Page 29 of Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
Nathaniel glanced nervously around the shop. It had clearly been assembled in a hurry, with temporary shelving shoved into the found space, but that didn’t matter much when the shelves behind Sedgwick and his counter were loaded with vials of potions and solutions. Everything in the well-stocked shop was neatly labeled with engraved metal placards that looked much nicer than Nathaniel’s own yellowing letterpress-printed labels.The bulk of the supply, he was relieved to see, was standard alchemist fare—solutions that would change nonliving organic matter to glass or metal or stone, some fireworks and minor explosives for entertainment at parties, and more of the same useless alchemical drivel that had so irritated his mother—though in one sizable nook near the back, he found shelves of herbs and tinctures, some of which exceeded his own stock considerably.
“You’ve settled in quickly,” he said when Sedgwick finished with his customer and approached.
“Yes, yes, it all happened in a flash.” The man smirked at him. “After finding out you didn’t have what I needed, I looked into procuring it on my own, and wouldn’t you know? I found just how easy it was to obtain—if you have the means, of course.”
Nathaniel bristled. “Indeed.”
“It shocked me to learn there was such a lapse in stock here in Dragon’s Rest. But, I thought, if a fine establishment like yours wasn’t going to fill the gap, why shouldn’t I step in?”
It was so clearly a dig that he didn’t know how to respond.
“Now, what can I help you with today?” Sedgwick leaned closer. “A potion to put a smile on your face, perhaps? Something to take those silvery strands out of your hair?”
Nathaniel resisted the urge to touch his hair and check if he was lying. “Your supply here overlaps with my own,” he said, nodding to the corner of herbs and medicines.
“Ah.” Sedgwick had the decency to look abashed. “Well, you understand, of course. Business is business, and when it comes to the needs of my clientele, I’m simply meeting demand.”
Nathaniel’s face burned. “Demand.”
“It’s nothing but a bit of friendly competition,” he said, grinning a too-wide smile. “Perhaps it will do you some good!”
“Perhaps,” he said stiffly.
“We are professionals, Mr.Marsh,” said Sedgwick. “And thisis business, not personal. My stock is more abundant than yours, true. But being competitors doesn’t mean we need to be enemies.” There was a promise in his words that bordered the shadowlands of a threat.
Nathaniel’s eyes flashed. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not very good at making friends.”
Blight
The first week of business surpassed even Violet’s wildest, most far-fetched dreams. Each night, after her doors closed, she retreated to the greenhouse and let her imagination run wild with growth. Ranunculus, peonies, tulips, lilies, and daffodils; lavender, daisies, sweet peas, and orchids. By now she had been practicing for weeks—she was pulling flowers into existence with a flick of her fingers, and she barely noticed the stinging sensation anymore. Perhaps this “being good” thing wouldn’t be so difficult after all. Still, she’d never grown so much in so short a time, not even in Guy’s gardens, and some nights, she found herself collapsing into bed too tired to even dream.
Last night was not one of those nights. Violet woke before the sun, sweating, feeling the weight of that damn purple cloak, the itch of thorns sharpening her features. Guy’s voice was still in her ear.
You are nothing without me.
She quickly made her bed, got dressed, and combed her fingers through her hair, disappointed when Guy’s ghost followed her to the kitchen.
What do you think you’re doing, petal?
The dream had been nothing out of the ordinary, but as she poured her teakettle with shaking hands and pocketed an apple from the bowl she kept on her table, Violet wondered if the memories of what she’d done in her past life, not to mention the imagined judgment from a dead man, would ever truly leave her.
It had been over a month since he was defeated, she reassured herself as she slipped downstairs and out the back door, her fingers brushing over the jagged trench of her scar, trying not to remember how she’d come by it. Shadowfade’s was the only world she knew. Healing would take time.
“Good morning,” she said to Nathaniel when she opened the greenhouse door. He was at his worktable, Daisy curled up on top of his feet, fast asleep.
Violet still caught him watching her, but after that day in the woods she’d begun watching him right back. She’d acquainted herself with the way his brow furrowed when he measured ingredients, how he wrote his notes with his left hand but stirred his cauldron with his right. How he chewed on a leaf from his mint plant when he was thinking, and hummed snippets of melodies to Daisy, and smiled most reliably whenever Pru brought him a steaming mug of tea.
Her observations had grown to quite a comprehensive list, she found, though she had no idea what to do with it all.
“Good morning,” he said politely back, his eyes on whatever he had set bubbling in the tabletop cauldron at his workspace.
She hadn’t seen anything like this concoction when she went into the apothecary, and her interest was even more piqued, though she was hesitant to ask him lest she stain the stilted kindness he’d shown her when he came into her shop on opening day. Alchemy, she supposed. Her thoughts turned to an alchemist she’d known at Shadowfade Castle—one of Guy’s best, and oneof Violet’s most bitter rivals. From the moment he’d arrived, he’d set his sights on making her life miserable, and in a lot of ways, he’d succeeded. He was a cruel manipulator and had given Violet no cause to feel kindly toward alchemists.
Prickly though Nathaniel Marsh may be, it was a good reminder to Violet that he was nothing like the villains of her past. The man swung her patience like a pendulum, making her resolve to ignore him one moment and befriend him the next. Violet prided herself on being able to present a calm face to the world, even when a storm brewed inside her. But something about Nathaniel oiled the inside of the mask she wore, making it difficult to keep it on her face without slipping, even when she used both hands and all her considerable might.
As she arranged bouquets and magically propagated a few clippings into pots of soil until they were lush and leafy, working side by side in silence with him in the greenhouse, Violet tried to puzzle out why that was. She failed.
By the time lunch rolled around, Violet’s mood had lightened. She took orders for a birthday bouquet, her mind ablaze with possibilities for the design. She finished taking notes, Bartleby’s vines drooping lazily over her shoulders from his perch on the shelf above her, and absently swiped him aside whenever it seemed he was trying to strangle her.
