Ch.26
The bell on the pharmacy door jingled when I pushed it open and Naaza was awake this time, which was either progress or an accident.
She was behind the counter with a mortar and pestle, grinding herbs that smelled like eucalyptus with a chemical edge underneath. Her brown hair was pulled back from her face and her dog ears were up, attentive, rotating toward the sound of the bell before her eyes followed. She looked at me. Her purple eyes did the slow blink.
"Bell Cranel."
"Hey, Naaza."
"Potions?"
"Five healing. Two antidotes."
She set down the pestle and reached under the counter and lined up the bottles without ceremony. Blue-green for healing, pale yellow for antidotes. Standard size, clean labels in her careful handwriting. She arranged them in a row and put her left hand flat on the counter beside them.
"Three thousand valis," she said. "Five hundred each for the healing, two-fifty for the antidotes."
I looked at the bottles. Looked at her. The price was fair. Dead-center market rate, no markup, no mournful eyes, no performance. The last time I'd been here she'd tried to charge me eight hundred a bottle and I'd paid five hundred plus a tip for the acting.
"You remembered," I said.
She looked away. Her right hand, the prosthetic one under the long sleeve, clinked against the counter's edge. Metal on wood, a faint sound she immediately pulled back from.
"Naaza doesn't forget customers who pay extra for insults."
"It was a compliment."
"It was a critique of Naaza's sales technique delivered while smiling." She said it flat. Her ears were down.
I put the money on the counter. She counted it with her left hand, quick and precise, and swept the coins into a box under the register. Her right hand stayed against her body, the sleeve hiding the silver underneath.
"How'd you lose it?"
She stopped moving. Her ears went stiff, pointed straight up. Her purple eyes came to mine and held there and the sleepy softness was gone. The look underneath was sharp and startled and old.
"The arm," I said. "What happened?"
Nobody asked that. She went still. Her jaw set. Her left hand pressed flat on the counter like she needed the surface to hold her up. People saw the long sleeve and her left hand doing all the work and they looked away. Pretended the sleeve was normal. Were polite about it.
"The Dungeon." Her voice was flat. The dreamy quality was gone and what came out was stripped and dry. "Floor 12. A monster party. Orcs and Imps. Naaza was Level 2 and it should have been manageable but there were too many and the party split and an Orc caught Naaza's arm with a Landform weapon."
A potion bottle on the shelf behind her caught the morning light. Blue-green, like all the others, clean and carefully made.
She said it flat. Third person. Detached. Lili had told her story the same way, and so does anyone who's lived through a thing too many times to still feel it on the surface.
"The arm came off above the elbow. The party leader cauterized the wound and carried Naaza out. Miach-sama spent every valis the Familia had on the prosthetic." She looked at the counter. Her left hand was white-knuckled on the edge. "Agateram. Made by Dian Cecht Familia. It cost everything. The other Familia members left because there was nothing left for them. No money, no supplies, no future. Just Miach-sama and Naaza in an empty pharmacy with a debt that will take years to pay off."
She finished. Her ears were flat against her skull and her jaw was tight and she was looking at the potion bottles on the counter instead of at me.
"The potions are how Naaza pays it back. Every valis. Every markup. Every sad face at the counter." She shrugged. One shoulder. "It's fine."
A kid ran past the pharmacy window outside, chasing a ball that was bouncing down the gutter. The ball hit a cart wheel and ricocheted into a fruit stand and a vendor started yelling.
"That's a lot to carry," I said.
"Naaza carries it."
"I know you do." I picked up the potions and put them in my bag. Then I put more coins on the counter. Enough for two more bottles I didn't need.
She looked at the money. "That's too much."
"Your potions are better than Dian Cecht's."
Her head came up. Her purple eyes were wide and her mouth was open and her ears had gone from flat to straight up and the sleepy mask was completely off and what was under it was a woman who had never heard anyone say that to her.
"They're not-"
"They are. Clearer color, better consistency, faster absorption. I've used both." I shouldered my bag. "Keep the change."
I walked to the door. The bell jingled as I opened it.
"Cranel."
I turned. She was standing behind the counter with her left hand on the coins I'd left and her right hand, the prosthetic, had come out of the sleeve. Silver joints, a blue-tinted gem at the wrist, the articulated fingers resting on the counter's surface in the light from the window. She'd let it be visible. She was looking at me with an expression her sleepy face didn't know how to contain.
She didn't say anything else. I nodded and left.
The Hostess of Fertility was loud tonight. The dinner crowd filled the room with the noise of cutlery and conversation and the kitchen smelled like roasting meat and Mia's bread, the kind you could smell from the street.
Loki Familia had claimed the big table in the back. Tiona's arm was visible above the crowd before the rest of her was, waving with her whole body like she was directing ships into port. The Hostess crew was running at full speed. Anya was carrying four plates at once and almost dropping two. Chloe glided between tables with the efficiency of someone who'd navigated tighter spaces in worse lighting. Ryuu moved through the dinner crowd with her usual combat-precision footwork.
Hestia had insisted on dinner out. "We never go anywhere together," she'd said, which was true because together now included Lili, and Hestia and Lili in the same pub meant the seating arrangement was going to be a whole thing.
Syr led us to a four-top near the window. Hestia took the seat to my left before Lili could get there. She slid into it with a hip-check that was casual until you noticed the speed. Lili stood beside the remaining chair across from me, her brown eyes flat.
"Lili wanted the seat next to Bell-sama."
"Oh, did you?" Hestia's blue eyes were wide and innocent. "I didn't realize. I just sat where it was closest."
"Goddess sat in the seat Lili was reaching for."
"Proximity. Physics. First come, first served."
"Goddess used divine speed."
"I walked at a normal pace. Normal goddess pace."
Lili sat across from me. Her brown eyes met mine and the look said I'm keeping score.
Syr brought water and menus and then brought herself, sliding into the fourth chair with a "Mind if I join for a minute?" that wasn't really a question. She folded her hands on the table and smiled at me and at Hestia and at Lili with equal warmth, and I watched three different reactions land. Hestia's eyes narrowed. Lili's chin went up. Syr's smile didn't change.
Ryuu appeared with bread. She set the basket down and her sky-blue eyes passed over the table arrangement and the three women and me in the middle and she placed the bread equidistant from everyone, which was either waitressing or diplomacy.
Anya came by to steal a roll and stayed to lean on my chair back. "'Bell-nya is popular tonight-nya.'"
"Anya, you're working," Ryuu said from two tables away, already serving someone else.
"'Anya is networking-nya.'" She stole a second roll and left, her tail brushing my shoulder as she went.
Chloe passed behind me and her hand ran across the back of my neck. I didn't see her approach and I didn't see her leave. Just the touch and then she was at the bar wiping glasses like she'd been there the whole time.
The food came. Hestia ordered pasta and ate it with concentrated fury, her eyes darting between Syr and Lili at regular intervals. Lili ordered a stew and ate it with precise, measured bites, her posture perfect, her back straight, occupying her chair like it was a command post. Syr had tea and didn't eat and watched everyone and occasionally reached across the table to wipe a crumb off my sleeve, which made Hestia's fork pause mid-twirl.
I ate my steak. It was good.
From the Loki Familia table, Tiona waved. Both arms above her head, bouncing in her seat, mouthing words I couldn't make out across the noisy room. Tione pulled her sister back down by the elbow and snapped at her and Tiona laughed.
Ais was at the end of their table. She had a plate in front of her that she wasn't eating from. Her gold eyes were on me. Steady, level, the same measuring look from the wall. She didn't wave. She watched.
I held the look for a beat. She held it back. Then Riveria leaned toward her and she turned away and picked up her fork and the connection broke.
Syr was watching me watch Ais. When I turned back, her gray eyes were on my face and her smile had gone sharper. She didn't say anything. She took a sip of her tea.
Mia shouted about clearing tables from the kitchen and the Hostess staff scattered and Syr stood up and squeezed my shoulder on the way past and said "Come back soon" close enough to my ear that her breath was warm on my neck. Hestia's hand found my knee under the table and squeezed. Hard.
I paid for dinner.
The church basement was quiet after the noise of the Hostess. Hestia was in the bathroom washing up. Lili was at the small kitchen counter making tea, her back to the room.
I reached past her for a cup on the shelf above the counter. My chest brushed her shoulder. She didn't move out of the way. Her body was warm through the fabric of her shirt and the contact lasted longer than it needed to because the cup was at the back of the shelf and I had to reach and she had to stay and neither of us moved faster than we had to.
When I pulled back with the cup, Lili's ears were pink. She poured tea without looking at me.
"Bell-sama takes his tea without sugar."
"Yeah."
"Lili remembers."
She set the cup on the counter. Her brown eyes came up to mine and they were clear and steady and the pink in her ears was the only tell.
From the bathroom doorway, Hestia's blue eyes watched us. Her toothbrush was in her mouth and her twin-tails were down for the night and she was standing in my shirt with her bare legs visible below the hem and she was looking at the inch of space between my chest and Lili's shoulder with a focus that could have updated a falna.
Nobody said anything. Lili went to her cot. I went to the couch. Hestia finished brushing her teeth and came to the couch and curled up against my side and her hand rested on my chest and her fingers pressed down once, firm, over the spot where the bite mark from her hand was still healing.
The candle burned. The Dungeon hummed. Outside, Orario was going to sleep.
Inside, the space between the couch and Lili's cot measured about ten feet, and it had never felt smaller.