The woman was tall, though still a couple of inches shorter than he was, and her grey robes swirled around her shins as she worked with her back to him, shuffling from vial to beaker to canister and back again. She reminded him of a heron. It must have been the billowing sleeves. Brenley waited until she had stopped moving completely before he spoke. He kept his voice low in case she was still concentrating.
"Do you find that conventional baking helps with your potions?" the boil asked, hands clasped to keep them from fiddling and touching, invading space.
She snorted immediately, displaying a wickedly hooked nose as she turned her profile to him. It even had a wart, but none of that mattered. Her bearing and aura of entitlement was overwhelming. It astounded him. Would he one day develop such a presence? She pivoted fully, leaning over the counter and inhaling in a way that suggested she had great wisdom to impart. He bent forward slightly as well, willing himself to remember this coming moment for the rest of his days.
"What the ******** do ya mean, baking?"
Bren nearly took a step back, partially due to the unexpected whining grate of her voice, but mostly because of her breath. Dear Jack. He did lean away a bit. He couldn't help it.
The old reaper pressed in after him, wrinkling her nose when she too smelled the spookies.
"Oh. Those. Crunchy makes those. I wouldn't waste my time baking spookies for just anything. Not even if my own kid's life depended on it."
"You have a child?" The incredulous question was out of his mouth before he thought it might be better not to ask.
"Hypothetical kid. Why? You auditioning for the job?" She didn't wait for an answer. She simply slid a folded piece of paper across the counter and turned back to her work. "Get me those things there and maybe I'll adopt you."
She wouldn't utter another word after that, at least not to him. She appeared to deny that anyone else was even in the shop at all until a frazzled little ghost whirled through the door and started chattering about temporary glow inhibitors. Brenley took that as his cue to leave, slipping out the door with the woman's missive clutched in his hand.
He didn't open her note until he had found a spot to sit—a vacant bench outside of a nearby eye scream parlor. It was a list of spell ingredients, three of them, but only two he had heard of.
merian, dath, mirot
one week
one week
He had a week. More than enough time to order some of whatever dath was and scrounge up a bit of merian and mirot.
- - -
Four days passed before he began to wonder why he was so determined to obtain these items for this... Dahlia Cloverhorn. She had been nothing but dismissive and rude. Anyone with any sense of self-worth would have burned her crappy list. But like Flynn O'Houlihan before her, Dahlia had presence. She had power. Brenley wanted to be powerful too, to understand how one could exude competence and assertiveness without the crutch of a pleasing appearance. This was a test. He had to pass.
The dath had been easy enough to get, though it was only available in small amounts and those small amounts were prohibitively expensive. As it turned out, it was a gooey purple substance that encouraged the loss of recent, mildly unpleasant memories when ingested. There had been a time when he might have sampled some himself, but he was relatively free of those sorts of memories these days, or at least ones he couldn't stand to keep.
The mirot was as simple to distill as it had always been. All he had to do was grab a few leaves from the mossy-trunked elm at the edge of the Weeping Forest, boil them, and job done.
The merian was time consuming and messy, but ultimately just as painless as mirot. There was digging and scraping and salting and waiting and baking and more scraping at painstakingly precise intervals, but when he had finished, the aqua stone was brighter than any other he had ever excavated. The process took the entirety of the three days that remained.
- - -
By the time he returned to her shop on the seventh afternoon, Brenley had shed most of his pangs of hesitation with regard to this particular endeavor. He strode inside, a confident customer rather than a sheepish boil seeking approval.
"Good day. I am pleased to report that I have brought everything you asked for." In his opinion, he had more than earned her attention. That was probably why her reaction was so disappointing.
"Who are you?" Dahlia sneered, eyes narrowing as she looked him over.
"I didn't properly introduce myself the last time I was here," he replied, moving closer to the other reaper. He might have been discouraged by her words, but he was still determined to show his best face. "My name is Brenley Quinn. You gave me this list." He flattened her letterhead against the counter. "I have returned with everything on it." He carefully removed the little vials of dath and mirot from his pouches and placed them next to the paper. The merian followed, its bright blue glow reflecting in the woman's curious eyes.
"Ah, yes. You." She chuckled at a joke that only she knew the punchline of, scooping up his items and giving them a cursory examination as she began to work. "This is actually quite good," Dahlia said, twirling the merian in long fingers. She set it carefully in a large mortar then twisted open the vial of mirot. She sniffed.
"Passable. Oak or pine would have suited better, but I didn't specify and you couldn't have known, so..." She shrugged and dripped the thin, green liquid onto the merian.
"This... however..." The reaper uncapped the last ingredient and sniffed it too. She pulled a face. "From..."
"Fu's."
"Yes."
"I had to purchase the dath because..."
"It comes from the human world. I am well aware. But you didn't have to purchase it, and especially not from Fu. Hack." She tipped it over the merian and mirot, watching as it spit a plume of purple fog into the air that lingered in the shape of a heart. Dahlia picked up her pestle and began to grind.
"What you have to understand is that Fu hasn't touched a plant or reagent or anything in years. He's a smug, demon piece of s**t who's only in potions for the money. His stuff will work for the most part, but it lacks soul. It lacks a heart... which you might agree this mixture needs more than most." She scraped the mealy grey paste into a shallow dish, screwed a lid on it, and handed it over.
"There. Love potion. On the house. Tasteless, surprisingly soluble. Go get yourself laid. Then you can be my intern."