Tea and dip progressed to dinner — slow-cooked mutton in mint butter with new potatoes — which inevitably cascaded into boisterous laughter over a borderline unwise quantity of alcohol.

It was Mirra, of all people, who was the dark horse on this occasion. She appeared shortly after tea, quietly grabbed what she needed from the kitchen, and set up at the counter to finish preparing the meal. She said little, but listened intently, occasionally nodding along when Fealux regaled us with tales of far-flung cities and exotic cultures. When bellies were straining and eyelids were drooping, Mirra surprised us all by magicking up a bottle of Runoff from her pack. She poured out four glasses, and motioned for Fealux to continue.

There’s no telling if it was the liquor or the appreciative audience that did it — probably a bit of both — but Fealux went all in after that. His little anecdotes were now accompanied by swinging arms, step-by-step reenactments, and even an impressive range of sound effects. It was a performance better than any bard’s.

The curious merchant from the east had a tale about everything — and not in the way Frith back in Braxus used to insist his dad had wrestled a bear, nursed a wolf cub to adulthood, and singlehandedly built half the village. Fealux’s stories were not boastful, they were clever and observant. He was humbled by his experiences, and to have born witness to so much. Even when recounting instances of his own undeniable heroics — like when he shared his last water rations with a fellow traveller lost in the Dbhorin desert — Fealux always expressed gratitude for his good fortune.

The Runoff disappeared quickly, and was just as quickly replaced by a bottle of sky wine from Fealux’s own stock. This was a complicated blend of some twenty fruits and herbs, that was said to have a flavour as broad as the sky. I set myself the task of trying to identify the ingredients and was annoyed to find I only managed six out of the thirteen I knew.

Sharing the sky wine, Fealux insisted that we regale him with our own stories. It was a bit embarrassing — given that we’d just heard about the time he accidentally almost declared war on a wandering tribe, due to a misunderstood gesture — but Fealux proved to be as good at listening as he was at talking.

Alicia and I initially stumbled through the story of our journey to Magalat, with Mirra chiming in here and there. By the time we got to the incident with the crawflies, though, Fealux was literally on the edge of his seat. From then on, the whole saga poured from us like we’d told it a hundred times.

“Must you be so loud?” Clive clucked from the corner.

I felt myself go stiff.

Alicia noticed my reaction. “It’s okay, Mel. He’s a friend.” She nodded to Fealux.

Fealux didn’t quite understand what we were on about. His eyes were full of questions, until Clive grumbled another complaint audible to my ears only.

“Ah,” Fealux said, catching on. “You needn’t worry about that. It’s only Tythia that has such a warped relationship with its magic users.”

“We had a cat that used to come by, back when Iffan and I were living here,” Alicia reassured me. “Iffan translated whole conversations between Fealux and that little mongrel.”

“Springer!” the merchant tapped his forehead with a finger. “A fine animal. Such a tragic upbringing.” He sighed. “What’s the chicken saying?”

“He’s saying we’re loud,” I answered, emboldened by Alicia’s words.

Clive crowed irately, “Are you lot talking about me? What’s he saying?”

“He says that you’re a pain in the arse, and that you could have picked anywhere to have a nap.”

“This is the warmest spot!”

“The oven is the warmest spot,” I retorted.

Fealux’s eyes were wide. “That’s simply adorable!”

Adorable? Why does that word always make me feel like I’m five? “What is?” I asked.

“The fact you talk to him.”

“Seems rude to ignore him.” I shrugged.

“Not the fact you converse with him, the fact you talk with him.” I could tell he was trying to get at something, but damned if I knew what.

“How else would I—”

“Do you think you can actually speak chicken?” Fealux asked.

I was feeling uncomfortable. Not sure why I was being quizzed. “I guess. I can speak to him, can’t I?”

“And I suppose you speak cat and dog, as well?” Fealux was smiling. It was starting to irk me a tiny bit.

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“Well, I don’t really understand the language, as such, but I know I can speak it.”

Fealux topped up our drinks. “What if I told you, it’s not the words that are important?”

“Then I’d say you certainly talk a lot for someone who believes that.”

This had him thumping the table in merriment. “Very well put. Forgive me.” He held a hand over his heart. “Runoff is so very good at making my tongue wag.”

We let that conversation lie, and the mood picked back up again.

By the time talk turned back to the future, and how we might get the shop properly running again, all my misgivings about Fealux had evaporated.

Along with the sun lotion, Fealux had a list of other ointments and balms he was hoping he might eventually acquire a steady supply of. I got all fired up again at the prospect, and started doing research there and then. I grabbed a library’s worth of books and spilled them all over the dining room table, flitting through the pages like a squirrel digging for acorns. Oh, the shamelessness of alcohol.

“I’ve definitely seen that one,” I said, clicking my fingers way too close to Fealux’s face — he took it well. “Aha!” I turned the book so he could see. “Water purifying sachets.”

Fealux’s eyes danced over the page several times. I suspect he was having trouble reading after the festive evening. “Interesting, interesting. This is different to the one I’ve used before, but I believe that will do nicely.”

I took the book back and ran a finger down the list of ingredients. “Targenbrend, ospeice, rutzucker; the rest I have. Reckon you can get me those?”

Fealux produced a notebook of encyclopaedic volume. He scrawled on one page, consulted another, scrawled again, and so on. “Targenbrend prices are at a record high, at the moment — a blight two years back,” he explained. “It would be cheaper if I got you the seeds.”

I found Targenbrend in one of the volumes of Iffan’s compendium. “We used to have it up on the third, so I can definitely grow it here. It takes a year to flower, though; can you wait that long?”

His laughter was on its way to being patronising, but I gave him a pass. “A good trader does not think of today, or even tomorrow. I do my business in tomorrow’s tomorrows.”

I found myself smiling. “Then you’re in the right shop; we can’t even make tea quickly.” I palmed my forehead. “That reminds me, I was busy working on a snoring remedy.”

This earned me an intrigued lacing of fingers. “Does such a thing exist? The market would be huge.” Ever the merchant.

“Not yet it doesn’t, but I think I have an idea.” I zipped about the room trying to find a pouch of midnight. I practically threw it at Fealux. “Combined with a little muscle relaxant, hopefully the whole household will be sleeping soundly.”

Fealux sniffed the contents of the pouch. “Smiling cap?” he asked, correctly sniffing out the pungent fungus that gave the tea its edge.

“Mm-hm, with an obscene amount of flowers and berries to counteract that awful taste.” I frowned. “I should really charge more for that one.”

Fealux grimaced. He’d barely heard me, I think. “We sheared the sheep before the summer rains.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s an expression where I am from: it means my timing is fortuitous.”

“I don’t follow,” I admitted.

“Well, that mix will definitely prevent any snoring. However, unless you don’t want your customers waking up at all, I would advise against this particular combination.”

“You can’t be serious.” I hoped to Anvil he was joking.

Fealux helped himself to my books, scrolling and paging until he found what he was looking for. “Muscle relaxants almost always use huntsman’s leaf as the active ingredient. It is known to have disastrous effects when mixed with smiling cap.”

I felt the colour drain from my face. “I had no idea.”

“There are endless ways to combine medicines. Count yourself lucky that we know of some few that work.”

I cradled my chin on my elbows as I read through the muscle relaxant’s description again. “I feel like such an idiot.”

He poured me a drink, which I made disappear a little too quickly. “Think of it as a learning point,” he insisted. “This is not an art to be rushed.”

“How did you know about the smiling cap? Wait, are you..?”

He shook his head. “I have no such gift. I am simply one who has made use of a great many remedies on my travels.

“I learned of the perils of this pairing the hard way. I accidentally administered the self-same combination to a porter in my camp. The boy lived, but only because we were fortunate enough to get him to a healer.”

“Glade,” I said.

“We all make mistakes.”

“That’s not the kind of mistake I can just make! I almost poisoned someone!” I slumped on to the table. “What am I doing? This is huge. Why did I think I could do this?”

“You can do this. You have all the tools,” Fealux said.

“I’m not capable of learning all this.” I waved a hand at the mountain of literature.

“It’s getting rather late, and that sky wine has gone right to my head,” Alicia said, hugging me goodnight.

Alicia and Mirra excused themselves, leaving me alone with Fealux. Mirra greeted Fealux with the same hand to forehead gesture I had seen him use earlier. I wondered when she had seen it.

Fealux held up a book on members of the pea family. “These are fine resources indeed, but you have other tools at your disposal. Tools others do not.” His brow was low. He was waiting for me to catch on.

“And you’re sure you’re not a druid?” I checked again.

“There are no druids in Tythia, Mel.”

“Obviously. But, you know.”

He set aside the bottle. “Actually, there is more truth to my statement than you know.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Another time. For now, I encourage you to think about how you might use your skills to further your craft.”

“This is alchemy. It’s mixology. There’s no magic to it,” I said.

His expression told me exactly what he thought of that. “I have bought and sold unguents and ointments from sea to sea. Believe me when I say, they are not all made alike.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you can be frustratingly cryptic?”

He laughed so freely that I could count every one of his pointed teeth — it’s funny how quickly I had grown accustomed to the sight. “I have many wives,” he jested.

“I envy them their patience,” I sulked.

Fealux weighed the pouch of midnight tea in his palm, and then passed it across the table to me. “What can you tell me about this?”

“I can tell you the ingredients; I did make it, after all.” Even interesting people can try your patience when they insist on asking rhetorical questions.

“What do those ingredients tell you?”

I took a sniff. “That it’s time for bed.”

A smile and a wave. “Look deeper. Search within the plant. It will tell you its properties. It will tell you what it needs, what it likes, what it’s capable of.”

It looked like a sack of tea to me. “And how exactly am I supposed to do that?”

He clasped his hands over his stomach. “The same way you talk to chickens.”