Page 18 of As You Wake, Break the Shell

“I don’t know which garden it came from, so—”

“Oh, right. Hm. Shit.” Cora glanced at the ceiling above them, which had at least a dozen air vents at regular intervals. “Yeah, that’s gonna be a tomorrow job.”

“Why tomorrow?” Signy asked.

Cora took a bite of her hashcakes and shrugged again in her easy, charming way. “Because I don’t wanna today,” she said with a smile.

Chapter 7 Signy, Fortune

To anyone else, Signy’s sketch pad held nothing more than idle drawings of flowers, squiggles, and simple patterns. The sort of things you might draw if stuck on the phone for a long time. But to Signy, every flower represented a name. Every squiggle was a body part, every spiral an ailment. A system of dots and lines indicated dates, dosages, and details aplenty. She knew each of the symbols by memory; there was no written key. Making medicine demanded caution, and the safety of her customers was almost as important to her as her own. No one would benefit from her getting caught.

She took a sip of tea and looked over her list of people and their needs. Jonathan needed his heart rate to slow down. Olive needed their skin to stop itching. Evie’s immune system had decided her body didn’t need a thyroid gland anymore, even though it very much did. Allie needed to not get migraines. Madeline needed testosterone blockers. Paul needed antidepressants that didn’t upset his stomach. Phoebe needed to end an early pregnancy. And Cora—an onion flower, Signy had decided—Cora needed her brain to stop trying to behave like that of a different species.

An interesting problem, that one.

Chapter 769 Signy, Cypsela

So,” Cora said, slathering her toast with jam, “who needs what?”

Signy turned to her monitor, closed the soil map, and opened her inbox. She and Cora had joint access to everything sent Cypsela’s way, but they always went over their mail together in the morning, so as to get on the same page. New messages awaited. They leaned in to have a look.

The med lab on Lodestone was running low on L-tyrosine, an amino acid used in a wide variety of medicines. They weren’t in immediate danger of running out, but providing backup was exactly what Cypsela’s medicine garden was for.

“We don’t have any going right now, right?” Cora asked.

Signy shook her head. “No, I’ll get a batch started.” In a separate window, she opened her print software, entered a series of commands she could’ve written in her sleep, and initiated the print job. Elsewhere within the bunker, her seed printer presumably began chugging to work. She minimized the window, finished her juice, and continued on with messages from their neighbors.

Oscar had a question about fertilizer—neither complicated nor urgent. Signy could deal with that whenever. Imogen, one of Signy’s apprentices, wanted to know if she could come by on Thursday so that she and Signy could go over the strain of maize she was developing, which she’d been having a lot of problems with. Signy wrote back to say that was fine. Palmer was having a potluck later that week and wanted both of Cypsela’s residents to attend. No occasion, just good company, the invitation read.

“Isn’t that the same day you told Gwen you’d help fix her kitchen door?” Signy asked.

“Yeah, but they’re not far from each other in orbit. If you came to Gwen’s with me, we could fly over to the potluck after I’m done.”

Signy considered this possibility. “I don’t know . . .”

Cora nudged her. “You like her skyroom.”

That much was true, and reluctant as Signy was to take a whole day away from her gardens, it was good for her to get out sometimes. An afternoon spent reading in Gwen’s skyroom sounded like a decent way to prepare her social battery before a communal meal. She accepted the invitation, then moved on to the next.

Chapter 8 Signy, Fortune

First things first: print order.

Signy tapped her chin with the tip of her stylus and considered which batch to start on. Mindbleed was new territory for her, and anything untried was awfully tempting, but it was better to start with familiar recipes that could get made quickly before working on a new project.

She weighed her customers’ priorities. Phoebe had the most time-sensitive need on the list, but the compounds required for a medical abortion were something Signy always kept in supply. She likewise had everything she needed for beta blockers, which would keep Jonathan’s heart steady. Both of those orders she could whip up at the end of the day and place in their hands tomorrow.

She gave her chin a final tap. She would start with Evie’s thyroid. Not a life-threatening condition, but a debilitating one. The sooner she could get Evie off her couch and back on her feet, the better.

Signy left her chair as the seed printer warmed up. On the opposite side of her office stood a set of storage shelves, stuffed with plants and outfitted with grow lights. The plants, on the surface level, were exactly the same as the ones for sale out front. Deep inside, however, they harbored secrets. An enzyme here, a molecule there. Signy mentally riffled through the compounds used in synthetic thyroxine. She’d made it for Evie several times before, and she didn’t need to look up the recipe. Most of the ingredients she required were already flowing through the vascular systems of the plants behind her. What she lacked at the moment was L-tyrosine, and she’d need that for other recipes as well, so that was where she’d start.

Chapter 770 Signy, Cypsela

Okay, first, I’m gonna take the shuttle out and make sure that click in the engine is gone,” Cora said. “Then, I need to chase Noah about that busted compost turner.”

“Has he still not gotten back to you?” Signy said.

Cora shook her head. This wasn’t much of a surprise; Noah was the sort of person who took care of something either in half an hour or in six to seven business weeks. “After that, I was thinking I’d do something with all that cauliflower for dinner, if you—” Cora glanced up from the list she was jotting down on her phone. “What?”