Chapter 10: Wolfsbane
FALL TERM - October 2nd - Weekend
Aisling met up with me yesterday to show me around the greenhouses.
The mark of Orendell on my arm burned hot to the touch through the night. The wolf in my head was baying, begging for something I didn't know how to give. I had the half-page ticket stub from Kelyn with the recipe for a poultice meant to soothe it and the question from Aries still ringing in my ear. Zeph, are you a werewolf?
The answer was a horror I wasn't fully willing to consider right then. In every folktale magic came at a cost to the mage. I could use magic now, a reality only months ago I'd never have imagined. This meant I was already running a tab. So what exactly had I agreed to pay?
Aisling didn't mention the bags under my eyes when she saw me. She only asked if she might be able to read through the recipe for Kelyn's poultice herself. Kelyn's handwriting was a heavy dark scrawl, and over the ticket illustration of a winged pixie in flight for some kind of theatre performance. I probably would have struggled to decipher the ingredients had I not heard her name the ingredients as she wrote them down. Aloe and wolfsbane.
"Something to help you sleep?" she asked. At least werewolves weren't on her mind.
"That's definitely part of it," I said.
Aisling led the way. It wasn't so much that I had trouble finding the greenhouses, but navigating through them. The Court's greenhouses were a series of connected glass conservatories, with branching sunrooms, nurseries, and gardening sheds. It was a maze of lush plant life. "The largest collection of herbs and rare plants in all of Mesym, according to Professor Fen," Aisling explained. "And probably the world, unless Caburh is hiding some kind of treasure trove of gardening."
"Not likely," I said. "Not many sunny days, remember?"
"Ah right..." Aisling talked on, pointing me around. While she had only been here as long as I had, her coven leader, Professor Thistle Fen was a renowned botanist, and head of the Court's alchemy program, and Aisling's own dormitories were accessible only by a winding stairwell behind the vegetable patch. "You'd think it would be kind of fun for midnight snacks, but unless you're really craving a whole pumpkin, it's not much to write home about. The flowers are nice though. Some of the zucchini plants are still in bloom."
It didn't take us long to find aloe. Aisling checked the quantity and decided that a single large leaf should be enough per use.