Aurelia's bootheels click loudly as she makes her way towards the shouts that come from the garden. The genuine exasperation in the tone propels her forward despite the dull throbbing beginning to weave and thread its way through her veins and tendons. She makes her way down the steps, taking them two at a time. When she reaches the door to the back garden, she pauses for a moment to eavesdrop, assessing the situation before running into it head-first.

​

"Don’t touch that!”

​

"Look, these scraggly herbs aren't my first choice either, sir, but my garden has been torched, and this is an emergency. I'll only take what I need!"

​

Aurelia's mouth tugs down at the side. As the pain intensifies, she feels the plant being pulled from the earth without having to see it. She sucks in a sharp breath before pushing open the heavy wooden door.

​

There in the garden stands a girl, probably no older than seventeen, stuffing the pockets of her skirts with the sprigs of mint she'd just pulled from Aurelia's garden. Aurelia doubles over as her insides knot themselves, inhaling a shaky breath.

​

Erasmus stops shouting mid-sentence. Aurelia hears his pounding steps on the earth, and then his warm hand grips her shoulder. She places her hand over it, looking up to meet the concern in his sage-green eyes, before glancing back to the unnamed thief in her garden.

​

Aurelia watches as she rolls her eyes, turning back to Erasmus with…exasperation? Her arms flail passionately through the air as she says, "She'll have to spare a few. I need them!"

​

Erasmus turns to the girl, a shadow seeming to pass over his face as it turns dire and stony. "You’re hurting her!" he says, pointing at Aurelia. "She's half Viri—she can feel it."

​

The girl stops then, irritation fading from her expression. A deep crimson blush creeps across her face. Aurelia watches as the girl opens her mouth to explain before closing it again. She notes the way the girl's jaw sets into a hard, stubborn line and how she looks up at the dull grey sky as her eyes fill with tears. She blinks quickly to keep them from falling before dragging her gaze back to Aurelia, who inhales a sigh of relief as she watches the girl's trembling arm lower the herb shears. Next to her, Erasmus drags his large palm across his face. He lets out a string of profanities under his breath before turning to Aurelia.

​

"I should have told her that from the start, I'm sorry. When I came out here and saw her in the garden, I was so scared you'd be hurt that my mind completely blanked."

​

"I'm okay," she says as she reaches a slender hand up to push a loose brown curl off of his forehead. Aurelia feels him lean into her touch, although it's almost imperceptible. "I think I need to go talk to her."

​

"Really?" He trails off for a moment dragging his gaze to where the defeated-looking woman occupies space in their garden. "She's a random crazy lady that launches cabbage through the air with the intent to kill."

​

"Thank you for the dire warning," Aurelia says, suppressing a smile. "But I really do think she just needs some help."

​

Erasmus inhales a long breath. "There is no version of help you can give her that won't hurt you."

​

"What's your name?" Aurelia calls to the woman, ignoring him a moment.

​

"Gemma," the woman calls back, sounding simultaneously bold and sheepish.

​

"I'm Aurelia," she says to the girl, before lowering her voice to address Erasmus once more. "I'm just going to talk to her, figure out why she's so upset."

​

Before she has a chance to move away, she feels his hand wrap around her upper arm. Erasmus shakes his head, looking more worn out and worried than she recalled seeing him in a while.

​

"Be careful, please. Magic has a cost, and you're not even fully recovered,” he says, removing his hand to gesture out at the garden. "From this."

​

Aurelia's eyebrows knit themselves together. "Erasmus, I'm fine, really," she says, giving him a small smile.

​

He lets out a long sigh, dragging his hand down his face once more. The concern in his gaze doesn't diminish in the slightest, but after a moment, he lets his arm fall to his side. “You're going to do what you want. I know I can't stop you, but I also refuse to stand here and watch you subject yourself to pain." When she doesn't say anything, he nods. "Be careful." He turns away, retreating through the door that leads to his study, trusting Aurelia to her own judgement.

​

She moves briskly towards where Gemma stands waiting in the garden. Before Aurelia has the chance to address her, the other woman blurts, “It’s for a little girl. She's covered in burns. If I can't help with the pain and clear out the infections, I'm afraid she could die. I didn't mean to cause you any harm."

​

Aurelia takes in the woman's appearance for a moment.  Faded plum and indigo shadows rest under Gemma's eyes, a sign of exhaustion Aurelia has no trouble recognizing. In a moment, she finds herself nodding. "What do you need? I'll do what I can to help." 

"Centella to help with the burn. Aloe, too, if you have it."

​

Aurelia nods, gesturing for Gemma to follow her down the stone path away from the kitchen herbs to the sunny side of her property, where she is able to grow tropical plants year-round. She notices the way Gemma hesitates.

​

"What do you wish to ask?" Aurelia asks.

​

"How bad does it hurt?" Gemma replies, her eyes squinting and voice coming out strained, as though she was bracing to feel the pain herself.

​

Aurelia takes a breath before answering. "I only feel pain if it's a plant I surfaced myself. There are multiple hosts in this patch. My magic isn't strong enough to do the work on its own. My mother was mortal." She shrugs.

​

"A host plant?"

​

Aurelia's eyebrows furrow as she considers the best way to continue her explanation. "They're not called forward from the earth with magic. They’re plants that have been placed without the use of magic, whether by nature's design or the gardener's. The presence of a host plant can sometimes make it easier to call forward another plant of that kind, but I don't feel a connection to it because I did not call forward its life…. Does that make sense?"

​

Gemma nods. "So, how do we tell the host plants apart?"

 

"That's easy. They're the ones that look healthy," Aurelia says, gesturing to an Aloe plant that towers over the plants which surround it.

​

As Gemma moves towards the plant, Aurelia notes the amount of care she takes in being gentle as she pulls the plant out, root and all. Aurelia walks her to the Centella next. She clarifies which plant from this bunch is the host, though it's entirely unnecessary. The plants Aurelia had called forward were a miscoloured yellow-green with small or thinning leaves.

​

"I can keep a plant from the market alive forever, but anything I call forward is weak and usually withers and dies within a matter of a few months," she tells Gemma, who had found a Centella specimen she liked and was shaking her head rather passionately as she placed the herb into her bag.

​

"That would drive me insane," she says.

​

"On occasion," Aurelia replies with a small smile.

​

The two women walk together back in the direction of the main road. They walk in silence for so long that Aurelia startles slightly when Gemma finally speaks.

​

"I'm sorry about earlier… I didn't mean to trouble you, I just—"

​

She breaks off, sucking in a rough, greedy breath and blinking rapidly, willing her tears not to fall. "I just couldn't bear to see her in pain."

​

"Is there anything more I can do to help?" Aurelia offers.

​

Gemma nods, chin wobbling slightly. "I could really use another set of hands."

​

***

​

Aurelia looks around in wonder as she follows Gemma down the worn dirt path through town, past the colourful merchant tents, the smell of cinnamon bread causing her nose to suck in air greedily as they walk past the stall. The Shopkeepers bring their wares to the docks every Sunday, rain or shine, so they can buy, sell, and trade with incoming merchant ships or each other.

​

Ahead of her, Gemma walks with the hood of her cloak up and her head down. Her shoulders are hunched, and Aurelia can almost feel the urgency of each step. The two women walk to the edge of town, where Gemma then proceeds into the woods. Aurelia soon discovers that the path to Gemma's dwelling isn't an obvious one—the only giveaways she's been able to find so far are the odd heavy footprints imprinted on the pine needle floor, or a broken branch or stem that show someone was trudging, rather uncarefully, through the bush.

​

After a while, the pine needle carpet begins thinning underneath their feet, eventually giving way to a squishy moss beneath it as they finally reach the clearing where Gemma's house becomes visible.

​

As they reach the door, Aurelia notices the square of charred, black earth, where a garden used to sit. She could feel the mint breathing in the farthest left corner, but besides that, everything was ash.

​

"I used to have Aloe and Centella of my own, but you know—" She waves a hand. "Fire." 

The corner of Aurelia's mouth tugs down on the right side, eyebrows threading themselves together as Gemma reaches towards the rickety door, hastily thrown together with fallen sticks from the woods surrounding her house.

​

"Is this a common experience for witches in Ravensnaer?"

​

"I find that most people here are fairly polite and tolerant, especially when it benefits them. I'm assuming this"—she gestures one last time to the garden—"was done by someone who would like to blame their life problems on witchcraft rather than their own poor character." Gemma pauses a moment, changing the tone of her voice into something whiney and mocking. "My beloved won't return my affections and it's obviously because she's been cursed by an evil witch."

​

She throws her shoulder into the crooked door several times to get it unstuck from the ground. "No, Johnathan, it's just because you pick your ass in public, which is not what most women are looking for. You know that type of thing," Gemma says, waving a hand as she enters the house. "This is the first time anyone's gotten hurt over it though."

​

Stepping inside the house, Aurelia is struck first by how dark it is; various types of fabrics hang over the windows to keep out the light. Coloured bottles, stacks of books, and loose papers decorate the house with no clear organization. She's so busy looking around that she's almost startled when Gemma begins speaking again.

​

"I'm not sure how the kid fits into all this," Gemma says, gesturing to the only separate room in the house. "But I found her covered in burns, lying in the wet moss when I came back from market this morning."

​

As they enter the room, Aurelia sucks in a breath. The child's tiny form lies on the cot before her. Aurelia first notices the small arches of delicate opal horns decorating each side of the child's forehead, reflecting colours of glimmering pastels even in the dimly-lit room. Angry patches of red cover her limbs. As the child whimpers, sleeping eyes squinting shut more tightly against the pain, Aurelia lays a slender hand over her own heart.

​

"Don't worry," Gemma says with a sad smile, apparently noticing Aurelia's reaction. "She seems to be healing on her own. Could you dip that rag in water and clean around the dried wounds one more time before I wrap them? It would be very helpful."

​

Obediently, Aurelia dips the rag in some moon water and begins to clean the girl's wounds gently. As her hand hovers over one of the angrier-looking burns, she notices the skin beneath it, fresh and unharmed, with the same lustrous pearl colour as her horns.

​

Aurelia exhales a sigh of relief. She immediately recognizes the child as a Fire Born. As far as Aurelia knew, Dragons hadn't been seen in nearly a century, but they'd passed down their gifts to the communities of people who worshipped and cared for them long before they disappeared. Those bloodlines have been carrying those gifts with them ever since.

  

"She's Fire Born!" Aurelia relays excitedly to Gemma.

​

Gemma pokes her head back into the crooked doorway of the room, eyebrows scrunching together in doubt.

​

"If that was the case, wouldn't she be… you know… fireproof?"

 

Aurelia nods. "If she wasn't fireproof, she'd be dead."

​

"You make a good point," Gemma says. "What's all this then?" She gestures in the girl's general direction.

​

"It's the transformation, but it looks like she wasn't able to fully complete hers."

​

"How do we help her do that?" Gemma asks.

​

"She needs water, so her mortal form can sustain the gifts."

​

Gemma nods, moving towards the jar of moon water once more.

​

"Outside preferably, or I fear your house may look exactly like your garden soon," Aurelia says.

​

***

​

Reaching the swamp nearing Gemma's house, Aurelia looks around desperately for a raft. When she asks, Gemma points to a questionable device fashioned from scrap wood, which she'd apparently built for fishing before realizing the pond had no fish. Aurelia tells her it's a good coincidence considering this transformation was likely to leave the entire pond a dry crater. They set the girl down gently on the rickety wooden raft, and Aurelia pushes it gingerly into the water.

​

Steam bubbles forward to disturb the water's surface as the raft floats towards the center of the pond. Aurelia grabs Gemma, pulling her behind a nearby boulder. A brilliant light erupts into the air, shining so brightly, that nothing else is visible.

 

"Close your eyes!" Aurelia calls to Gemma. "Staring at it will make you blind. I'm going to create a guard."

​

Gemma closes her eyes obediently.

​

Aurelia digs her hands into the damp soil, breathing in the scent of swamp grass and smoke surrounding them. She concentrates hard on the swaying grass, envisioning the stalks growing up, braiding themselves together.

​

She doesn't need to open her eyes to know the grass is doing what she asks of it as it moves and breathes all around them. Aurelia has often found this magic is easier—it means she doesn’t have to worry about beckoning new life forward. Instead, she works with that which is already alive.

​

Grass is one of the easiest plants to work with, given there's usually an endless supply of hosts. She gently urges the grass to come towards them. She sees in her mind as it begins forming a protective dome over them. She calls forward layer after layer of grass, to braid itself into the walls, to embrace its kin.

​

As beads of sweat begin to form on Aurelia's forehead, she knows she's coming close to reaching the capacity of the magic she's able to wield in one session. Her body begins to shake, stomach twisting itself in knots, her breathing transforming to laboured pants as the pain in her body intensifies.

​

“Just a little further,” she begs the grass.

​

She collapses at last to the soil in exhaustion. She can hear Gemma shout, but the words sound muddled and far away. Her eyes open just long enough to see the rigid green stalks. She smiles softly, thanking them for their protection before her world goes dark.