Page 14 of Poison Nights & Twilight Alchemy

“I’ll give you two hundred gold units for the lot,” he said with finality, returning the glasses to his blood-splattered pocket.

It was more than Reed could have hoped for. Ten times as much as he would need to save his brother. The ring alone would earn him more than he’d ever had in his life.

“Done,” he agreed.

The apothecary had gone to sleep but always kept a boy on the lookout for desperate customers—a service he got at two pence a night. Reed roused him with a prod of his filthy boot as the boy lay slumped in the shop’s entry, sound asleep. The night was more than half over by now, the fog so thick Reed could hardly see past his own outstretched hand.

“He’ll want you to wake him for this,” Reed said, and the boy hurried off into the night to wake the greedy toad.

The man stumbled in, thick purple bags beneath his eyes, and his gray hair wilder than a tree swallow’s nest. “What is it that you couldn’t wait until morning?” He glowered.

“I’m here for the plague’s cure.” Reed drew out two coins from his trouser pocket. “I can pay.”

“Ah.” The man’s lips curled up into a wolfish smile. “The price has gone up, I’m afraid.”

Of course it had...

“Can’t get good comfrey these days,” he muttered, twisting a key and searching through a hidden shelf. “And feverfew isn’t fresh unless you get it from the traveling nomads…”

Reed wouldn’t waste time haggling over the price of his brother’s cure, though it made his blood boil to know the apothecary had charged half the price the year before. With Philip this close to death, there was no time to waste, and with coin he hadn’t earned himself, it seemed not worth the bruise to his pride.

He shoved four coins into the man’s anticipating palm, then waited as the owner leisurely drew three vials containing pale golden liquid from a cabinet. Reed ripped the remedies from the man’s grasp before rushing out of the apothecary to his brother.

Philip lay pale and trembling in darkness when Reed finally returned home, the candles all having burnt out long ago, the fireplace gone cold, nothing but ash.

“Philip, it’s me. Reed. I got your cure,” he announced, his chest heaving.

His brother didn’t say a word, only persisted in a non-lucid state, and Reed’s heart lodged in his throat. What if he was too late?

He hastily lit another fire, promising himself he would buy enough wood to keep the drafty hut warm all winter if Philip remained too ill to travel.

Wrapping his brother in every blanket they owned, he propped him up to force the bitter-smelling herbs down his throat, refusing to let even a single drop spill. Reed kept his gaze fixed on the clock, and by the consumption of the third vial, Philip regained some of his usual color and warmth, though still marred with sores. After a fewticks of their father’s old clock, his brother’s trembling at last ceased.

The cure wasworking.

And yet, his brother didn’t wake.

Reed drew a chair to Philip’s side and sat in silence while time passed before finally telling him of how he’d met a beautiful girl who’d helped him save his brother’s life. He embellished the tale, making himself the hero who boldly rescued her from being trampled by a runaway carriage. Instead of a desperate thief who’d snuck onto her property to dig up her grave.

“A girl you say?” Philip croaked, startling Reed. His eyes were open, and he even tried to smile.

Reed laughed in relief. “One that’s too good for either of us.”

“Speak for yourself, white hair,” Philip crooned, his voice almost clear. “I’m practically royalty with these good looks. And stop looking at me as if I died.”

“You nearly did…”

“But Ididn’t.” His voice was stronger now, his smile bright. “I have my brother to thank for that.”

“I expect nothing less if I’m ever at death’s door.” Reed winked.

Philip grew serious, taking Reed’s hand and squeezing it. “I swear it,” he whispered. Philip observed Reed for a long moment, then sat with a wince. “Now tell me more about this girl. Does she happen to have a sister?”

“You’re clearly in no position to—”

Heavy pounding on the hut’s rotting door rattled the entire building, and Reed’s wild stare met Philip’s alarmed expression.

Before Reed could grab something to barricade thedoor, it swung open with a heavy bang. A towering enforcer with a dark curling mustache appeared in the doorway. “Reed Hawthorne,” he bellowed as two more uniformed men pushed their way through the broken door and lifted Reed to his feet, seeming to enjoy nearly pulling his arms from their sockets. “You are under arrest for the crime of graverobbing, an offense punishable by death.”

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