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Oh.
Oh.
He was safe. My curse hadn’t killed him. I could calm down and not worry I’d ruined all of the happiness I’d somehow managed to find.
“Hasn’t Kai always been a happy guy?”
“Amiable, sure. Charming? Yes. I’d say he’s always been a generally positive person, but happy? That’s an entirely different animal. I know most people probably didn’t notice, but to me, it always felt like he was... looking for something, I guess. Like there was an unnamable discontent in his heart.”
Darla gave me a rather weighted look, like she was expecting something, and I wonder if she somehow knew about the curse. She couldn’t, could she? The only person I’d ever told in my adult life was Kai himself, and I really didn’t plan on changing that outside of the enchantress… if we ever managed to find her.
“Huh,” I said in a non-committal voice.
“Yeah, huh,” Darla said, and I was happy she’d dropped it. “Anyway, glad to see you taking a break. I thought I was going to have to haul you out of the infirmary by the ear to get you to drink or eat.”
I allowed myself a smile. “I’m happy to say that not only have I drank two glasses of water and an invigoration brew, but I have a runner getting me a real meal from the caf.”
“Wha? Look at lil’ Miss Hermit! Improving on those toxic, workaholic habits.”
“I’m not a workaholic,” I said quickly.
“Mmhmm, sure you’re not. As soon as I leave, where are you going?”
I narrowed my eyes at my friend, looking ever so smug. “Just because you’re right this time doesn’t mean I’m a workaholic.”
“You keep telling yourself that, my dear.” She leaned in and pressed a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll be back at twenty-one hundred tonight to make sure you didn’t try to pull a double today and ate the food you sent for.”
“And if I don’t?” I said, though my feet and back howled at the idea of being up and working so long.
“Then, you won’t get to share the delicious lemon squares the townsfolk gave me.”
Lemon squares? I didn’t have the sweetest tooth, but I did have a fondness for citrus. I loved the tart flavor. It wasn’t really something I could get on my own too often, given the climate I’d lived in most of my life.
“Point taken.”
Darla laughed and gave one of her jaunty little salutes before heading out. “See you later, alligator.”
She took her leave while I shook my head, musing at how nice it was to have someone I could joke around with.
Then again, considering all Darla had gone through, from getting her throat slit and bleeding out, to the other dozens of injuries she’d sustained since we'd started interacting more and more, our companionship came at a price. Maybe, if I was lucky, my going to the capital while she stayed behind would give the curse a reset.
I soon returned to work before the runner returned with our food only a few moments later. Mikhailov and I didn’t exactly sit down and eat it straight out. Instead, we set it on one of our unused counters and grazed throughout the next few hours while we soaked another batch of bandages in healing salves, brewed potions, and cleaned out all of the emptied bottles and other supplies needing to be reused.
“Hey, don’t you think it’s time you called it for the day?”
“Hmm?” I hummed, blinking owlishly as I came back to my body. I’d been in the middle of removing chamomile heads from their stalks, so we could dry them in our medical-grade dehydrator, and forgotten where I was. It was one of our more tedious tasks, and one our local herb suppliers had offered to circumvent by bringing us already dried chamomile, but we preferred to do it ourselves so we could properly sterilize and enchant it, infusing the herbs with blessings and spells to increase their potency.
“It’s nearly eighteen hundred hours. You’ve been here since a touch before nine, right?”
I nodded, not quite willing to tell him sleeping past seven a.m. was an indulgence for me. Normally, I was up before the sun to get in ingredient prep, studying, or any personal stuff done.
“I suppose you’re right.” Maybe, just maybe, if I took offbeforeDarla’s cut off, she would give me an extra lemon square as a treat. Reinforce my good behavior and all. “Are you sure you’re all right being here alone?”
“Don’t worry, our relief will be in within the next hour. I only got in here around ten, so I have a couple more hours in me. Figure we’ll all be pulling ten-hour shifts for a while.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” he said with a nod. “I may be old, but I’m not in the grave yet. I’ve got plenty of energy left in me.”
