When Tric and Heppa return to the Parting Glass, they have a bundle of new clothes for Kachen, along with a new satchel in which Heppa has put some spending money for him. Tric carries the materials up to the room and checks on the mage. Kachen is asleep on his bed. Mate, though, is quite active. The magpie immediately flies over to Tric, demanding payment for performing guard duty. “It’s lunchtime, c’mon,” Tric says, inviting the bird along for stew. “He’ll be fine for half an hour on his own.” Mate rides Tric’s shoulder downstairs.
Heppa, meanwhile, gives Alric a kiss on the cheek and discusses her plans for the afternoon. She needs to make a new batch of medicine for Kachen, but she does not want to be underfoot while Yggy works in the kitchen. Dapper inkcap is too dangerous for her to work with in an enclosed space, anyway. Alric doubts she would remain undisturbed in the alley behind the inn, but he is fine with her working up on the roof. After she and Tric have lunch, Alric goes up there with her to help her set up. He reminds her about the harness and clips, in case she is worried about falling off the roof. She assures him she will stay in the middle with her distillation apparatus. They drag out one of the spare tables stored in the attic and put it in a stable location, protected from wind. Heppa gets out her alchemy supplies and begins setting up equipment.
“You look cute in my old vest,” Alric tells her with a smile. “It’s good that it’s getting use here.” Heppa gives him a kiss, and he leaves her to return to his own work. Still beaming from the compliment, she fishes out her Dunefolk-style scarf and wraps it around her face for added protection from dapper inkcap fumes. Then, with Alric’s feathered family nearby, she sets to work.
Over the course of the afternoon, she mixes, brews, percolates, distills, condenses, and precipitates. During a window where none of the alchemy requires her direct attention, she sits down cross-legged on the shingles to meditate as Ruthiel taught her. Initially it is harder to tap into the fae currents up on the roof of a building in the middle of a human city, as compared to in a mossy grove in an elvish forest. However, nature is more than just soft ground underneath, and as Heppa embraces the feel of the wind and the sounds of the falcons, she finds that centeredness that has eluded her in the past.
By dinnertime, in addition to a few experimental potions, she has a three month supply of keep-away-undead powder for Kachen to ingest in tea form. Working with the dapper inkcap was unnerving at times, as Heppa’s supply is fresher than what Kachen provided back in her village, but she feels no ill effects from it when the project is complete. She has used up a bunch of what she foraged in the Heart Mountains, but the remaining amount is still enough to set Fenowin off, she is sure. Perhaps she will sell it before returning home. Given how low Rhaessa’s supplies were, the House of Light might be a market.
Heppa writes up the instructions for how to make Kachen’s medicine. He would have lost his previous copy with all his other supplies. Now caught up in her writing, Heppa then proceeds to draw a wide-area map for him. That seems like a useful item for him to have. Every traveler should have a map, as far as she is concerned. As usual, though, she gets distracted, filling the page with what she really thinks Kachen needs, which is advice and guidance on maintaining proper nutrition. There are more illustrations of edible plants than significant landmarks.