He held up theGrimoire of Herbs and Healinglike it was something sacred. “The book says we need a full moon to make more moon drops. And you’re almost out.”
That woke me. Fully.
Like ice water down my spine.
“You’ve been… reading?” I asked, quiet.
“Just come on.”
The field was soaked in moonlight. Grass brushed against my legs, damp and whispering. Above us, the moon hung low and round, painting the world in silver. Aran crouched in the center of the clearing and set down a dented metal bowl. He unscrewed the cap of his waterskin and poured, slow and steady, until the bowl shimmered with silver light.
I sat beside him and opened the book, the cracked leather soft beneath my fingers. It smelled like dust and rain and something older. Something forgotten. I flipped through slowly. The ink was faded in places, but the handwriting was delicate. Precise. Almost reverent. There were spells I didn’t recognize—protection wards, charms for rain, for sleep, for truth-telling.
And sketches. A tree with roots like veins. A woman cloaked in smoke. A bowl held up to the stars.
I kept turning. And then I found it. A full-page illustration of a glass bowl glowing beneath a silver moon, petals drifting across the surface like tiny stars, and at the bottom, a violet stone pulsing faintly with light.
Of course it was beautiful. Of course the recipe for magical sedative water looked like something torn from a fairytale.
I looked at Aran. “You have all of this?”
He nodded, already rummaging through the bag.
“Winter rose—that’s the blue petals.” He placed them into the bowl, careful, like they might bruise. “Sleeping whisp,” he added, holding up a cluster of delicate purple strands. “That’s the other one.”
“The spell calls for amethyst, too,” he said. “You still have the one from the market?”
“Yes,” I murmured, pulling it from my pocket.
The amethyst caught the moonlight as I let it slip into the bowl. It sank to the bottom, and the water shimmered again.
“And it needs to be in the moon—” I began, eyes on the page.
“The moonlight charges the crystal,” Aran finished softly. “Releases into the water.”
He noticed me staring.
“What?”
“You actually read a book.”
He shrugged. “I still can’t sleep, so… might as well make myself useful. And keeping us from burning to death seems like a good use of my time,” he said, nodding toward the book, “Now, what’s next?”
I shook my head a little. Aran had actually read a book. That still astounded me.
I ran my finger down the page. “We need to bring it to a boil.”
He glanced toward the fire pit, where the embers had faded to a soft orange glow.
“Guess I’ll have to start another one. Unless…”
I looked sideways at him. “Unless what?”
“You do it,” he said.
My eyebrow lifted. “Start the fire?”
“Or be the fire,” Aran said, like it was obvious.
