Page 13 of Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
“Mum,” Nathaniel had asked. “What is that?”
His mother had glanced at the stall with derision.
“Alchemists,” she said scornfully. “Pretty showmen turning one thing into another. They could be of such use—put their skills to making medicines more powerful than any tincture of mine!—yet all they do is craft baubles for the rich and tools of war for the Queen.”
Nathaniel had watched as the man behind the stall poured aconcoction onto an onyx hair comb and ran it through the woman’s hair. As the comb passed through her locks, it turned the silvery gray to a lustrous chestnut brown. She beamed, looking at least ten years younger.
“I think it’s beautiful,” said Nathaniel.
“Pah!” his mother spat, and he felt burned by the sudden acid in her voice. “Parlor tricks and criminals.”
She led him away, but Nathaniel couldn’t get the alchemist out of his mind.
“Why is it so bad to make things that are pretty?” he asked her that night over a hearty bowl of beef stew at the inn where they were staying.
His mother put down her spoon. “Well, darling, it’s not. But they rarely stop there. I had a sister who was an alchemist, did you know that?”
“Aunt Althea.” Nathaniel nodded sagely, as though he knew more than just the hushed whispers he’d gleaned from adults around him.
His mother’s nod was curt. “She made pretty things once. But pretty things have sharp edges, and other people can wield you like a blade if you’re not careful.” Her voice caught. “Althea died, Nathaniel. Do you understand me? Her alchemy was dangerous and she paid the price. Better to be of use, to be able to help people with somethingreal. That’s us, my love. We do good. We do something of substance. Not like her. Not like them.”
He wasn’t clear on whothemwas, but the conversation stuck with him, a constant flame burning just this side of too hot even as his aspirations grew. At nineteen, he told his parents he wanted to join the Crucible, the royal university where the Queen’s alchemists trained.
“I want to make it useful,” he pleaded to his mother. “I want to apply alchemical practices to make our medicines more effective.Create cures and methods to make our family’s business unlike any other. I don’t need power. I don’t need baubles. I just want to help.”
Da smiled and congratulated him, but his mother hesitated.
“It will change you,” she said mournfully. “Five years you’ll be gone from us at that school, and then you won’t want to come home.”
“That’s not true, Mum,” he said, feeling confident. “I’ll experiment and send back ideas for ways to help the shop, and when I’ve finished my education, I will come home and we’ll bring Marsh Apothecary into a new age.”
But his mother had only smiled sadly. “We’ll see, my love. We’ll see.”
On the day he left for Lokoa, she told him, “Remember there’s more to it than pretty tricks and flashy explosions. You, and only you, oversee your destiny, Nathaniel. Never forget it.”
“Five years, Mum,” he promised.
It was the first big lie he told his mother.
Once Nathaniel was happily settled in Lokoa, his fingertips blackened with ink and soot, his leather apron smelling of magic and science and all the things he loved most, he was never quite sure how to tell his family that he’d fallen in love with school, and with the city.
He finished university at the top of his class, and with a twinge of guilt, he accepted a research role in the Crucible developing new alchemical solutions for the Queen. He immersed himself in a world of innovation and scholarship, drinking deep from the chalice of knowledge in a quest to quench his ever-worsening thirst.
Before he knew it, ten years had passed in the blink of an eye, and his youthful naivete had evaporated like a decoction left too long on the flame.
If he’d known from the start that his parents would take out a second mortgage on the shop to pay for his schooling, would he have chosen differently? If he’d realized the harm he was causing with his experiments, would he have left the Crucible sooner? If he’d known the violent, disastrous results of his work, would he still have gone? If, if, if…
Now, as Nathaniel wore a mask of pleasant goodwill in front of surly customers who knew he didn’t belong, knew what he’d done, he wondered at what a waste his education had been. Here he was anyway peddling the same tea and herbs his parents had—only his parents had been able to keep the business afloat.
“If you’d like the pearlflower scent back,” Nathaniel said now to his customer, “I can put your name on a list and let you know when we have it in stock once again.”
“And when might that be?”
“Ah, well.” Nathaniel cleared his throat. “Shipments have been delayed since Shadowfade’s defeat—merchants aren’t sure what to think.” This wasn’t a lie, or at least not quite. Several merchants had indicated that they worried news of the sorcerer’s death was some kind of trick. Unfortunately for Nathaniel, it was a sentiment that had been accompanied by a steep increase in their prices; now that they were no longer forced to trade in Dragon’s Rest with the sorcerer himself, they were giving his town a wide berth until they could determine where the dice had fallen—and what sort of entity might be picking them up in Shadowfade’s absence.
To his relief, the customer’s expression softened. “Aye, you and everyone else in town,” he said. “I work down at the inn, and the brewer from Shadow Springs, where we get our ale, told us we can come and get it ourselves but he won’t be delivering to us for the foreseeable future. Now our options are a day’s journey to Shadow Springs every other week or purchasing from the Barrel.”
Nathaniel sympathized—the Rusty Barrel was the only brewing operation in Dragon’s Rest, and its beer was about as appetizing as its name promised.
