Ever since the encounter with the fennel, Lucian couldn't stop thinking about Merry. He reread her note and traces of the same green sparkles still remained. Her words echoed in his mind: "Try not to pull too hard on the land without listening first."
He hadn't felt the hunger for a mentor in a long time. Ever since he arrived, Lucian always assumed he would have to learn everything himself. And as his journey in this strange world progressed, he realized how daunting a task that really was.
Rosa, Lucy, and Michael helped him from spiraling into complete despair, but they also didn't understand him. This woman did, and he wanted to meet her again.
Unfortunately, Michael's scheduled bread delivery was once a week. Time passing hadn't meant much to him until this point—inside the warmth of the workshop, days and nights blended together.
To take his mind off of Merry and thinking about druid-mortician rites, Lucian threw himself into candlemaking with Michael. He closed his books and put them in a corner of the guest room.
"I appreciate you trying," Michael said softly, as he carved another candle out of white wax. "And not giving me badly trimmed wicks or messily knotted tags."
"Thank you for letting me do it," Lucian replied as he cut another wick. The repetitive actions had become relaxing instead of mind-numbing, and his thoughts actually strayed away from the bread girl for once.
"After all of my travels…I never realized how tense I was."
+
And then, early one morning, Lucian felt it first.
Not the sound of a knock, or the scent of bread—but a subtle lifting of pressure behind his eyes.
Like the spiritual noise crowding his head was being filtered through cotton and thyme.
Michael didn't flinch when the bell above the workshop door jingled. He just wiped his hands on his apron and called:
"Bread girl."
Lucian looked up and suppressed the urge to tear the door open.
She entered without fanfare. No shoes. Boots slung from one finger by the laces. A basket balanced on her hip. Hair tied back in a band of fraying red wool. She smelled like fennel and salt.
She smiled at Michael.
He handed her a wax parcel of tapers without speaking.
And then she turned to Lucian.
Their eyes met.
The world bent quietly inward.
Not a spell. Not an invocation.
Just recognition.
And for a moment, all the ghosts pressing in on Lucian — the grief-seared whispers, the layered rites, the guilt of Alice and Rosa, the echoes of Queen Marguerite's scrying gaze — went still.
Lucian didn't move.
Neither did she.
Then, gently, she walked past him and placed a bundle of rosemary in Alice's hand. Alice blinked and murmured something Lucian didn't catch.
The girl turned toward the door.
"Wait," Lucian said. "Can I ask—"
She looked back, still smiling.
"One of your glyphs can be interpreted as suffocation instead of supplication."
Lucian blinked.
She reached into her pocket, drew a slender black twig, and with it traced a correction in the corner of a half-scrawled rite on the table.
"You're shaping your words too sharply."
She tucked the twig behind her ear.
"Be careful. The earth hears everything."
Lucian opened his mouth again, but she raised a finger.
"I have deliveries to make."
Then she was gone.
+
Alice held the rosemary gently.
"She knows what I am," she said. "And still… gave me this."
Lucian sat beside her.
"She sees things no mirror can reflect."
Alice leaned into his shoulder.
"Is she real?"
Lucian nodded.
"Realer than most."
+
That night, the Grimoire stirred on its own.
Pages fluttered like wings. Then lines of text appeared across the book in soft green ink:
[CODEX UPDATED]
Name: Merry, Druid Mortician
Status: Living
Rite Contributor Class: Wildform Interpreter
Emotion Interface: Compatible
Visibility to Dead: Suppressed
System Registry: Expunged
Lucian ran his finger beneath the last line.
"They erased her."
The Grimoire hummed once, then wrote again:
She asked them to.
Later that night, he lit a candle for the unnamed soul he'd tried to guide two days ago — the one whose farewell rite had faltered.
He rewrote it under Merry's corrections, added in the missing curve, changed the root shape to a breathing glyph.
Seed-Sown Farewell: Replanted
When he activated it this time, the spirit didn't scatter.
It didn't speak, either.
It simply sat with him for several minutes, a pale shape beside the flame.
And then it was gone.
He looked up to find Alice watching him.
"You're getting better," she said softly.
Lucian leaned back.
"No. I'm getting quieter."
She tilted her head.
"Is that a bad thing?"
He shook his head.
"Not here."
+
The next morning, Michael found him holding a wand made of yew. Lucian turned it over with his gloved hand, almost obsessively. He cleared his throat and Lucian looked up.
"...do you think I'm losing myself, Michael?"
The Tallowman raised an eyebrow. "is that what you're afraid of?"
"No. That's what the Queen's afraid of."
Michael scratched the back of his neck.
"I think you're finally not writing rites for other people. You're writing them for the world."
+
That afternoon, Lucian wandered into the orchard behind the Sweetwater farm. It was overgrown, but the trees still bore fruit. He used his cane to tap the bark of an old ash tree, and saw the glowing marks it left behind.
Seems safe...and no spirits attached to it--even better. Using his fingers now, he traced along the bark of the old ash tree and closed his eyes. He didn't ask it for anything; he just concentrated on his breathing.
The twig Merry left behind was tucked safely inside his coat pocket. Sensing the stillness, Lucian's Grimoire appeared and wrote a new observation: Nature responds, it does not question. You are becoming a response now, instead of mere instruction.
Lucian smiled faintly.
He returned to the workshop and found Alice carefully sorting candle ends by scent.
Rosemary. Birch. Salt. Ash.
"You know what each of these means now," he said.
She nodded.
"And what they meant to her. Rosa. The way she folded the wick. The way she burned them upside down, because she thought that made the wishes stick."
Lucian sat across from her.
"You remember all that?"
"I think… I became her memory."
She looked at him, eyes distant.
"But if I carry too many of hers, I won't know which ones were mine."
Lucian said nothing. He just reached out and held her wrist.
"You're still here," he said softly. "That's enough."
+
That evening, another letter arrived, sealed using fern fibers.
Lucian unwrapped it and read:
Lucian,
Your grief is softening. That's good.
But the things hunting you still follow.
I can show you how to walk with muffled footsteps.
Come to Houndsberry Hollow.
You'll need this glyph.
Cast it before you leave, or you'll never find the door.
Bring your stick.
—Merry
Attached was a small scroll with a glyph shaped like an earthen loop wrapped in breath. Lucian folded the note and held it to his chest.
The Grimoire opened quietly and added its latest observation:
Field Anchor Detected
Natural guidance forming
User now walks both systems and soil
That night, Lucian sat on the porch of the workshop, the yew stick in one hand, and a candle guttering in the other.
He didn't light it. Instead, he just listened to the trees, to Alice's breath, and, most importantly--to the silence his rites were beginning to grow from.