A Deal with the Elf King (Married to Magic, #1)(6)

I’ll make the rest of my deliveries when the recipients are conveniently all in one place. Hopefully, by then, I’ll have had enough time to finish their various medications.

First up is Douglas, a fisherman who has been laid up for two weeks following a spearfishing incident. Usually, a wound like this would’ve healed with just a wash in the waters of the Fade River. But it’s still angry and red, dripping with pus. Today he runs a fever as well.

After that is Cal. His daughter caught a chill this winter that just won’t abate. Then Amelia—her monthly bleed is agonizing, this month particularly so. Then Dan, who can’t seem to find the strength to get out of bed and attend to his duties as the town carpenter.

On and on I go from door to door, checking in and making sure they have what they need or, at the very least, the best I can give them. It doesn’t feel like enough. Each one seems worse than the last, as if their illnesses are clinging to them for the express purpose of making a mockery of everything I’m trying to do.

I became an herbalist to help people. But in the year I’ve been in Capton since finishing my studies at the academy, things have only become worse. They tell me that I’m doing a good job, that the problems lie with the lack of a Human Queen. But I can’t help wondering if I couldn’t be doing something more.

Kindly Mr. Abbot is the last on my list for the morning. Thankfully, he’s doing all right still. I doubt I could keep my composure if he wasn’t.

“Come in, come in.” He waves me inside with small, trembling motions of his weathered hand.

“Mr. Abbot, I’m afraid I can’t stay today. But I brought your tea so you can brew—”

“I’ve already put the kettle on.” He shuffles about the kitchen. “The tea never tastes the same when I brew it.”

“I’m sure it does.” Yet I’m putting my mostly empty basket down on his counter anyway.

“It doesn’t work as well,” he insists, per usual.

“I think you just like having company.” I smile and set to work as he eases himself into a chair at his table.

“Can you blame an old man?”

“No.”

Mr. Abbot isn’t the first person to claim they can’t replicate my brews, salves, and poultices at home—even when I sell them the exact herbs and give them detailed instructions. I suspect it’s because of my elvish kettle. The Keepers say a bit of the elves’ wild magic lives in the things they make using it. If that’s true, then maybe part of my skills are because of the necklace Luke gave me.

No matter what the reason, I’m glad my gifts can be of service. If my hands must be the ones to make the brews to have them work, then so be it. Yet another reason why I must stay in Capton.

“The town is so busy today.” Mr. Abbot looks out the large front window of his home. He lives down by the docks, not far from the large square where town halls are held.

“The elves are coming,” I remind him.

“Ah, right.”

“You should stay home, you don’t need that kind of excitement,” I encourage.

“If ordered by my healer, I suppose I must.” A frown crosses his lips before he brings the mug I hand him to his mouth. His eyes seem to be staring at a distant memory. “They’ll take another young woman, won’t they?”

“Unfortunately.” I run my finger along the top edge of my mug, thinking of the conversation at the breakfast table. “Yet none of the women of Capton have displayed any magic tendencies.”

“The Keepers are usually watching closely for any signs.”

I remember when Luke was assigned to me for three years—fifteen through my eighteenth birthday. He and my parents kept an eye on everything I did whenever I was in Capton. Luke even came to Lanton a few times to observe me.

My mother once suspected even that my herbology gifts were magical manifestations. But Luke assured her it was just good training at the academy.

“They still do.” I take a sip. “But they haven’t found anyone who might be the Human Queen.”

He sighs. “This whole business is a wound that never heals.”

“What is?” I think he’s talking about the treaty. I’m wrong.

“Losing your family to the elves. They take a daughter, a sister, forever.”

“The Human Queen can return to Capton every midsummer,” I needlessly remind him. He’s lived in this town far longer than I. Mr. Abbot is pushing one hundred and twenty.

“They’re never the same after; Alice wasn’t.”

Alice… That was the name of the last Human Queen. Surely, it couldn’t just be coincidence…

“Who’s Alice?”

He turns his milky eyes toward me. “My sister. And before you ask, yes, she was.”

“Your sister was the last Human Queen?” I ask anyway. He nods. How did I never know this? Why was it never taught or mentioned? Mr. Abbot has been coming into my shop every other day for a year now. I was making him poultices and potions long before I had any formal training. “I had no idea,” I say, feeling somewhat guilty.

“One thing you will soon learn is that the name of the bride quickly disappears off the tongues of the people. Whoever leaves will be forgotten as ever being a part of this town. She will become the ‘Human Queen’ for stories and nothing more.”