What Blooms in the Dark

by Ryan Muree

  “Great!” Aulos clapped her hands together. “And what time will you two be meeting?”

  “When are you free?” he asked.

  Shenna slid a falling strand of her brown hair behind her ear. “Um, after lunch. Two? Is two o’clock okay? Too late? Too early? I can meet later—”

  He started nodding. “It’s fine. I can, uh, I’ll have, uh, time to set up the lab for some practice. I think. There’s no class during that time, I think. We should be good to work without… interruptions.”

  “Right. Okay. Good.” Her stomach twisted, which was unbelievably stupid. Her body was betraying her.

  She licked her lips again and again. If she didn’t quit, he’d think she had chapped lips. That wouldn’t be good. Or would it?

  Who cared if he knew she had chapped lips? She didn’t care. He shouldn’t care. Except she didn’t really have chapped lips, which was good. Great, even. But what did it matter if she had? Not like anything that happened with lips was going to happen, and his inevitable suggestion for a salve to fix it would not be funny.

  She had been so caught up in her not-chapped lips she had forgotten that she had just been standing there. Silence had prevailed for too long.

  “Then two o’clock it is!” Aulos pulled Shenna away by her arm. “Nice seeing you, Colter. She’ll meet you tomorrow. Don’t forget!” Once they were out of earshot and heading out of the building, Aulos squealed. “You, girl, are so lucky you have me!”

  Aulos might have had other devious plans with these tutoring sessions, but Shenna would stay focused. Not on being alone with Colter. Not on his soft eyes. Not on her lips—or his. Nope. Level-two exams. Salves practice. That’s it. That’s all she needed to worry about and absolutely nothing else.

  Chapter 3

  Shenna waved goodbye to Aulos and climbed the six flights of stairs to the lab she shared with her mentor.

  Home. Lab. The two had been synonymous for almost all of her life. All that she could ever remember.

  It sat in one of the white spires shaped like a swan with its neck stretched toward the sun. Their glass conservatory overlooked City Center—the capital of Eien.

  She slowed her approach to the lab’s entrance, seeking the common sounds of Zoi milling about and hopefully preparing for bed early. Possibly too exhausted to worry or even remember why she’d be late tonight.

  How do you give someone bad news? In between good news, right?

  Hey, Mentor Zoi, I’m home. Good news.

  I didn’t quite get the vials perfect in my salves practical. Bad news. Semi-bad news. Okay, not the truth at all.

  But I know what I need to do now, and Colter has agreed to tutor me. Good news.

  She inhaled and drew back the sheer, night-blue fabric that hung in the doorway. Rows of siennawood shelves held glass jars and bottles for every plant found in Eien. A basket of corks, labels, ink pots, starflower jars, and journals sat below the shelves. The counters were covered in plant debris—aspir tubers, hydapus pods, nylotia petals. Vials lay crusted with leftover potion gunk. Tweezers, magnifying glasses, pipettes, and Zoi’s favorite mortar and pestle begged to be cleaned. Zoi hadn’t prepared for bed at all. Or she’d left it for Shenna to clean up and went to bed anyway.

  “Well? How’d you do?” Zoi turned the corner. Her round glasses were pushed on top of her wiry auburn hair barely tied back in a bun. Several stray pieces stuck out at odd angles. She wasn’t nearly as old as Chaak, but the gray was starting to show near her ears.

  Shenna straightened. “What? Oh, you’re up.”

  “Of course I’m up.”

  “I thought maybe you’d have gone to bed.”

  “This early? With this mess? And you were out taking your salves practical. I wanted to be around when you came back.” Zoi carried an oversized jar to the bookshelf above her personal desk. It held her long-term study project of a seed that grew and bloomed only in the shallows of freshwater.

  Shenna placed her bag onto a nearby counter and began moving the dirtied tools to the wash basin.

  “So,” Zoi called out from her desk, “you failed?”

  Shenna’s heart dropped, and the magnifying glasses nearly slipped from her fingers with it. She caught them just barely between her forearm and her stomach. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  Shenna slipped the tools into the warm water and gripped the edge of the basin for strength, courage, something. “I didn’t pass—”

  Silence.

  Zoi must not have been happy. Of course she wasn’t happy.

  “But I got really close this time!” Shenna spun to face her.

  Zoi stood at the end of the aisle, hands already at her hips. “Third time, Shenna. This is the third time. It’s clear to me, you can’t keep taking the practicals. Not to mention, old Chaak will lose his mind.”

  Too late. “I know. I don’t know what happened, but I promise, I’ll do better next time. He said he’ll give me another chance in two weeks.”

  “Shenna, that’s ridiculous. I’m sure you’re very disappointed, but you should have passed it the first time if you were ready. Clearly, you are not.” Zoi shrugged, walked off, and wiped a counter clean.

  How could she be so calm? So tolerant?

  Shenna followed with dripping-wet hands. “I can do this. I can.”

  “Shenna—”

  “I can.”

  Zoi's tone remained steady. “Of course you can, eventually. Not yet. You’re not ready. You’ve had more chances than anyone else, and that’s only because you’re my student, and you aced the first level so quickly. You wanted to be an occhemist. I tried to deter you, but you insisted. You knew this required perfection. People’s lives are at stake. We help people, heal people, and one day, hopefully, save people—”

  “Exactly! That’s why I want to—”

  “Advanced occhemy students don’t need multiple chances to get the simplest of recipes correct.”

  Ow. First Chaak, then Colter, now Zoi. Okay, fine, so salves were easy—for everyone else. Enough already.

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I get it. I’m terrible at salves. Maybe I got lucky the first time. But think about me—”

  “I am.” Zoi moved on to putting ink bottles and jars away. “I know you think that if you reach a certain rank fast enough, you can go risk your life one day and search for the Last Elixir—”

  “I’m not going to sit here doing nothing in Eien—”

  “If I had it my way, you’d never go. Let the others find it—”

  “Sure. But if they don’t, I need to be ready.”

  Zoi placed her hands on her chest. “I don’t want that for you. Despite my wishes, you push it. Therefore, I will not—cannot—allow you to push through at the risk of making mistakes. You’re good enough to reach level six in a few years. Good enough to serve on the Occhemist Circle. If it’s important to you—”

  Shenna balled her hands. “It is important to me.”

  Zoi tightened corks into each vial a little too deep, which meant Shenna would pay the price when prying them out the next day. “I’m sure it is, but I also believe that you thought it would be easy.”

  “Gee, why would I think that when everyone in Eien seems to know how easy salves are?”

  Zoi pointed the bottom of a clean vial at her. “Don’t do that. Yes, they are easy, but if they’re not easy for you, then it’s on your shoulders to figure out how to get it right. Precisely right. Not half-right. Not nearly there. Perfection. If you haven’t gotten it by now, you need the extra time.”

  “Perfection.” Shenna huffed. “I am very grateful to be your student, but do you even know what it’s like for me? Sure, they give me extra chances, but they’re always looking at me, watching me, over-analyzing me at every step. ‘Is she like Zoi? Is she as good? Can she be the one to create the Last Elixir and save us? Will she measure up?’”

  Zoi brushed past her. “That’s all in your head.”

  “No, it’s not!
” She followed Zoi into the conservatory and watered the vines and the barrels of tubers.

  Zoi sprinkled a nutrient mix for some of the potted plants. “Shenna—”

  “No, wait.” She placed her emptied watering can back on the floor in the corner on its round green stain. “I’m reminded daily that I’m a student of the great Occhemist Zoi, the only one who traveled through Revellis—a murderous land—and returned to Eien safe and sound. Everyone expects that if no one else finds it, then I can find the Last Elixir that the great occhemist Zoi nearly did. And what’s worse?” She put her hand to her forehead. “I want to. I want to do it! I want to find the Elixir more than anything else in this world.”

  Zoi sighed. Her shoulders dropped with her breath. “If Chaak gave you one more chance, then I can’t stop him. But if you fail the next exam, I will speak at the Circle and bar you from taking your level-two test for another two years.”

  Her stomach dropped. A puff of air escaped her lips. Chaak alone couldn’t convince the Circle, but Zoi could. “How could you—no, why would you do that to me?”

  Zoi shook her head. Her voice never rose in anger, which made it worse. “If you’re not ready, I’m not going to push you. People get killed when they rush into things before they’re ready.” Zoi turned for the lab and probably her bedroom.

  “I can do this!” Shenna called after. “Colter’s even willing to work with me! It’d be nice if you believed in me!”

  But Zoi disappeared.

  Shenna tilted her head back. The moon poured its soft white glow onto the glass above her. She closed her eyes and groaned. That hadn’t gone at all like she’d hoped.

  It didn’t matter. She couldn’t afford to get distracted or nervous again. She couldn’t fail another practical. She’d remain focused on what mattered and not on Aulos’s silly ideas about Colter.

  And she’d prove Chaak and Zoi wrong.

  Chapter 4

  Shenna took a deep breath, steeled herself, and marched up the stairs of the occhemist spire to Chaak’s lab room for her first day of tutoring.

  My first day to improve. My first real healing salve.

  She would learn something new. She would prove herself in front of Colter and—wait, no, that didn’t matter.

  She was there to improve. To learn how to ace the salves practical and rank up. She wasn’t there for him.

  She turned the corner into Chaak’s doorway, and Colter sat waiting for her, hunched over the counter, long arms stretched across the surface. All of his grinders, tweezers, and scalpels surrounded him, as well as a few clumps of plants with their ends tied together.

  “Hi.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Hello?”

  Colter jerked his head up. “Hey.” He cleared his throat. “Ready to make a real salve?”

  She smiled and nodded. “Yes, let’s do this.”

  “Great. First, I want you to make a couple. I’ll watch and see if I can catch what you’re doing wrong.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, five blackened vials lay across the table.

  Colter smacked his palm to his forehead and slid his hand down to his chin with a long groan. Shenna dropped her head to the table and its scorched plants, gunked jars, and stained pestles.

  “One more time?” she mumbled, her face pressed against the table.

  “How is this possible, Shenna? I know you’re not bad, so how can you be this bad?”

  She jerked upright. “That’s not fair.”

  “It’s completely fair. You are mutilating the materials, denaturing their proteins—”

  She scoffed. “How else are you supposed to get the properties out?”

  “These are salves; they’re not ingested. It’s very simple.”

  “For you! What does it matter if they’re salves? I don’t see how it makes a difference.”

  “Then what do you see, Shenna? I’m honestly curious. You’re treating these plants like they can just bend to your will, give up what they have.” Colter held up a butchered piece of lava bark, splintered and raw.

  She ripped another page out of her journal, balled it up, and threw it across the table. “That’s the point. Plants have essences we need. We take them. Not complicated.”

  Colter pushed himself away from the table and stood. “But you’re destroying it in the process. You’re overworking—overthinking—the materials so much you’re not even seeing them for what they are.”

  She scoffed. “Overthinking? That’s all this profession is! Occhemists study and memorize and analyze. It’s our job to overthink. If you think telling me not overthinking is helpful—”

  “I’m not sure I can help.” He walked to the wash basin and grabbed the cleaning solution.

  Crap. That was not what she needed right now. She couldn’t have him giving up yet. It was only the first day. She hadn’t made her first real salve yet. Did he really think she was that helpless after one session?

  “I’ve known you for three years now, Shenna. I’ve watched—er, seen—you in your classes every year. You have drive and motivation to be the top occhemist, sure, but at what cost? You can’t even see your own strengths.”

  She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “As if you know?”

  He pointed to the counter in front of her. “What is lava bark for?”

  “Cauterizing and sealing wounds.”

  “Not what the textbook says. Not what I would see. What do you see?”

  She fidgeted with her bracelet.

  “Come on, I know you know it. I’ve seen you do it a million times. It even freaks out the teachers. What do you see?”

  She shrugged. “Lava bark pulses with light and heat. So it’d probably also be a sterilizer. I think the bark fiber would strengthen us and improve our bodies’ defenses against future illnesses.”

  “So your strengths would be?”

  She widened her eyes, shook her head, and shrugged. “I’m creative?”

  He crossed his arms.

  “I am! I came up with the first-ever veiling powder.”

  “Not what I meant. Try again. You just gave a perfect example of it. What is your strength?”

  She glanced around the room. “I… learn quickly? Usually.”

  He sighed.

  “I mastered the basics really fast?”

  “Shenna, how—?” He squeezed the rag and glass-cleaning brush in his hand. “Do you want to know what your flaw is? You think everything is simple and linear. Follow this, do that, and you think you will get to the end no matter what. If you keep beating your head against the same wall, eventually the wall will come down—”

  “Right.”

  “No, that’s a bad thing. It could cost you your life one day. That’s not your strength. You are creative, you were right about that, but I’ve never seen anyone read plants as well as you. They grow and thrive under your thumb, and you see them for what they are and for what they can be. I’ve never seen plants want to give up their secrets to an occhemist so much. Not even my mentors can do that.”

  “So?”

  He groaned and threw the brush at the table. “I can’t help you—”

  “No, wait!” She sucked in a breath. He was giving up on her. He was furious with her, hated her probably. It was no surprise, considering he seemed to know more about her than she did. He had been… paying attention? That much? To her?

  She shifted in her seat. Whatever. That part wasn’t important. He couldn’t give up. Not already. “Colter—”

  “I can’t, Shenna—”

  “Please, I-I’ll do better. I promise. I won’t overwork the materials. I’ll be better. Let’s just run through it another time—”

  “Shenna—”

  “No, please.” She jumped up and clasped his hands between hers. “Please don’t give up on me. I can do this! I really can.”

  He glanced down at their palms pressed together, and his cheeks flushed red. “Uh, Shenna, I just meant I can’t right now because a class
is about to start. We’ve run out of time. You need to go, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Time. Air. Everything stopped. Words stuck in her throat. How stupid did she look? No, she didn’t want to know.

  Two occhemy students stepped into the class and paused mid-sentence at the sight of them.

  She dropped his hands, grabbed her bag, and ran out of the room saying, “Right, sorry. Thanks for the help. See you tomorrow.”

  Unless she died of embarrassment before then.

  Tomorrow. She’d focus on tomorrow. Not the warmth of his hands. Not the fact that he’d been paying attention to her for three years. None of that. Maybe she’d focus on finding Aulos first. Someone to make sense of what just happened.

  Chapter 5

  Shenna raced down the spire stairs toward the throng of walkers in City Center.

  They prepared for their weekly fish fry. The shopkeepers were finishing their final sales. The weavers were setting up the stage for dancing. The children were already running between patrons with their sparklers glowing.

  In a pale robe, Aulos leaned against a pillar supporting a nearby terrace, twirling one strand of reed-colored hair around her finger as she smiled at a classmate.

  Shenna yanked her arm. “Sorry, she has to walk me home right now. It’s an emergency.”

  “Save me a dance tonight, handsome,” Aulos said to the poor soul she’d been talking with. Inevitably, she’d date the guy for half a second and then drop him when he got boring. To Aulos, this dating thing was a hobby.

  “What just happened?” Shenna muttered.

  “I was flirting with that guy, and he was going to ask me to dance at the fish fry tonight before you interrupted him—”

  “No, I have to make sense of what happened with Colter.”

  Aulos gasped slightly, wrapped her hands around Shenna’s arm, and smiled. “What happened? Tell me everything.”

  Shenna led her toward the apartment spires. “I was terrible at the salves. I did every single one wrong—”