Taliana told her master about the shadowy figure the next morning.
“Hmm,” Ilyan said, jotting a note down in one of his books. The man notated nearly everything. He must be single-handedly keeping the city’s vellum industry in business.
“Should I be concerned?” Taliana said.
“My shop is somewhat a curiosity, even a tourist attraction,” Ilyan said. “That someone was studying my storefront is not unusual.”
“. . . So I shouldn’t be concerned,” Taliana said.
“Oh, I didn’t say that,” Ilyan said. “Merely that it’s not unusual.”
“So I should be concerned.”
“If you have a mind to be concerned, then you are justified,” said Ilyan. He certainly did not seem concerned. “Keep your eye out, and don’t walk down dark alleys by yourself. Perhaps vary your route home each day.”
The hair on Taliana’s back started to tingle again. “Is that just general advice to avoid getting mugged, or am I seriously in danger?”
Ilyan paused from his work (grinding a new batch of peppermint seeds) and raised both his lenses to look at Taliana. “Let’s just say that, as my apprentice, you have a higher profile than when you were just a university student.”
Great.
They spent the day making various elixirs, each rising in complexity. Taliana found her endurance already increasing. When she slipped out the door that afternoon, she took a long minute to study the nearby shops and alleys.
Nothing.
She still checked over her shoulder the whole way home.
*****
COUSIN TALK
“I bet I know what the old man’s secret is,” said Taliana’s cousin the next morning. “Bribery.”
Taliana jabbed her in the ribs. “Oh, be serious.”
The two of them stood in a corner of their family burrow as Taliana packed her bag. This particular room was shared between no fewer than seventeen of Taliana’s siblings and cousins, most of whom were still asleep, curled up on rugs or mats spread out over the dirt floor. Snippen families tended to be rather prolific.
“Bribery, I’m serious,” said her cousin, who was named Twigly. “Ilyan pays off his disgruntled customers to keep them silent.”
“Oh, come on,” Taliana said.
“What?” her cousin said. “It’s what I would do.”
“You would also use a rigged scale when measuring payments, then pickpocket your customers as they walk out the door for good measure,” Taliana said. “I know you stole my nice charcoal pencil, by the way. I want it back.”
Twigly flashed a guilty grin and fished around in a pocket of her tattered vest. “Hmm, must have misplaced it. Silly me. Can I get it to you tomorrow?”
A clump of dirt fell from the ceiling as a wagon rumbled by somewhere overhead. This burrow had been dug directly under a street, and much too shallowly—probably the work of sleazy diggers cutting corners to cut costs. It was just a matter of time before the room caved in completely during a heavy rain. Taliana closed her eyes, picturing a quiet, cozy hole underneath a shop that she owned herself. Soon. One year, one apprenticeship later, and she would arrive.
She’d come so far already. Three years of aquamancy school, studying tablets by candlelight late into the night. Acing her exams at the top of her class. Winning the coveted apprenticeship with the legendary Ilyan himself. Pinching and saving every shekel so she’d have the funds to start her own shop somewhere, once her apprenticeship was complete—once she knew Ilyan’s secret.
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That was the big question mark. Did Ilyan’s apprentices learn his secret? Each of his past apprentices vociferously denied ever learning it. Yet, without fail, they had gone on to start highly successful shops of their own around the empire. So they had to have learned something special under his employ. The only question was, had Ilyan told them openly? Or had they figured it out more surreptitiously?
One way or another, she would learn that secret.
“Time for me to go,” Taliana said, shouldering her bag. “Time for you too, if you don’t want to be late to the bakery again.”
“Oh, I quit yesterday,” said Twigly.
“What?”
“Well, technically they fired me. Caught me stealing scones.”
“From your employer?”
“Nonsense. From the customers. After they had bought them. But it’s okay! I’m starting an apprenticeship at a candle maker’s today. Much less tempting situation. You can’t eat candles.”
Taliana shook her head. “Don’t burn anything to the ground. And I will expect that pencil tomorrow.”
*****
INSTRUCTIONS AND DISCLAIMERS
Luckily, Ilyan’s handling of customers wasn’t quite as exacting as his handling of potions. Barely.
He still emphasized precision, of course. Each customer’s silver had to be weighed. But he used a traditional equal-arm balance for that, accurate only to a tenth of a shekel.
More tiring was his insistence on giving the customers instructions. Each elixir came with a set of precautions, warnings, and procedures that Taliana would have to recite from memory. Take this potion with food. Take this other potion on an empty stomach. Don’t eat any tomato products within eleven hours of drinking this tincture. This aromatic must only be used in a well-ventilated area.
Then there were the disclaimers. “Aquamancy enhances, but it does not make the impossible possible” was one of Ilyan’s common refrains. “A strength potion makes a weak man strong and a strong man stronger. But do not attempt to lift anything more than twice what you would lift normally, or risk injury.”
The first day the sellery was open, Taliana’s only duty was to weigh payments, while she committed each set of instructions to memory as Ilyan recited them to customers. Despite the old man’s age, he moved with a fluidity from decades of practice, selecting the right vial off the shelf with barely a glance as he handled a constant flow of customers.
Ilyan knew over half his customers by name. (At least, he said a name when they walked in the door. Whether the name was accurate or not was anyone’s guess.) With some he chatted like old friends.
“Meriam,” he called as a middle-aged aristocratic lady walked through the door. “Right on time. I have your drops of anti-indigestion right here. Takanah, weigh out a shekel and a half. Marian gets a discount for being a repeat customer. Now remember, Meriana, take two drops directly after dinner. Avoid milk and cheese any later than mid-afternoon. If you experience bad dreams, take only one drop the next day. Congratulations on your husband’s promotion, by the way! Next month when I’m not so busy, I want to hear all about it.”
When the lady had left the store, Taliana asked, “How long has she been coming by?”
“Marietta? Oh, two decades or so, ever since her stomach started giving her problems.”
“Once a month, for two decades . . . and you still give her the instructions? Each time?”
“Each time!” Ilyan said. He tapped the side of his head. “You know how easy it is to forget things, Tapioka.”
“Taliana, sir.”
“Exactly.”
*****
PASSABLES
For a whole week, Ilyan staffed the counter while Taliana observed. Then they switched roles, with Taliana dispensing potions and their accompanying instructions under the ever-watchful eye of her master. Only until she had gone three straight days without a correction from him did he announce she was ready to tend the counter alone.
“What will you be doing?” she asked.
“I’ll be in the mixery, mixing,” he said. “And studying. Reading up on the latest research. Answering correspondence. Reviewing the ledgers. Quite the backlog of work after three weeks of training.”
“What if someone wants to talk to you?”
“Every tourist from the outer provinces wants to ‘talk’ to me. Only come get me if a legitimate customer asks a legitimate question that you’re not trained how to answer. Oh, and if they have a passable, send them straight to me.”
“A . . . passable?”
Ilyan fished in one of his pockets and pulled out a small metal emblem. He passed it to Taliana. “Study it carefully. Notice the etchings on the front, the groove on the reverse. This is a passable.”
“So . . . it’s a pass,” said Taliana.
“It shows that people are able to pass,” said Ilyan. “Thus, a passable.”
“I’m just going to call it a pass,” said Taliana.
“You can call it a pass on the day my sign is no longer despoiled,” Ilyan said. He peered over his spectacles at her. “It’s been three weeks, now, Talitha.”
“Sorry, master. Slipped my mind. I’ll get on it.”
It was sort of true. The shadowy figure had driven all thoughts of the sign from her mind for a couple days. She had remembered since then, but her cousin had lost Taliana’s brushes after a stint apprenticing for a muralist. Why did she even talk to Twigly?