Chapter 110 Iron Root and Moon Jasmine
"Elder Veda will be touching down at the private airfield at six o'clock," Elder Thorpe announced, checking his pocket watch as he stepped into the warm, lemon-scented kitchen. He looked slightly out of place standing on the linoleum, a man of parchment and old laws surrounded by copper pots and the smell of ginger.
Leela nodded, pressing the cool ceramic mug to her forehead. "Good. That gives us a few hours to prep the mixture."
She turned to Elana, who was already rummaging through the deep shelves of the walk-in pantry. "Momma Blackwood, do we have the Iron Root?"
"Found it, dear," Elana’s voice drifted out, followed by the sound of glass clinking. She emerged holding a large mason jar filled with gnarled, dark brown roots that looked like petrified fingers. "It’s been drying since last autumn. It should be potent."
"Perfect," Leela said, taking the heavy jar and clutching it to her chest. "Now I just need the Jasmine. I have the dried moon-blooms stored in the apothecary cabinet in the greenhouse."
She turned toward the back door, her hand resting on the handle, needing to get out of the house, away from the study, and into the air. She paused and looked back at the man in the suit.
"Would you like to accompany me, Elder?" she asked quietly. "Fresh air might clear the dust of the Lex Terrae from your lungs."
Thorpe blinked, surprised by the invitation. He had expected anger, or at least cold distance, after what they had shown her in the study.
"Indeed, I would," he said, bowing his head slightly.
He grabbed his coat, and they stepped out into the crisp, cooling air of the late afternoon.
The walk to the greenhouse was silent, but heavy. Thorpe found himself walking a half-step behind her, observing. He watched the way she moved—heavy with child, tired, yet moving with a deliberate, grounded grace. He felt the guilt of it—heavy as a stone in his gut. He was part of the system that had failed her. He was part of the Council that had let Vane rise while they argued over semantics.
He wanted to walk with her not to lecture her, but to see the world through the eyes of the woman they were asking to save it.
Leela pushed open the glass door of the greenhouse, and the air hit them—warm, humid, and thick with the smell of damp earth and blooming life. It was a sensory shock after the sterile, death-filled atmosphere of the library.
She didn't stop at the plants. She walked straight to the back, where a large, antique wooden cabinet stood against the glass wall. It was filled with rows of apothecary jars, each labeled in Leela’s neat handwriting.
Thorpe stood back, watching her scan the shelves.
"You keep a formidable inventory," he noted softly.
"Nature doesn't always bloom when you need it to, Elder," Leela said, her voice echoing slightly in the glass room. "You have to be ready."
She reached up and pulled down a jar filled with delicate, dried white flowers that looked like crumpled tissue paper. Even through the glass, they looked fragile.
"Moon-Blooming Jasmine," she whispered, tracing the label. "Harvested during the last full moon. It absorbed the light when the connection to the Goddess was strongest."
She turned to face him, holding the jar of dried flowers in one hand and the jar of gnarled roots in the other.
"You had the magic at the ends of your fingertips, Elder Thorpe. You study the Lex Terrae and the history of power," she said, her green eyes piercing him. "But you've been without your power for so long that you forget that magic isn't ink on a page."
She shook the jar of jasmine gently, the scent drifting from the shaken jar.
"It's this. It's roots that anchor you to the earth and flowers that hide you from the dark. It's cooking. It's gardening."
Thorpe looked at the jars, then back at her face. He saw the terrifying resolve of a mother preparing to use soup ingredients to fight a necromancer.
"We have forgotten," Thorpe admitted, his voice raspy. "The Council... we have been looking at the sky for so long, we forgot to look at the ground."
Leela looked down at the Iron Root and Moon Jasmine in her hand, her knuckles turning white.
"That's it, Vane has forgotten too," she said, her voice dropping to a dangerous, low pitch. "He thought because he buried us, that the elementals were gone. He thinks the earth is just dirt to move from point a to point b to make room for a new laboratory."
She looked back up at Thorpe, her eyes flashing with the cold, hard promise of winter.
"But when he comes back... he is going to get a reminder of everything he tried to kill."