"But he wasn't."
"Fever broke before dawn. The wound started closing by itself. I thought I was losing my mind."
The rooster screams from the cart. We both look up. Back to the flowers.
I pick a flower. Drop it in the basket between us. Careful with the petals.
Purple past the knuckles, both of us.
Her arm brushes mine when she reaches.
"The leaves go here?" Kestria, from somewhere to my right.
"Separate pile." Melori doesn't look up. "Away from the petals. And check the stems for bugs—there's a beetle that eats the roots and the frass can contaminate the paste."
"Frass?"
"Bug droppings."
"You could've just said bug droppings."
"Frass is the technical term."
"Frass sounds like a curse word."
"It should be. Very underutilized."
The sun shifts. We keep picking. My knees don't ache. My body heals everything. I don't have to stop. She will ache. Won't say anything about it.
I stand. Stretch. Empty my flowers into the larger basket by the cart.
When I come back, I crouch in a different spot. Closer. Close enough that my arm touches hers when I reach.
Actually touches.
"There's a field," I tell her.
She looks up.
"Near pack territory. Half a day's walk from the den. Larger than this one."
"Larger?"
"By a lot."
Her hands stop. "You said there wasn't any in the territory."
"I didn't know what it was."
"What?"
"I ran through a clearing years ago. Air hurt to breathe. I left and didn't go back. Didn't know the name for it until today."
Her eyes go wide. Then fast—moving, calculating. Her mouth opens and her whole body leans toward me and the energy coming off her is—
Hands still. Brain running full speed.
"Keer. If wolves avoid it naturally, that's because the plant affects your biology at a base level. Which means the potency of a larger field would be—the concentration in the soil alone—I need to test the petals. Compare them to these. If the purple ratio is higher in a larger natural field, the paste could be twice as strong, maybe more, and the processing time might—"
