Chapter 26: The Crown Beneath the Clinic
Morning came with the clatter of broken jars.
"CAI!" Lira shouted, slipping on spilled honeywort and nearly punching a shelf out of instinct. "Why were you balancing pots on top of the pestle rack?!"
"I was organizing them by emotional energy!" Cai chirped from the next room.
Lira turned to Elric, who was pretending to be deaf. "Your clinic is a magical madhouse."
"It's also extremely effective," he said, flipping a page in his notes. "We treated eleven patients in three hours yesterday."
"Yes, and one of them was a chicken."
"It had frostbite."
"It had dignity, Elric."
---
Downstairs, Keera was quietly brushing a sleepy goat who had followed her back from the mountains. Veyra watched her with mild curiosity. "You name everything, don't you?"
Keera smiled. "This one's called Trouble."