“Flora!”

 

The baker’s child was racing up the forest path in a flush, frizzy hair flying. Flora hoisted her skirt and hurried up the path to meet her, scattering birds and moths as she went.

 

“Vita!” Flora cried as the girl crashed into her. Flora gripped her small shoulders to keep her steady. “What’s happened?”

 

“She’s much worse,” the girl panted. “Please, hurry.”

 

This is exactly what she’d feared most. She should have stayed overnight.

 

The pair made their way quickly through the trees and the cobbled town square, then burst through the front door of the bakery.

 

“She’s upstairs,” the girl gasped. When they reached the top, Flora hesitated outside of the door, breathing deeply. She waited for her pulse to slow, then reached up and gave a light knock.

 

“Caius?” she asked softly, “It’s Flora. May I come in?”

 

“Please,” came the baker’s dim voice from inside the chamber. Flora pushed gingerly, and the door creaked open.

 

Mere days ago, Caius’s sister Sylvia had been in her habitually high spirits. She had been laughing in the town square, pressing warm hand pies into the palms of clamoring children. Her gentle demeanor had always reminded Flora of a whitetail deer: quiet and graceful, with great brown eyes and tawny hair. Her presence was soft as hooves on grass, but she could always lend humor to Caius’s seriousness, and in turn he anchored her flightiness.

 

Flora came to their family bakery every week to buy a loaf of bread, giggling as Sylvia slipped extra treats into Flora’s basket. Caius would half-heartedly scold her from the kitchen, and she would only add more. She was young and kind and loving. Anyone who saw her would have said she was blooming. Then the coughing started.

 

What began as an itch in her throat had become violent fits that left her gasping for air. First, she only carried half a basket of goods to sell. Then, she sat on a stool outside of the shop. Eventually, she did not come outside to sell at all.

 

When Caius first came to her, Flora gave the baker a tea for her cough, then a calming spell to soften her fits. It helped, but not enough. Her fever was making her wearier than ever. Flora brought her a cooling potion of mint. Again, this helped, but the fever crept higher, until finally poor Sylvia had not the strength to leave her bedroom. But at least when Flora saw her last, she had been sitting up, able to talk. This time, she lay silent.

 

Flora approached Sylvia’s bedside uneasily. She had begun to breathe shallowly, shivering under her blankets yet shining with sweat. Flora reached two fingers to her neck. A moth’s flutter of a pulse.

 

“This is…”

 

Flora trailed off, looking to Caius. He sat, holding his moon-eyed daughter to his chest with stiff arms. She cleared her throat to avoid finishing her sentence.

 

“We will need to act quickly,” she said instead. “White bryony, in the morning and again at night. A tea of thyme and ivy in the morning and afternoon…”

 

Flora took the glass vials from her bag and set them on the table, speaking as she rummaged. Caius nodded, listening carefully and muttering the names to himself. She waited as his calloused fingers tapped the vials, repeating the information until he knew it by heart, then she pulled out a small, clear quartz.

 

Flora clasped it in her hands and closed her eyes. She breathed slowly, feeling around for the magic that pooled inside her. It shimmered just beneath her skin, ripples rolling gently in a still pond, waiting for her direction. Dea, quaeso te, ut des salutem et sanitatem, she said to herself. There was a small tug, then a thimble of magic sighed through her fingertips; a breath curling in cold air. The quartz accepted it easily, glowing softly with a white light that warmed her hands. A living piece of magic. She turned towards Caius and his daughter, stretching it towards them.

 

“This is a healing spell. Keep it next to her bedside until it grows dim, and I will refresh it when I return,” she said, sifting through the rest of her bag “And I will bring some energizing draughts, to take with her tea.”

 

Caius nodded solemnly, taking one of Sylvia’s pale hands tightly in his own. She was motionless beside them.

 

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

 

Flora noted the lines running across his forehead, the reddened whites of his eyes. Too young to have an eight-year-old daughter, too young to be losing his family. Flora had always admired that he shared Sylvia’s gentleness, but it was poor cushioning for catastrophes. He sat before her, the both of them still in their early twenties, but the softness in his features was already sagging. Wilting. Before everything, he had been blooming, too.

 

The creases in his eyes weighed Flora down to her roots.

 

“How can I pay you?” he asked.

 

“Oh, the usual loaf of bread will do,” Flora said hurriedly.

 

“Vita?” Caius asked, “Please, go fetch a loaf of bread from the store, the loaves with walnuts. And some tarts. And bring them in one of our baskets as well.”

 

The little girl ran out the door before Flora could protest.

 

“I insist,” he told her as Vita left the room. “I know you’re not sure of her yet, but I suspect I may spend a lifetime repaying you for what you’ve done for us.”

 

Even beneath the weight of this tragedy, his words still glowed with trust, hope. Flora’s stomach twisted.

 

“Nothing is certain, Caius,” she said. “I wish I could do more, but–.”

 

“We often talk in the village about how grateful we are that Madrigal trained you in her place.”

 

This only tightened her stomach further. Thankfully, Vita’s return kept her from having to reply.

 

“Here, Flora,” Vita called, bounding into the room. She thrust the basket into her hands, the baked goods wrapped in cloth to keep them fresh.

 

“What do we say to people who do kind things for us?” Caius asked his daughter.

 

“Thank you, miss,” Vita said dutifully.

 

Flora smiled weakly as Sylvia took a great rattling breath behind them. She glanced at her frail figure, then hurried to button her cloak.

 

“You’re welcome, dear,” she replied to her. “I’ll be back this afternoon with those elixirs. Will I see you on the road?”

 

Vita nodded and Flora gave her a tight smile, then she turned and padded back down the stairs.

 

Flora had barely reached for the front door when a flurry of tiny footsteps began to follow her. A small hand closed around her skirt.

 

“Flora?” Vita asked. Even at her young age, she had the same seriousness to her features as her father. Her face was stretched taut around the fear in her house. Flora reached out and smoothed her thumb over the tense in her forehead.

 

“Yes?”

 

Her brow softened under the touch, but her fingers stayed gripped around her handful of skirt. Flora had looked like that as a child, too. She could see she was lost, anchoring herself to anything that felt knowable. She knew what Vita wondered what at the same time she wasn’t sure how to ask.

 

“My Aunty Sylvia is really sick,” she said.

 

Flora nodded. Vita’s face screwed up again, stumbling towards a thought too large for her child’s body. A thought Flora knew she hadn’t dared ask Caius. Tears welled in her eyes as the words strung together in her mouth, the only way she knew how.

 

“What happens?” Vita took a deep, shuddering breath, the question catching at her throat. “What happens if she doesn’t wake up?”

 

Flora bent down, reeling her into her chest.

 

“We’re not there yet, love,” Flora told her, pressing against her shaking shoulders.

 

Vita sniffled, clinging harder. “I don’t know either.”