Treacherous Witch

26. Inside Help

"A lady's bosom holds many secrets."
Lady Briony Bretton's Notes on a Scandal at Court

It was Markus who introduced her to the resistance. First, he took her to the apothecary a few minutes down the High Road, a place she had visited several times before to collect ointments and other medicine. The girl waiting for them was no older than she was, with warm, kind eyes, arched brows, and plump cheeks.

"Iora? You're in the resistance?"

Iora smiled. "Hey."

"I've got some supplies to grab," said Markus. "Mind if I leave Val with you?"

"Sure."

He disappeared, Valerie still processing this revelation. Iora Salver was a mild-mannered chemist she'd only ever seen mixing herbal remedies or carrying deliveries from her uncle's cart. What on earth was she doing with the resistance?

She approached the counter as Iora came around to greet her.

"You never said anything."

"Well, it's supposed to be a secret."

"Right..."

She looked around the store as if there might be some sign that she had missed, but the apothecary hadn't changed. The shelves were filled with herbs and potions, salves and ointments, cures of every kind gathered from Maskamere and beyond.

"This place is a hideout," said Iora. "A shelter. We smuggle supplies: weapons, gear, medicine. Anything we can."

"And your family..."

"We're all in on it," Iora confirmed. "They do the smuggling. Me, I'm a messenger."

"Why?" she asked. "Why risk your lives?"

"I'll show you."

Iora took her through the store and out again via a back door that led into a large courtyard. A gravel path bordered a square patch of grass. Behind her was the apothecary. To the left, a residential building which the Salver family shared with their kin, the Suns. To the right, the Sun clinic where the sick and injured of Jairah came to be healed. And ahead...

Valerie blinked a tear out of her eye.

In the middle of the lawn stood the blackened remains of a tree stump. And though it had been cut down to the root, she recognised it instantly.

"A silvertree," she whispered. Though it wasn't the first dead tree she had encountered, it was always upsetting to find one. Valerie felt the loss of the tree like one of her own, as if she were gazing on the corpse of a family member. The building directly behind the dead tree was also in ruins, with crumbled walls, blasted out windows, and ash-covered stone.

"They called it the Healing Tree," said Iora. "All the healers in Jairah were blessed by it. Those ruins over there used to be the temple and the convent where we trained. My mother was the High Priestess. I was an acolyte."

"You were going to receive the blessing."

Iora nodded. "I was a month away when the war happened. We rebuilt the clinic, our home... But not the temple. We can't bring that back."

"I'm sorry."

"That's not the worst thing. My family suffered, but so did everyone. What really upsets me is all the good we did for the city that we've lost. Half the apothecary used to be filled with homeopathic medicine. Do you know what that is?"

"Magic potions," she said. "We used to visit a healer in town who made them."

"They're made with holy water. The healers spell the bottles to treat different ailments. We even used to get Drakonian visitors before the war, offering us all kinds of riches for a miracle cure."