Free Herb-Witch (Lord Alchemist Duology) by Elizabeth McCoy Page B

worried about you!" Laita put
her hands on her hips.
    Jontho,
behind Kessa, seemed to be choking quietly. She reached back without
looking and swatted his leg. He swallowed the laughter. "So if
you don't want to vanish, nor marry him, what do you need?"
    Kessa
dug copper flowers and trees out of her purse and passed them to Tag
first. "Darul Reus, blight his soul and salt what's left,
had . . . potions of his own. Some kind of
youth-potion, for one, and . . ." She glanced at
Laita miserably. ". . . lust potions. My Guild
Master wants the alchemist who gave Darul the other half of his
blighting. Till that one's found, though, I'm the only ingredient he
knows and he's turning up underfoot."
    Tag
passed some coins to Jontho. "You want us finding this other
alchemist? Y'don't ask for much, Kess."
    "I'll
give you what further coin I can. Especially if the blighted Lord
Alchemist keeps feeding me." She grimaced, already feeling more
debt to the man. "Second . . . I want the
ingredients to Kymus . It's not a normal man who proposes in a
prison cell, in the dark, after dosing someone with Earth and Rain
know what, when he's her guild's master and she but an ugly
journeyman. I need to know if I should run, or if there's some
hold I can get on him ." Some way to face him as an equal,
or at least take him down if he tried to break her. Something stable
beneath her feet, instead of mist and sand.
    "We'd
do that for free, Kessa," Laita said, and neither brother
disputed it.
    "Well,
I don't want that. Tag's got to feed his roof-rats, after all."
    "They
can mostly feed themselves," Tag said, though not so sure of it
as Kessa wanted to hear. A firmer note of pride crept into his voice
as he added, "They're not so good as Jontho, nor Burk before he
grew, but they're getting better."
    "Good,"
Kessa said. "For I'll need one to carry messages, who'd go
unnoticed by the Guild Master. So far, he's come morning and evening,
and a threat of morning tomorrow."
    "Sounds
a plan," Tag said, with Jontho's quiet aye following.
    "And
if he's got no dark secrets?" Laita asked.
    "Laita,
it's insane. Why would he propose to a half-breed, just because I'm
immune like he is? He must not've seen me clearly in the cell. Mayhap
he's thought better by now." Though why would he keep feeding
her?
    "Perhaps
it's more rare than we realized," Laita said.
    "How
can it be rare? I have it. I'm no purebred noble or
alchemist's daughter."
    "You
don't know that, Kessa."
    "I'm
no noble's girl!"
    "All
right, but even the barbarians have a form of herb-witchery –
isn't that what Maila said?"
    Kessa
sighed. The Shadow alchemist'd been annoyed when Kessa was as
rejected by traveling barbarians as by cityfolk. "If my sire'd
been an herb-witch, he'd have been drinking men's tea and I'd not
exist." Or else he'd a blighted soul that didn't care, and its
barren dirt had come out in her eyes.
    Laita
sighed back, exasperated. "You're so stubborn , Kessa. Be
sensible. Why else would a Guild Master propose after realizing you
weren't reacting normally? What if it's 'alchemist's immunity'
because they snap up anyone who has it, for it's too rare to waste?"
    Kessa
waved a hand irritably. Tag offered a rescue: "Best to find what
the man truly intends before sending Burk or Jontho to betroth
anyone."
    "You're
both impossible." Laita pouted prettily.
    "And
you need to rest," Jontho told her. "Kessa, want someone to
walk you home?"
    "If
Tag could go half-way . . ."
    "'Course
I can!" Tag acted mock-wounded. "Don't get to see you much,
with you moving uptown."
    Mayhap
she should never've walked into Master Rom's office, with forged
papers and desperate dreams. Perhaps she'd have been better off in
the Shadow Guild, making whatever potions brought her coin – a
veiled queen in charcoal robes.
    To
match a king in alchemist gray?
    "I
miss all of you. I wish you could visit more." She wanted to
say, When all this is over , but wasn't sure it would be.
    At
least she could talk with