A QUESTION AND A STORY
The last day of Taliana’s apprenticeship was a bittersweet moment.
Ilyan announced they were taking the day off from both mixing and selling. Instead, they would deep clean. This involved pulling out the contents of every shelf to clean and scrub the wood. The work was strangely enjoyable, and it left plenty of time to talk.
Ilyna grilled her on everything she had learned that year. How to adjust recipes based on humidity, air pressure, and other factors. How to discern which suppliers to trust and which to avoid. The proper instructions and safeguards for even the most obscure potions.
“You have learned well,” Ilyan said after three hours. “And now it’s your turn. Ask me a question. Any question you like.”
“Any question?” Taliana said.
“Any question.”
“What is your secret?” Taliana said instantly.
“I thought you figured that out already?” said Ilyan. “My ‘secret’ is a false front. The rosewood powder, the obscure objects at the front of my store, the rumors—it’s all an elaborate ruse.”
“But what they say about your potions is true,” Taliana said. “They do work better than anyone else’s. More potency. Fewer side effects. I know there’s a new theory going around the University about a ‘placebo impact,’ but that alone can’t explain how well your potions work. You still have a secret.”
It took Ilyan several minutes to reply, as he scrubbed quietly at the inside of a shelf. Finally, he took a deep breath. “Let me tell you a story. I was much like you early in my career. Bright. Intelligent. Cheeky to a fault.”
“Um . . . thanks?” said Taliana.
“I was ambitious, and I worked hard. By age twenty-three, I had my own shop.” Ilyan gestured around him. “This shop. And I did everything to make it succeed. I burned the midnight candle. I took out loans. I never took a day off. Do you remember our discussion about pricing?”
Taliana nodded.
“I relentlessly cut costs until I could offer the lowest price. And customers flocked to me. Business was booming. I was selling hundreds of potions a day. But I had to make those hundreds of potions each night.
“I began to grow sloppy. I didn’t label things carefully. I lost track of when ingredients expired. I skipped calibrating my scales.
“One morning, a customer came for an aroma of sleep. I was all out of ingredients for the aroma, so I offered to make them a tincture instead.”
Taliana felt her gut twist. There was a reason aromas of sleep—which filled the room with a sleep-inducing mist—were strongly recommended over anything ingested.
“The customer agreed. I had to make it on the spot, and other customers were waiting. My recipe tablets were so unorganized, I couldn’t take the time to find that particular recipe, so I went off of my memory. It had probably been two years since I’d made one. I also didn’t want to create a full batch, seeing this was the only tincture of sleep I’d likely sell that month, so I was doing the math to cut the recipe by a fifth. And since I was in a hurry, I skipped the scales and measured only by sight. I figured the amounts were ‘about’ right.”
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“Oh, no,” Taliana said.
Ilyan had stopped cleaning now, his eyes lost in the past. “By my best estimates afterward, I added three or four times as much seraphenin as the recipe required. The patient took the tincture that night to help them sleep. The next morning, they were dead.”
Ilyan began nervously fidgeting with the pockets of his coat. “There was an investigation. By rights, I should have been imprisoned and banned from ever practicing again. As it was, thanks to the intervention of the Aquamancy Guild, I only had to pay a fine to the patient’s family. But I was a complete wreck. I had put profits in front of people. In my haste and greed, I had broken rule after rule meant to keep people safe. And someone was dead because of me.
“Never again, I swore. Never again would I lose sight of why I am an aquamancer: To serve. To ease pain. To give strength. To heal injury.”
Ilyan began cleaning again, a new energy in his movements. “I rose from the lowest point of my life with a new commitment: I would go to the greatest extreme, incur the greatest investments, to make my potions as safe, as potent, and as reliable as they could be. For a year, I interned at the finest aquamanceries of the empire, observing their techniques, comparing their equipment, interviewing their masters. Then I completely overhauled my shop. I invested in the finest tools. I designed and built the extensive sorting system that you see today. And I practiced. I practiced over and over again to redefine the meaning of precision.”
He gestured around his impressive shop. “This is my secret, Taliana. I have the finest potions because I have worked nonstop, for sixty-three years, to make the finest potions. But the motive has always been constant: love. Love for my craft. Love for my customers. Love for the lives my potions change. Love for the impact I’m able to have on the world because of what I do. My potions work because I am precise. But that precision is born out of love.”
The old man knelt and placed a hand on Taliana’s furry shoulder, looking deep into her eyes. “That is my secret, Taliana. And now it is yours.”
*****
ILYAN’S SIGN (AGAIN)
Taliana lay awake for hours that night, thinking of Ilyan’s words. (Twigly’s snoring didn’t help.)
The next morning was a momentous day. Her family was finally moving into a new burrow! Taliana helped them transport their smattering of possessions, but she herself would not be joining them. She was off to a town in the eastern provinces, where she had arranged to take over the practice of a soon-to-retire aquamancer.
(Twigly was setting off on her own, too. Something about a raptor-hunting expedition in the mountains. She still hadn’t returned Taliana’s charcoal pencil.)
After everyone was settled in, Taliana hugged her siblings, her cousins, her aunts, her uncles, and her parents. (What? You didn’t think she had parents just because I hadn’t mentioned them yet? This is a short story. I have to leave out noncritical details.) Then, hauling a cart with a very pricy item packed carefully in grain, she set off toward the docks, where a riverboat would take her to the next chapter of her life.
She chose a route that took her past a familiar shop on Renner Street. Her eye went straight to the sign above the door. It had been newly painted that morning:
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Ilyan’s Aquamancery
Potions, Tinctures, & Elixirs
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Taliana shrugged. “At least he left the apostrophe curly.”
Fin.
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