The Herbwitch's Apprentice Ireen Chau (best life changing books txt) 📖

me for staring at the mirror more times than I’d like to admit. She once told me all young ladies go through a phase of admiring their own beauty. I was embarrassed, but admittedly during that time, I found my features more pleasing than I had ever before.

As the days passed, another letter came from the palace, this time notifying us of the next event of the Season: a talent show. Hosted by the music mistress Madam Lucille, it would require the debutantes, as well as select young men who wished to join, to showcase their personal talents to the attendees of the Season. For me, this was cause for some anxiety.

“A talent show?” Tori said. She looked positively delighted. “Prime time to whip out my old lute.”

Genevieve decided to exhibit her watercolor paintings and do a live demonstration. Meanwhile, I was trying very hard not to think about all the things I was terrible at.

“I actually regret escaping stepmother’s lessons,” I moaned to an amused Genevieve. “Who would’ve thought this day would come?”

Lydia forced us to learn a multitude of ladylike arts, including playing the piano, painting, and embroidery, among other activities. I barely passed as mediocre on the piano and my embroidery was a definite disaster. Luckily, there were still two weeks to prepare.

Ash was similarly amused when I told him of my plight. I had returned to the library as promised and the two of us actually cleaned the east end, as he had requested the servants to leave the work for us.

“Why not try dancing?” he said, wiping the panes of the window with a damp rag as I swept the floor.

“You of all people should know I’m a mediocre dancer.” I had gotten surprisingly comfortable in his company.

He tapped his chin. “Sing a song, perhaps? I could play the piano. We’ll put on a good performance, you and I.”

I leaned over on my broom. “Only if you play exceptionally loudly to mask my terrible pitch.”

“Is there anything you’re good at?”

“Gardening.”

“Now there’s an idea! How do you feel about flower arrangement?”

“That is not the same thing, Ash.”

His face practically glowed. “You called me Ash.”

I masked my embarrassment with a scowl. “Well, it’s your name, isn’t it?”

His silly smile didn’t dissolve fast enough for my liking, so I spent the rest of the time in icy silence and calling him “Your Royal Highness” when I had to address him.

Though nothing came from the cleaning session, I decided to busy myself with Lana’s books and forget about the blasted talent show until it was close enough to worry about. A week before the event, my crystal vibrated, calling me to my first lesson with Lana. I deemed it much more important and enjoyable than a Season event, until I discovered that it involved toads.

“Bring it over here.”

I gingerly picked up the glass box in which a very large, very slimy toad sat and set it next to Lana. In addition to snails and cats, toads were creatures I absolutely detested, mostly because of their slick-looking skin and bulging eyeballs. When I came into Lana’s cottage first thing in the morning, I expected her to ask me about the reading she had assigned, but instead I was fetching things for her and bringing them to her potion-making room. One of them happened to be a toad.

I didn’t ask Lana what she was making, as she was too absorbed in her work to speak more than a few words at a time, the bulk of them commands. I stood to the side and watched her, fascinated, as she cut a wine-colored root into thin slices and scraped them into a stone pestle filled with a mixture of strange powders. I knew what each ingredient did. A good amount of them had detoxifying properties and some were meant to purify. Lana soon broke the silence.

“Open the lid.”

I jostled out of my trance. She couldn’t mean the toad.

“Well? Open it.” Her jab at the glass box melted away all doubt.

It was ridiculous to moan about my phobia of amphibians to Lana, so I swallowed my fear and lifted the lid. The toad’s eyes darted about, looking ready to leap out and attach itself on my face like a leech.

Lana selected a cotton swab from the multitude of tools before her and began stroking the toad below the chin. I watched with a mixture of disgust and fascination as a milky substance oozed from its back. Rings of fluorescent teal pulsed from the toad’s skin.

“Is that...?”

“Toad venom,” Lana said. She ran the swab across the creature and then closed the lid. Lana wiped the gooey substance into her bowl and began grinding the mixture with a mortar. After a moment, she walked over to the stone fireplace where she had told me to prepare a small cauldron with salted water. It was boiling when she scraped the ground contents inside.

I looked at the concoction doubtfully, wondering why Lana was putting venom in a potion. I recalled that a neighborhood girl’s dog died by toad venom a few years back and treacherously wondered if Lana was making poison. Was it for the Witch Market I had heard so much about?

“This is an antidote for mild poisoning,” Lana said as if reading my thoughts. She stirred the cauldron with a wooden stick, looking every bit like the witch she was. Her face betrayed none of her thoughts. Though serious, she looked calmer than she did the first time I saw her.

“An antidote? With venom in it?”

“Have you not read anything I gave you?”

“I have!” I said, scrambling for the books in my bag. I didn’t want to disappoint her. “But I only started the third one. On potion making.”

Lana glanced at the book in my lap and raised an eyebrow. Only then did I notice the dust jacket of A Sailor’s Seduction was still wrapped around it, depicting a very saucy image of a bare-chested man. I yanked off the jacket and shoved it back