I’d underestimated how soon I’d see Rila again. After finishing my first shift on demon patrol and morning training, Helas had a new list of ingredients for me. That meant, for the fourth day in a row, I found Rila waiting at the front door of the flat.

“Again?” I asked, and Helas answered by shoving a new list of ingredients into my chest. She’d given me enough time to eat breakfast, freshen up, and dress in one of the outfits that’d arrived from House Vashion.

“Looks good on you. Don’t get into trouble.” She waved, toward the area in the kitchen overtaken by cauldrons simmering with potions in various stages.

“Let’s just get it over with.” Rila had come in dressed up casual clothes—a rich yellow sleeveless dress with a thick beaded sash that matched her shawl in a dark emerald linen. She wore her hair up today to highlight her dangling gold earrings. With her brown skin and black hair, she was stunning.

I chuckled. “Did Uncle Andre make you dress up for this one? Are all the potion shops in the arts district?”

She grinned at the nickname. Andreges had been right that it made her happy. “Yes, in fact, they are. Let’s go laugh at people spending too much money.”

We navigated through the red-light district and merchant district to the arts district. Rather than bother with the guards, we snaked through back alleys and jumped between rooftops. We’d saved the potion shops here for last. We had only a handful of ingredients we had yet to track down, on top of a few extra things Helas needed. She always needed extra things.

Lunar dew and shadow mist were both base ingredients for any summoning potion, and mandrake root, lemon tears, myrrh pearls, and whispering wind essence were common ingredients in recipes to make them. Obviously, these were what we needed to summon another god along with the edibles Yalgor the cleric gave us.

Noble serpentine soil and calendula petals were common in summoning potions, too, but they were also often used in healing potions. These probably served the purpose of continuing our investigation into Magazzinàre.

The last ingredient, though, seemed unrelated to either. Shadowfire root was only used as a base ingredient for destruction-type potions. Helas always asked for ingredients like this, but I’d never seen her use them. Still made no sense to me. Maybe it was something she’d tell me about eventually, along with the rest of her centuries worth of secrets.

By the time we opened the doors to the last shop on our hit list, we’d found everything on the list with one exception: lunar dew. The mark-ups had been astronomical, but I’d noticed a curious trend as we wilted away daylight in long queues.

I suspected that the shops in the arts district had perhaps organized amongst themselves. The shops only had overlap in cheap ingredients. As if they’d discussed which shop would carry which of the more expensive ingredients, that way there was no competition driving down the price despite its cost.

The final shop shared a neighborhood square with a breathtaking view of the Oprad Sea. Well-dressed people admired the horizon and promenaded around an extravagant fountain, three round tiers of intricately carved stone with water dribbling down from the sides to the clear pool at the base.

A well-designed sign read ROLETH’S POTION on the side of a sun-bleached two story building. The second floor boasted a wraparound terrace with gold railing, and the first floor was the height of two and a glass storefront. Braided flowers of yellow and blue decorated the arched windows and entrance into the bright shop.

“What’re we looking for again?” Rila asked.

She might be a good fighter, but she certainly wasn’t a potions scholar.

“Lunar dew.”

"Ah, right."

Inside, the décor screamed indulgence with an all-white color palette paired with gold trim on the walls and blue stained glass cabinet doors. On one side were perfectly symmetrical aisles of shelves, bottles in perfect rows on every shelf with similar bottling for every potion. On the other side, a handful of gentlefolk sat in a lounge and sampled some of the potions before purchasing.

She put her hands behind her back as we wandered the crowded shop in silence. While she bothered to read the labels, I recognized most of the ingredients based on their appearance and contextual placement among each other.

“Oh, hey, is this it?”

She picked up a vial from a small basket with a dainty string attached to a slip of parchment. The liquid inside had the milky iridescent quality of moonstone when settled, but as soon as she moved it, the color darkened into a deep, shimmering black.

“No, that’s Twilight Dew,” I explained as she flipped over the label. “This is dew from a night with a new moon. Some people have had success using it as a replacement for lunar dew because it lends an amplifying effect on manifesting spells, but it’s better use is in destruction-type potions.”

Most scholars warned against using twilight dew in replace of lunar dew in summoning potions with one exception. It was a key ingredient in the partial recipes I’d found for summoning demons. Using it was risky, and I didn’t need any more risk.

She replaced it on the shelf. “What is lunar dew exactly? What does it look like?” She put her hands behind her back as we wandered the crowded shop.

“You’re asking that now? Lunar dew is an ingredient for manifesting-type potions, the ones that produce similar results to manifesting-type spells. Its properties amplify the effect of a summoning. It can be found accumulated as dew drops on petals of flowers that bloom in moonlight.”

“So you’re telling me that we could just find some in the Silvernight Dungeon?”

I nodded. “Convenience comes with a cost. Someone did the work to harvest it so we could walk into a shop instead. Lunar dew is tricky. You can probably only harvest about a vial a night, and it has to be stored in a vessel made of moonstone to preserve its potency.”

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“Why do you know so much about potion ingredients?” She nudged a few bottles and vials out of line on the nearest shelf with a grin. “Dad said you’d be different than I expected, and I hate to say he’s right. You’re not bad at all. He also said I should look out for you. Make sure you don’t get pickpocketed, yeah? I’ve decided that I will.”

Suddenly, I wish she knew I was a slayer. “Oh. Great. Thanks. What were you expecting though?”

“…Just. Different. Where’d you learn all this about potions? Was it Helas?”

“Yes, and I studied.”

So she thought I’d be someone like Khoulgan. Someone who needed protection and didn’t work hard to be good at anything. Could I blame her though? It was easy to play that role as the third son of Duke Lorem Vulros. It probably kept me alive up until the night Father found me.

“Dad always wanted a son,” Rila said, changing the subject, “so I should thank you, too. I can tell he likes you a lot. He has a big heart, and when he says you’re family, he really means it, okay? You’ll hurt his feelings if you don’t play along.”

Rila and Andreges were a lot a like. Far more alike than I was to my father or brothers. I’d like to think I was like Mother, but my memory of her wasn’t good enough to know. I knew I looked enough like her to make him look at me with hatred and my brothers with pain.

At some point, I’d have to tell Andreges and Rila that I didn’t understand the word family anymore. It meant something to them, clearly, but it never would to me again.

Once we’d passed over the area where we should’ve found lunar dew, I said, “I don’t think they have it here, either. It would’ve been here.” I gestured to the shelves we’d just looked over.

She hummed. “Let’s still finish looking around. I’ve got some time to kill anyway. The blacksmith said after sundown.”

“This is a weird way to kill time,” I said. “We could be drinking. Or eating. Or having all sorts of fun.”

“No, we’re going to finish the task.”

“You know I barely slept, right?”

“Why would I know that? We’re already here. Explain some of these to me.”

She started pointing to different eye-catching potions and ingredients, and I listed off what I knew to her. Only slightly insufferable. Spending time with Boyet or Lando had been much more misery for me. I’d at least give Rila that much. Her company was mostly enjoyable if not abrasively friendly.

By the time we shuffled past every ingredient in the shop, we hadn’t found any lunar dew but had discovered a few new expensive ingredients here that we hadn’t seen at the other shops. We added them to our growing list along with where to find them and their price.

When we left, the sun was dipping into the horizon, and the extreme heat of the day had turned cool in the breeze. Rila shielded her eyes against it with a wide grin.

“Looks close enough to sundown to me. Don’t look so down about the moon juice. We haven’t tried everywhere yet, and there’s definitely someplace selling it in this city. It’s Ridahr. So chin up. Smile.” She grabbed my chin and shook my head until I smiled. “Better. You’re better looking when you smile.”

She gave me a hug—with enough force that I stumbled back a few steps. I couldn’t remember the last person I’d hugged besides Helas, and so it took me far too long to figure out what was even happening. For the life of me, I couldn't come up with an explanation for why it was happening though.

“Don’t look so traumatized. See you later!” She cackled, waved over her shoulder, and headed off back toward the merchant district. She didn’t look back, so I didn’t bother waving goodbye.

For some reason, my mind went to Harorin. I hadn’t expected to say goodbye to him like that. After getting my revenge on my family, I'd planned to disappear from the continent to hide from any consequences if I ended up getting sloppy at the end. I’d wanted to tell him everything before that. And to thank him for not being a piece of shit.

Maybe I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him. I was in Ridahr, a place that I knew he’d fled from out of fear—of what, I’d never been sure. I could guess now that it’d been a fear of meeting another demon, and I was beginning to memorize the city thanks to morning training.

So where would Harorin have met a demon? What would he have been doing, and why had he felt like his only option was to run across the continent?

“Excuse me,” a sweet-sounding voice said from my side, pulling me from my thoughts.

My eyes landed on a pale-skinned, pink-haired elf as she leaned forward to catch my attention, her hands politely behind her back. Her eyes were the color of rubies.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said, “but I might’ve overheard you in Roleth’s talking to your partner about lunar dew. I know where you can find some.”

“My partner?” I echoed the part of what she said that nauseated me. “She’s not. She’s…”

I wasn’t sure how to finish my sentence, and the elf watched me with curled lips as the silence stretched. I’d managed to tiptoe around the word family for days, and it’d taken one good-looking woman tripping me up to force it out of me.

“My cousin.” I crossed my arms. “Rude to eavesdrop, but I’ll overlook it if you tell me where I can find some lunar dew.”

She gave a dimpled grin. “I’d love to show you where you can find some lunar dew. Come with me?” Without waiting for an answer, she chained our elbows and dragged me along with her.

The elf wore a pin with a flower made of jewels to hold her long hair back on one side above her ear. Intricate beadwork in blue decorated her lightweight tunic, which had short sleeves and a long side-slit. Even if I hadn’t met her in the arts district, I wouldn’t have had a single doubt she enjoyed a status among the nobility.

I’d met her type before. Someone beautiful who knew it and used it. My brother Lando had been that way; his beauty had been the dangerous sort that helped him get away with some of the most vile behavior.

Thankfully, this woman didn’t remind me of him at all. Time to get my family far from my waking thoughts.

“I’m Roz," she said.

“Therzin. So where’s the lunar dew?”

“Nice to meet you, Therzin.” She gave a soft laugh and loosened her hook on my arm. “Isn’t it obvious? It’s at the night market, and—lucky us—it should be open by the time we get there.”

More than likely, Helas’s next errand for me would’ve been to scour the night market. I saw no harm in going now. In fact, it was preferable because then I could use the time I would’ve taken at the night market to study instead.

“Nice to meet you as well,” I said. “Did lunar dew bring you to Rothel’s as well?”

“Almost everyone knows by now that you can’t get lunar dew in the arts district anymore.”

Well, at least I wasn’t pretending to be a local. “I moved here recently. I’ve had to go to so many different potion shops to find what I need. If not lunar dew, what did you get then?”

“I’ve seen you around a few times.” She adjusted her hold to dig into her small satchel without releasing me and retrieved a few small vials of a rich, deep blue powder. “I was there for azurite crystal powder. For a—”

“Summoning potion.” I could’ve laughed. “You’re trying to summon a god, too. That’s why you approached me.”

“Since it’d be better to do it together than alone, yes. So…?”

A wide smile brightened her features. Her cheeks and lips were naturally rosy, and it reminded me of Harorin. Actually, there was quite a bit to her that reminded me of him. If she was nobility, that meant she would’ve met him at some point.

The only problem was that Therzin had no reason to know Harorin and even less reason for bringing him up to a stranger in the arts district. Didn’t mean I couldn’t find a way to get the information I needed though.

She licked her lips as she waited for an answer. She probably wasn’t used to waiting. “Will you…?”

“Will I…what?” I teased her.

“Incredible, making a woman tell you outright what she wants.” She laughed, an infectious sound that managed to brighten my mood. “Will you summon a god with me tonight, Therzin?”

“Yes, fine,” I agreed. “Sounds like a date, though.”

She stuck her tongue out, which only made me look at her lips again. “You can pretend if it’ll make you happy.”

For that, I laughed.