We'll find some," Aveline promised. "I know a damp patch near the stones." (She hesitated.) "If I stay long enough."
They ate. Conversation wove something other than obligation. When Aveline spoke of herbs, her eyes went child-bright; when she spoke of the guild, her jaw tightened only slightly; when Mie asked foolish questions, she answered without irony. At last she set the spoon down, looked around—the room, the fire, the window where night began to press its fingers.
"You don't know what it means," she said, voice lower. "To have a place to set my notebook. To leave a jar without someone breaking it on principle. To have a place where…" (she searched the word) "where the smell of sage bothers no one."
Mie, who'd been fighting sleep for three spoonfuls, drifted sideways like a little boat and settled her head on Aveline's thigh, plush hugged tight. Even beaten by night, her ears still flickered—as if checking whether the world still held.
Terence gathered the bowls, set them in the basin. He became abruptly aware of the space Nyala's absence occupied. She would have snickered; she would have set her chin on his shoulder; she would have called something "idiot"; she would have stolen the last bite. Tonight the silence had another flavor—neither better nor worse, only different. He thought of a tail writing itself in air like a living exclamation mark, of the black brushes tipping those ears.
"Nyala will come back," he said louder than intended.
Aveline looked up, not catching the thread of justification in the words."Good," she said simply. "I'll brew her a decoction for sore muscles. Caracals have the nasty habit of thinking they're invincible."
He smiled despite himself.
Later, when Mie was in bed, he stepped onto the balcony. An August night fell without anger on the clearing; far off, Orvenne tossed a handful of yellow glitter at the world's edge. He thought of the Scael clinking in his pocket, of Aveline's vials already lined up like promises, of the empty space Nyala had left and would reoccupy—perhaps differently, inevitably differently.
He came back in. In the common room, Aveline tucked her hair behind her ear—a useless, tender gesture, as strands slipped free again at once. She stood, a little stiff—dignity is a tiring posture—and inclined her head.
"Thank you, Terence. For today. For…" (she searched for a word that wasn't "pity" or "charity") "for the room. I'll work. I won't be a burden."
"No one is, here," he said. "Not as long as we blow on the same fire."
A real smile lit her face for a heartbeat. Then she disappeared into her little room that already smelled of sage—and the idea of mint.
Terence stayed by the embers. Without Nyala's voice and steps the house sang lower—but it sang all the same. He set a hand on the table and felt, in the wood, something as simple as a pulse: there were three of them—four, soon—thumping palms there, setting bowls and vials and cheeks and promises. Enough to make the inn alive.
He blew on the coal. The flame, stubborn and obedient, took.