David left the glassy-eyed Brenson behind, telling Linzy to go back home, and went to look for Niala.

  He followed their link, which surprisingly did not lead him back to their home, but instead to a run-down and semi-deserted small plaza, the one where, just about a year ago, a desperate little catkin had informed him that his kwiller antidote formula was incomplete.

  She was sitting on the same bench, slouched forward, her ears tucked in, staring at her clasped hands. As he approached, her ears twitched lightly. He walked up to the bench and sat down next to her.

  She remained motionless. He shuffled closer, their bodies touching, and arced an arm over her shoulders. She let herself fall to his side, leaning on him.

  He didn't say anything, only offering her his presence and love. She'd speak once she was ready, and he'd be there to listen.

  In the grand scheme of things, it didn't take that long, barely a half bell. For a little catkin who usually had trouble reining in her mouth, this was a small eternity.

  “I'm a horrible person.” She said, her voice resigned.

  He squeezed her shoulder, pressing her into him. “Kitten, you're not. You got angry, it happens.”

  “But I told Linzy she was fired.”

  “I know.”

  She moved her head just enough to be able to see his eyes. Hers were streaked with red, tears just at the edge. “You don't understand. I said it, and I can't let go of it, because I'm still angry, even though I shouldn't, because I never told Linzy what happened with Brenson, so she couldn't know, but I'm still angry at what she did.” She explained, each word more strained than the last. She kept looking at him for a few seconds before returning her gaze to her hands.

  My poor kitten, angry at yourself for being angry...

  He rested his head on top of hers, bringing his mouth close to her ears, and whispered. “Niala, you're allowed to be angry, even if you think you shouldn't be. Be angry, get it out of your system. We can pick up the pieces together afterwards. It'll be ok.”

  He felt the shiver travel up from her neck and down her spine. That was enough to burst the dam, as she began shedding tears and sobbing.

  And then the venom started flowing.

  “I-!” She halted. “I hate that I helped that mud-eating balding toad! I hate that I did it without knowing! I hate that I allowed myself to be manipulated into doing it, even though I could have asked questions! I hate that she hid the details from me! Why did she do that?! I trusted her, and I feel like she stabbed me in the guts while grinning about it! I hate that I feel like that! I hate having to think about the pig-licking shit-spewer! I wish I could forget all about that! It was the literal worst part of my life!”

  Her hands balled into fists. She spoke through grinding teeth. “I feel like I've been made a fool! Lied to and used for their own benefit! And yet!” She sucked in a breath. “And yet! I'm still trying to force myself to forgive them! To find a reason why it's not their fault! And that makes me so angry at myself!”

  She turned her head toward him, her face a mix of rage and despair. “David, why doesn't any of this make sense?! I'm angry at being angry, and I'm angry at being angry for being angry!”

  He blinked, having no words to offer to her. He wished he did, he wished he had the perfect sentence to calm her heart and soothe her mind. But he didn't.

  All he could do was pull her in closer and put his other arm around her. So he did. Her body offered a token of resistance, fuelled by anger as it was, but it quickly gave up the fight as she crumpled against him, and tears flowed freely.

  He gently rocked her, stroking her hair and offering a safe space while her emotions warred, waiting for the victor to emerge.

  And he was pretty certain who that victor was going to be, because Niala couldn't help being Niala. In the end, her boundless heart would devour the anger and spit out care and forgiveness.

  Because that's who she was, and that's why he was going to protect her for the rest of his life.

  For the next full bell, she alternated between bouts of crying and short outbursts. By the end of it, she was so utterly exhausted that she passed out in his arms.

  He carefully, lovingly, picked her up and brought her back home. Jordo and Linzy tried to help, but he shook his head at them, going upstairs and to their bedroom. Laying her down on the bed, he took her boots off, went to fetch a pitcher of water. which he put on the nightstand, before stripping himself down to his undershirt and sliding into bed next to her. She unconsciously grabbed onto him and pulled herself close.

  The rest of the world could burn. He was right where he had to be.

  He woke up from his nap with a start, Niala's slow, rhythmic breathing having lulled him to sleep, to find a bright pair of puffy amethyst eyes staring at him.

  He smiled. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” She meekly answered, smiling back.

  “Feeling better?”

  She burrowed her face into his chest. “Yes.”

  “Are you thirsty?”

  She nodded.

  “There's a pitcher of water on the nightstand.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, remaining glued to him.

  He stared at her for a bit, lying his head back down and squeezing her tighter into him. She responded with a soft moan. Her ears twitched, tickling him.

  He waited a while before speaking up. “Did things settle down in there?”

  She moved her head up and down against him.

  “What's the verdict?”

  He felt her tense up for an instant before she allowed herself to melt back onto him. “I'll apologize to Linzy, and I'll tell her the whole story, explain to her why I felt betrayed, even though it wasn't really her fault.”

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  She paused before adding. “And I'll offer her job back, but with clearer boundaries. I don't want my shop to be known as a money-grubbing place, and... I'll ask more questions.”

  He thought about what she'd said. The way she'd said it. “You know, asking questions doesn't mean you don't trust the other person.”

  She pushed her face into him, muffling her answer. “I know...”

  He quirked a brow. “...But it still feels like it?”

  She nodded.

  He sighed, craning his neck to plant a kiss on the top of her head. “Kitten, never change. I love you.”

  She kept speaking into his chest. “I love you too.”

  They remained in bed until mid-afternoon. When they emerged, Niala went straight to Linzy, apologizing to Linzy about the whole situation, and wanting to talk it through.

  The goblin woman acted unperturbed, even though David noticed how her posture relaxed immediately as Niala offered an olive branch.

  They sat down, and his girlfriend recounted her whole ordeal with Brenson, up to the point where David showed up.

  Linzy showed clear disgust at the way she'd been treated, and said she would have never agreed to deal with Brenson if she'd known.

  Instead, she began offering ideas on how to run Brenson out of business, which impressed David and appalled Niala in equal measure. His girlfriend had to explain to the puzzled goblin that she just wanted nothing to do with him. He could live his life, and she could live hers, and if they just ignored each other, that would be perfect.

  It was Linzy's turn to be appalled, but one look from David made her understand that this was, indeed, her boss's orders. She tsked and agreed to simply ignore the short, angry man.

  Niala then offered Linzy her job back, if she wanted it, but with some restrictions; a generally less aggressive approach chief among them.

  After listening to Niala's conditions, the goblin woman remained silent for a while, eyes unfocused. She eventually looked back up at Niala and said that she'd like her job back, apologizing for her behaviour, and promising she'd involve Niala in any of her schemes.

  This, along with her unbroken friendship with Linzy, made Niala rebound from shame and guilt, straight back to happiness, and she threw herself into a celebratory dinner of quiches, baked spiced potatoes, tomato-and-grains soup, completed with a vanilla butter-cake, which she dedicated to friendship.

  To friendship, and ignoring short, angry men.

  EARLIER THAT DAY, JUST AFTER DAVID LEFT CALEB'S OFFICE

  Brenson let the Mayor's words go into his brain, hearing the words but not understanding them. Something about reconvening later.

  He was distantly aware of the goblin woman leaving, and of his mouth saying something as his body got up and left in turn.

  His mind kept replaying the events from a year ago, when the catkin woman showed up at his door, saying she was a trained alchemist and needed a job.

  He had eyed her with a critical eye. She was young, but not too much to have actual alchemist training, if maybe limited experience, and she seemed bright enough. She also had the kind of face that his customers would love. If she ever turned out to be a poor alchemist, he could always have used her to work the counter.

  He had tested her, of course, having her brew a few basic potions. Her precise, deliberate manipulations had secretly impressed him, but, more importantly, he had noticed how his son had seemed to show actual interest in how she did alchemy. Brenson had always struggled to find a way to teach his son that had kept his attention, so he thought he had finally found a solution.

  If the girl's way of doing alchemy was of interest to his son, he'd just have her teach him.

  A small crack appeared in his world.

  His feet carried him out of the town hall and onto the path leading him back home, as he kept replaying the sequence of events in his mind.

  At first, the girl teaching his son had seemed like a good idea. Emil was outright enthusiastic about attending the lessons, and whenever Brenson had checked in upon their session, he'd found her calmly explaining her process, and his son next to her, staring intently.

  He had even begun being able to answer some questions about the brewing process when Brenson had quizzed him over dinner and such. It warmed his fatherly heart to see his son starting to pick up after him, to walk in his stead. The way of the alchemist was a safe, profitable life. He was glad he could leave him with a sound business and a path forward, unlike the debts and looming noose his own father had left him with.

  But then, the girl had complained to him that his son wasn't listening properly, which was clearly not the case; he was entirely focused on her whenever they had their training sessions.

  A second crack snapped into reality.

  His eyes fed his legs with the information they needed to navigate through the foot traffic, as his story kept unfurling.

  He hadn't believed the girl, thinking she was trying to find a way out of having to teach his son. Well, so be it. Emil had made some progress, so he'd have him brew a batch of digestive aid as a test. He asked the girl to oversee him. If he could achieve this under her tutelage, then he'd be at least somewhat satisfied, and he'd allow her to tend the front desk while he'd handle his son's lessons.

  Only, that had turned out into a catastrophe. The digestive potion had looked somewhat murky, but he'd had done murky brews himself in the past, and they were still good potions, if a bit less pleasant to drink.

  The girl had tried warning him about selling the potion at all, but he figured that was just because she was ashamed that her instructions hadn't been fit for Emil to brew a better-quality potion.

  Only, he should have listened. Every single customer had come back angry and requesting a full refund, saying the digestives had made them void their bowels, some rather violently so.

  When he'd confronted the girl and his son, the girl had defended herself, saying she'd told him, while Emil had remained quiet. He'd taken him aside, and asked him to be honest with him. Had he simply failed his brew?

  His son had looked him in the face, his eyes shifting a few times, before he revealed a most foul secret; he had listened to the girl's instructions to the letter, but some of the manipulations had seemed strange to him. Emil had immediately asked her if it was normal, and she'd appeared stressed out, laughing it off, saying that she might have missed a step or two. She'd talk to his father about it, nothing to be worried about. And now that his dad was asking him about it, the young man wondered if, maybe, it had been done on purpose, and she was trying to hide something because he'd noticed?

  Immediately, Brenson figured out what it was; she had deliberately instructed his son to brew a bad potion, but he'd noticed it. She had tried to pass it off as a bad brew to Brenson, but he hadn't listened to her lies, and now he was suffering from the truth.

  A third crack joined the other two.

  His hands worked the handle to his shop. His feet brought him inside, and to his small study, where his leg lowered him into his chair at his desk. He slumped against the backrest, and his eyes stared into the distance.

  What if...

  What if his son hasn't shown interest in alchemy, not because Brenson's methods were bad, but simply because Emil didn't care?

  What if, it wasn't the girl's method that had caught his attention, but her?

  What if Emil's digestive had been his result, because he wasn't interested, hadn't listened, and when confronted with admitting that, after all this time of saying to his father that he was interested in alchemy, none of it had been true, and he really had simply failed the potion, he had lied one more time to avoid having his house of cards from falling down?

  The cracks grew, linking to each other, multiplying, the sound of glass dying before shattering into pieces.

  A whole different story, laid before him.

  A story that had begun with one simple lie from a young boy who had wanted to make his father happy, and from a father who had chosen to hear it as the truth.

  He looked at his hands. Aging, burned with alchemical substances, joints beginning to ache at the end of the day.

  Hands with which he had built himself a life, somehow managed to repay his father's debt, even secure a future for himself, finding a wife who had given him a beautiful son, before succumbing to illness and leaving only the two of them.

  Had he been wrong to believe his son before listening to a stranger?

  In this story, was he the bad guy?

  with her, because facing life together, is a lot easier than alone.