Chapter Text
Numb. Her entire world was numb. Fingertips absently scrubbed at the rough wood of the shop door, slumping against it slightly for support. Her mind was three steps behind with her current situation, but she figured that letting it catch up would only call in the tidal wave of emotions ebbing at her mental floodgates. It took her a few moments to notice Asra before her, concern darkening his features.
“Hey, I know that look. What happened? What’s wrong?” he soothed, his hand resting on her upper arm with a slight jostle. Her eyes came into focus, looking into his for some kind of direction.
“Julian left me,” she whispered, feeling winded, like someone had punched her in the gut. Hard.
Asra’s expression faltered, shifting between shock, anger, disgust, and hurt in a matter of moments. “He did? You two were…?” He shook his head, his hand grasping at her arm tighter—a comforting pressure. “Want to come upstairs and talk about it? I made that tea you like. You look like you could use it.”
The apprentice nodded, swallowing past a lump in her throat. Asra’s eyes grew concerned once more as he cupped her cheek, scrubbing his thumb across her cheekbone. She felt the change in temperature there and wiped her other eye, just noticing her own tears. Leveling a glare at the moisture on her fingertips, she tailed behind Asra, moving up the stairs and lowering herself onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Asra offered her a mug, which she took with cold hands, the spiced aroma breathing the smallest bit of life back into her core. It wouldn’t last, though, with the question Asra speared her with. “So, what happened?”
She chewed her lip before everything came out in a rush. She told him about their encounter on the streets the night before, their flight from the guards, waking up beside him, crashing a community theatre performance. It spilled out like emotional vomit that her body needed out immediately. “It was unnatural…an almost magnetic attraction. Everything was sparks and friction. I…I couldn’t stay away. He was everything I needed in that moment, everything I wanted to believe him to be. But he said he would only end up hurting me. Decided for me that it would be best if whatever we were becoming…didn’t become anything.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth to keep it from quivering.
“He took an entire day to end it? …Were you two even together?” He asked, stroking Faust where she rested, curled around his wrist.
“I…don’t know,” she admitted, her brows furrowing. Asra’s jaw clenched for a brief moment before he went off on a rant about how Julian only wished to chase drama and his own suffering, how he always sabotages happiness, and something about an ouroboros of self-flagellation. But she only mumbled out clipped responses, doing her best to defend Julian against her master’s verbal assault, despite some dark part of her inner monologue telling her to agree with him.
After returning the deck in her bag to its true owner, she flopped into her bed to sleep off her emotional hangover. Who knew someone could experience so many emotions in a single day? Excitement, fear, attraction, anxiety, desire, heartbrokenness…she couldn’t reign in the cacophony of feelings swirling in her chest, her heart fluttering like a bird bashing its wings against a bone cage. Fingers dug into the pillow beneath her head as she rolled to her side. Would he be safe? Where else could he go? Would Mazelinka help him again? Could she find him there?
Should she try to find him there?
She shook her head and buried her face into the pillow to hide her tears from the shadows of the night. She couldn’t bear the thought of him getting caught by anyone else but her. She could keep him safe. She closed her eyes and replayed the words he spoke to her on the dock, the fevered kisses he’d caught her with, always followed by a pleading “one more.” Fire rose in her chest, searing her from the inside out. But it wasn’t the searing heat that she experienced in the moments of stolen kisses and flirting touches. It was the searing heat that would have brought her to her knees if she weren’t already in bed. It brought pain, a dull and throbbing ache that she couldn’t soothe. She sighed deeply, gripping the pillow beneath her again, imagining the feeling of his auburn locks between her fingers as she remembered him. Wherever he had run to now, she only prayed that he was safe.
***
Squawks of tropical birds on the windowsill roused her from her sleep. She couldn’t remember when she had fallen into slumber. She did, however, wish that she could return to her dreams, where she had been surrounded by the familiar scent of leather and musk again, warm and content. She could’ve sworn that she could smell him and feel his warmth in her sleep, like the evening before. But of course, she woke up alone in her bed, surrounded by the familiar smell of potions ingredients instead. Even her dreams taunted her fragile emotional state. A hollow sigh rattled from her slumped form, her hands scrubbing over her tired face. If she could get some food in her stomach, she could think of some kind of plan. Did he leave the city? Maybe Mazelinka would know.
Dragging her heavy body to the kitchen to find food, she sniffed out a half-eaten loaf of bread on the table. Just before she placed a bite into her mouth, she heard a clatter and a soft thud downstairs. With her plundered breakfast in hand, she cautiously made her way down the stairs, glancing into the shop. At the front door, she saw Asra looking down disdainfully at a bundle of flowers wrapped in a scrap of parchment on the shop counter.
“Flowers?” she mumbled, the husky sound of sleep still in her voice. Asra sighed heavily, plucking a wolfsbane bloom from the bundle and rubbing the petals between his fingers roughly.
“Can’t ever manage the decency of a clean break, can you, Ilya?” he growled under his breath. “These were on the doorstep this morning. They’re for you.”
The apprentice made her way over to the counter and picked up the bouquet, holding them to her nose to deeply inhale their fragrance. She then remembered their detour into the abandoned flower garden, the luminescent flower he’d offered her, and his warning.
“Poison in these petals,” she muttered the words under her breath, reciting them from Julian’s teasing in the garden.
“Yeah, you’re right. Only the wolfsbane, though. Orange roses, maiden’s blush, scorpion grass, amethyst, eglantine, and it looks like some althea frutex, too,” Asra assessed. His eyes narrowed as he crushed the wolfsbane he’d stolen in his palm. “Ironic. His favorite. It’s the only one that’s toxic in this bouquet. Highly toxic. At least he got one thing right in his attempt at romantically letting you down easy. He’s toxic, alright. But the rest is…ugh, just more and more drama with him.” With a shake of his head, he dropped the wolfsbane to be trampled underfoot as he moved to the door, pulling his scarf up and placing his plumed hat on his head. “I’ll be back sooner or later. Try to forget about him. You’ll feel better if you do.” A shadow passed over his eyes with his advice, flexing the hand where the flower had been before he exited the shop.
The apprentice looked back into the soft and beautiful bouquet again once the door latched behind her master. Julian left these, then. But what was Asra talking about? Drama? How were flowers dramatic? If anything, they were sweet, even if she was upset to see evidence of his sneaky, momentary return without her knowledge. She placed the bouquet on the counter behind her, planning to come back to it after she reported to the Palace.
When she locked and latched the door of the shop behind her, she made her way to the palace, determined to find some hint of how to track Julian. Her stakes were higher now more than ever. On her walk to the palace, she caught herself glancing to the skies more than once, looking for the raven that always seemed to tail the doctor. If there was one thing Julian could do well, it was disappear into a crowd. She never understood how, considering his stature and flaming red hair. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she passed through the streets easily and soon was looking up at the palace walls. The guards at the castle gates seemed to jump at the sight of her, briskly moving aside to allow her entrance. She couldn’t resist the smirk that tugged at the corner of her mouth. The Countess’s punishment was not one they would forget quickly, she surmised. She took no time at all in hunting down Portia, who was attending to her morning duties as always.
“Oh! You’re here early! Did you need something?” she approached the apprentice with a wide smile.
“Could you get me back into the library, Portia? I think I might be onto something.” She wasn’t. Not really. But she had a hunch that she would be as soon as she could start searching Julian’s desk again. In just a day, she felt like she knew him so much more than she did before, which gave her more to work with when shuffling through the doctor’s past studies. Portia’s eyes glittered, excitement splitting her features.
“Yes, of course!” she shouted, then clamped her hand over her mouth, eyes darting around nervously. Keeping her tone at a lower volume, she looked back to the apprentice and grinned, offering a quick wink. “Follow me.”
Doing just that, the apprentice found herself once again in the dusty library. Her eyes wandered the shelves aimlessly as she made her way to Julian’s old desk. She picked up the folio from before, scanning the illegible pages for any kind of sign. To her growing distress, any hints she could have possibly gleaned from the pages were obscured by his sloppy penmanship. Perhaps he kept a journal of his findings somewhere? Something with diagrams or charts that she could understand?
Putting the folio back in its place, she lifted a stack of books from the floor, carefully pulling them from the gap between the wall and the desk. The binding of a faded ivory-covered tome caught her eye amongst the dark leather of the other books. She pulled it from the stack out of curiosity, smoothing her fingers over the gold leaf title.
“Floriography?” the apprentice grumbled, turning the book in her hands. Portia scampered over, pulling the tome from her hands.
“Ah! The language of flowers! Who knew such a fluffy and romantic kind of book was in here?” she giggled as she opened the cover, flicking through the pages.
“Language of…flowers?” the apprentice parroted, looking over Portia’s shoulder.
“Yeah, you know…you give a lily to someone if you want to tell them they’re beautiful and sweet. Red roses are for love. Scorpion grass’s meaning is so well-known, it’s often called by it: forget-me-nots. Maybe it is in here because they thought their meanings might tie into potential potions and cure use,” she rambled, pausing on a page of B-named flowers, where an inked star sat beside belladonna. As Portia scrubbed her thumb over the star with a thoughtful hum, the apprentice felt shock roll through her. Scorpion grass. Scorpion grass was in her bouquet this morning.
So that’s what Asra meant by dramatic.
“H-hey, do you think I could borrow that book?” the apprentice asked sheepishly before she could stop herself. Portia glanced up from the tome, eyes shifting uncomfortably. “I’ll bring it back as soon as I figure something out. It…it might help my investigations.”
Portia closed the tome with a snap and drummed her fingers on the cover in thought for a few moments. Placing it back down on the desk, she turned her back and started walking toward the entrance. “Everything looks perfectly in place in here, just as I thought,” she spoke as if she were speaking to herself, “guess I’ll go back out to the hall. Come out when you’re ready, okay?” With that, the false doors shut behind her. The apprentice grinned, mentally thanking Portia from the bottom of her heart. The ivory tome fit perfectly into her bag, allowing her to conceal it from those that didn’t know of her thievery. She exited the hidden library, telling Portia that she needed to do some thinking back at home. Although her expression was puzzled and concerned, she nodded and escorted the apprentice back to the gates.
The apprentice made her way through the streets, a woman on a mission. Her feet felt lighter, her mind clearer. Surely he left her something of significance hidden in those blossoms.
Back in the safety of her home, she found the bouquet where she’d left it. She carried it up to her kitchen table, placing the tome in front of her and the bouquet above it. She plucked a downy-soft orange rose from the bouquet, smoothing the drying edge between her fingers as she flipped the pages. In the R’s, there were several definitions for roses, broken into colors. Dragging a fingertip down the page, she stopped at orange.
“Passion and enthusiasm,” she murmured. Heat prickled at her ears as she remembered clearly the desperate movement of his mouth on hers at the docks. Yes, she knew of his passion and enthusiasm, and she certainly shared the same feelings. Her heart painfully squeezed in her chest again when the warm glow of her memory faded out. She gently placed the rose down, reaching in for a different flower.
This time, a five-petal blossom came out. It was a deep shade of purple with a white center. Amethyst, the apprentice determined. She flipped back to the start of the tome, finding amethyst on the first page.
“Admiration.” The word tumbled from her lips incredulously. She tried to think of what was admirable about her actions or her character, but came up short. She agreed to bring him in to the hangman’s noose, after all. It was the job awarded to her by the Countess, and surely he could find that much out. “Julian, what are you…?” she grumbled, hoping that something would act as an invitation. Something would mean “meet me at the usual place” or something. Of course, she was grasping desperately at something that wasn’t there. He was the one who left her. Why would he ask for her back?
She pulled out another stem, this one a long fluffy frond dotted with small blue flowers. Scorpion grass. She didn’t even need to find this one in the tome. Forget-me-not. “Why am I not allowed to forget, Julian? Do you enjoy my pain as much as you enjoy your–.” She stopped herself before she could choke on a tiny bubble of a sob. “And besides, how could I possibly forget you?” the apprentice grumbled, frustration and hurt gurgling into her voice, the frustration bringing tears to her eyes.
Another plunge into the bouquet found another five-petal flower, but this one was larger and far more delicate than the amethyst. The petals were pink, crimson draining out from the center, where a long yellow stamen stood, like a weapon plunged into the center of the flower to start the red bleed. Althaea frutex. A specific hibiscus. The apprentice scanned the A’s again, finding it above the amethyst. Her throat burned, the unshed tears lingering from her frustration streaming down her cheeks and landing on the tome, spotting it darker in a couple places.
“Consumed by love. That isn’t fair,” she whimpered. “It was two days, at most, so why…” Her hand scrubbed at her eyes again. “Why do I feel the same way? It feels like…feels like I’ve known you forever, too, Ilya.” Her heart throbbed painfully at the name on her lips, the name that she never called him. He asked her to call him Julian, but everyone else knew him as someone else. Was this more of his defending her? Surely this flower showed her that she wasn’t just some tryst to him. She was pulled to him so strongly, it was almost as if she was suffering some curse. She couldn’t get away from him, her thoughts of him, his lingering smell on her clothes. She couldn’t escape any of it. But part of her didn’t want to escape.
Reaching again for another flower that she hadn’t felt yet, she pulled a fragile satin-petaled, rosy-colored flower. A circle of yellow stamens burst forth from the white center. Eglantine. She felt a wave of calm pass over her when the fragrance reached her, a scent like a crisp apple, yet herbal like one of her favorite teas. She held it close to her face, elbow perched on the table, while she flipped through the pages to find it. A lump formed in her throat, her finger following the meaning as her lip trembled again. Gods, she needed to either let herself cry or swallow it down. This start-and-stop emotional tide pool was too much. She inhaled deeply from the flower again, her jaw setting as she shoved down her tears. “I wound to heal,” she mumbled into the petals. “So you claim, Julian. Not that I ever had the chance to stop you.” She hissed out, unable to distinguish the line between her sorrow and anger anymore.
Pulling the last flower that she hadn’t yet analyzed, one that felt larger than the others, she looked down at its blushing pink petals, bunched in a crowded explosion of elegant folds. Another rose. A different rose. Maiden’s blush. She searched the rose section again, finding it just above orange.
“If you love me, you will find it out,” she gasped. Surely he didn’t mean that timidly, like the book described. He had no faith in himself or in his redemption, but this…he had faith in her. Even if he couldn’t forgive himself, she would find a way to forgive his sins for him. Either that, or she’d find a way for them to escape safely. She rubbed the velvet petals between her fingers, fighting the catch in her breath from the tears that wanted to escape again. This wasn’t an answer or a map. This was what he was feeling. He had said it himself: he’s selfish. He had to show her that he wasn’t intending to keep what he truly wanted, and that he’d decided it for her, on his own. That he wanted her, desperately, but at the time he loathed himself more than he loved her. Or he loathed himself just enough to stay away. But the last flower, the maiden’s blush. Was it an invitation to find him? To seek the truth and vindicate him? Surely not. But she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to try it anyway. She pulled a wolfsbane from the bouquet, now smaller with so many missing pieces, and twirled it by its stem.
She smiled down at the purple petals looking back at her, the sharp smell not horribly off-putting, even if it wasn’t necessarily pleasant. Asra had mentioned this being Julian’s favorite flower. Like a signature at the end of his mystery-flower love letter. Out of curiosity, she turned to the back of the tome, to the W’s, where wolfsbane was listed. Beneath it read one word: misanthropy. She scoffed, though lovingly, at its meaning. Nothing suited him better, it seemed. Contempt and distrust of the human race only made sense when you were accused and marked for a crime you couldn’t remember committing. But his inclusion of the flower in this bouquet…was it just a signature? Or was there something more? She remembered the words he’d spoken to her, calling her a light he always wanted to chase, saying she put him at ease. She could see the meaning now.
Despite his distrust of the human race, he loved her with passion and enthusiasm. He was consumed by love, by admiration. He feared her forgetting about him, and despite his contempt for the rest of the world, he believed in her. He believed in her ability to fight for him, with him. Even when he couldn’t extend the same courtesy for himself, he put so much faith in her.
His love letter was clear. And she was determined to deliver a reply.