Page 65 of Malady

I let out a slow breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you.” I step back to the hearth, sink onto the stool, and pick up my cup from the edge of the low hearthstone. “It’s only curiosity, Iscairn. Truly. You spend every day in my shop. We work side by side, passing bandages and brewing tonics, and I don’t even know what colour your eyes are. It is... difficult to ignore, sometimes.” I take a sip of tea before continuing. “But you are right. It isn’t my place to pry. You may keep your secrets.”

“You will not pry again?”

“I will not pry. Though I remain adamant that you will share a cup of tea with me one day. If I must, I shall find a length of hollow river-reed to slip up beneath the leather.”

“A river-reed,” he repeats.

“Or perhaps one of the glass tubes from my alembic,” I add, taking another sip. “I’m an apothecary, Iscairn. I have plenty of ways to make this difficult for you.”

A low chuckle rumbles from behind his mask. “I do not doubt it, Ophelia Harrow. Leave the river-reeds where they belong. When the day comes that I am ready to share a cup of tea with you, I shall drink it like a man.”

I push a heat-damp strand of hair back from my forehead and nod towards the other stool by the counter. “Will you at least sit with me, then? Instead of looming in the shadows like a misplaced gargoyle?”

The wood scrapes softly over the floorboards as he drags it closer and settles across from me, the firelight catching that pale, exposed skin again. Then, with a quiet hum, he turns his hands in the glow of the embers and leaves them open between us, palms up.

This close, his hands are almost colourless, the fingers long, nails kept short and clean. I can see the scars now, too—thin silver lines crossing the heel of his palm and curling over his fingers, so faint they’re barely there.

I gesture towards a thin crescent crossing his index finger. “Where did this one come from?”

“I am unsure.”

I glance up at his amber lenses. “You don't remember?”

“Time is a thief,” he murmurs, his voice blending with the pop of the fire. “When a creature lives through centuries, the mortal years are the first to thin. It is like dropping a thimble of ink into a sprawling lake. Everything since I became this, I remember well enough. But there was a life before it, and very little of that remains. There are faces I believe were once dear to me, though I could no longer tell you their names, and somewhere a home whose streets I would not recognise if I stood upon them today. These marks were made before I was what I am. Whatever accidents left them went with the rest.”

“That sounds terribly lonely,” I say softly.

“It is the cost of endurance. The mind can only hold so much, and the oldest things go first, whether one wishes it or not.”

I lift my fingers slightly towards his open hand, pausing just short of touching him.

Only when he nods do I set my cup aside and take his hand. I trace the crescent on his index finger with the tip of my own. He keeps his hand still as I turn it towards the firelight, running my thumb over the little brown mole near the base of his. It feels just as lovely as I thought it would.

And without his gloves, the scent of rain on dry earth is stronger than ever. I’ve caught traces of it whenever he’s stood close to me, usually buried beneath all the vinegar and sickroom smoke, but here it is coming straight from his skin. I lean a little closer, unable to resist breathing it in.

Oh, that is nice.

For all the centuries between us, something almost painfully ordinary lives in the hand beneath mine. Warm skin, neatly trimmed nails, old scars gathered across the fingers. These are still the hands of a physician.

“Well, Ophelia Harrow?” he murmurs. “Do they meet your rigorous professional standards?”

I smile, my thumb giving one final sweep over his skin before I draw my hand back. “They do,” I concede. “Considerably better than Doctor Taylor’s ever did, I might add. The man had fingers like overstuffed sausages and half the dexterity.”

He flexes his fingers. “I shall treasure the comparison.”

A groan works its way out of me as I push myself upright, my knees objecting after too long beside the fire. I lean towards him on my way past and flick the very tip of his beak with my fingernail, earning a neat little click against the bone.

“I’m going to bed. But just so we are clear,” I add, “do not go getting any ideas. You are still not allowed in my room.”

Without waiting for an answer, I turn back towards the stairs, my skirts whispering over the wooden steps as I climb.

“Goodnight, Ophelia Harrow.”

I glance back over my shoulder and find him looking down at his hand, his thumb moving slowly over the faint silver lines I’d been tracing only moments ago.

“Goodnight, Iscairn.”

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