Chương 50: Nothing Hurt

Nothing hurt, which was wrong enough that I noticed before I properly opened my eyes. Gray morning light pressed through the curtains, leaving the room in a soft half-dark while the office below began its day with the scrape of crates, opening drawers, and someone arguing quietly about a missing ledger. Yesterday, a full breath had pulled at my ribs, and turning onto my left side had been worse.

The healer had put my shoulder back where it belonged, wrapped the bruising, and told me to spend several days doing as little as possible, so I drew in a slow breath and waited for the pain that should have followed. Nothing came. I pushed the blankets aside and stood carefully, expecting my right hip to tighten once it took my weight.

It held without complaint, and when I raised my right arm above my head, the shoulder moved cleanly enough that I tried it again just to make sure the first attempt had not been luck. The mirror near the window gave me more reasons to stop. Yesterday's swelling near my cheek had disappeared, the split at the corner of my mouth had closed, and when I opened my sleeping shirt, the dark bruising across my ribs was gone as well. I pressed the place where the healer had made me swear at him.

When that produced nothing, I crouched and discovered that my left knee had also decided to stop clicking after nearly twelve years of announcing every cold morning. That was when my sleeves slipped back. The scars on my forearms were gone. I turned both arms beneath the window light, searching for marks I had carried long enough to recognize without thinking.

The calluses remained, as did the rough skin over my hands and the old thickness around several joints, but the pale line near my wrist, the three shorter scars farther up, and the rough patch near my elbow had disappeared. Below, someone finally found the missing ledger and announced this loudly enough for the entire office to know. The building continued with its ordinary morning while I sat on the edge of the bed looking at arms that had apparently forgotten several decades of history.

My attention moved to the small table beside the door. My coat hung over the chair, my gloves resting across the top. Beside them sat a narrow brown bottle with only a thin amount of liquid remaining at the bottom. I picked it up and turned the glass. There was no apothecary seal around the neck. A strip of paper had been fixed to one side. Batch Eleven. Below it sat a date and several measurements in Joe's compact handwriting. Yesterday rearranged itself quickly after that.

The closed restaurant, cinnamon tea, soup, and two nearly identical brown bottles had all been sitting close together while Joe moved between the counter and stove. I had eaten part of the soup before reaching for one. Later, without checking it again, I had taken the same bottle home.

"That is inconvenient," I said, though the bottle showed no interest in defending itself. I dressed, put it carefully into my coat, and went downstairs. The Clovefield Company office smelled of paper, leather oil, and the tea steeping in the rear room. Morning deliveries had already started, and one of the clerks had left an open ledger across the exact place I normally put my elbow, so I moved it aside and took out a clean sheet. There was no point explaining what I did not understand.

I wrote only what could be checked: the gargoyle injury, the healer's treatment, the pain that had remained afterward, the meal at The Second Spark, and the wrong bottle. Then I wrote what had changed. No bruising. No pain. Full movement. Old knee pain absent. Old scars absent. The kettle in the rear room began to whistle just as the front door opened.

"Hey, Dad, heard about the gargo—" Amon stopped in my doorway with one glove still in his hand. The wind had pushed his hair into several directions, and cold clung to the shoulders of his coat as he looked at me, then behind me, then back at me as though the injured version might be standing elsewhere in the office.

"You look fine," he said slowly.

"People told me two guild workers had to help you walk yesterday."

"They did, and I would have preferred them to exaggerate." I turned one arm beneath the desk lamp.

"This morning has been more difficult to explain." His attention dropped to my forearm and stayed there.

"Dad, where are your scars?" He came around the desk before I answered, pointing near my wrist.

"You had one here, three farther up, and that ugly one near your elbow."

"I remember my own arms." I looked at the smooth skin where the longest mark had been.

"The coat from that particular incident was worse than the scar, if I remember correctly." Amon stared at me.

"The creature nearly opened your arm."

"It also ruined a very good coat."

"That is what you remember?"

"It was expensive." He sat across from me without taking off his coat, and for a few moments neither of us spoke. The kettle stopped whistling somewhere in the back room, replaced by the muffled clink of cups and the scratch of pens from the outer office. Then Amon's gaze dropped toward my left knee. I should not have followed it.

"You checked that too, didn't you?" His mouth moved at one corner.

"I know that look."

"I stood up this morning and noticed it had stopped clicking." I rested both hands on the desk.

"There was very little investigation required."

"You crouched to test it."

"I wanted confirmation."

"Then show me."

"I am not crouching for your entertainment."

"This is medical observation."

"You are not a healer."

"I have listened to that knee complain every winter since I was a child. I qualify as a witness." Two clerks in the outer office became noticeably quieter. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. I stood, crouched once, then straightened. The knee remained silent. Amon's amusement disappeared for a moment. Then he leaned forward again.

"You always say one result does not prove anything. You should probably do it twice." I sat down instead.

"I regret teaching you that."

"That means I remembered it correctly." He finally noticed the bottle near my notes. The humor went out of his face much faster this time.

"What did you drink?" he asked.

"And please tell me Joe knew you were drinking it." I turned the label toward him. Amon read Batch Eleven, then looked at me again.

"I thought it was the healer's potion," I said.

"The bottles were almost identical, and I had recently been dropped by a gargoyle."

"That is a surprisingly good defense." He picked up the bottle carefully and tilted it until the remaining liquid moved along the bottom.

"It is also not a defense I expected to hear this morning." I explained what had happened at The Second Spark. By the end, Amon was looking between the bottle and my arms as though one of them might confess.

"So Joe accidentally fixed you."

"We do not know that yet."

"You accidentally drank his potion, and injuries older than I am disappeared overnight." Amon set the bottle down.

"I understand your caution. I am still going to say Joe probably fixed you."

"We are going to ask the person who made it before deciding what it did."

"That sounds responsible." I reached for my coat. Amon stood with me.

"Which is why I'm coming."

"You have work."

"I also have a father who misplaced twenty years of scars overnight." He pulled on his second glove.

"The morning schedule can survive me being late."

"You cannot criticize my decisions and then use them to justify your own."

"I can if yours are worse." I put the bottle into a padded document pouch. Amon noticed immediately.

"You carried that loose in your coat yesterday."

"Yesterday I thought it cost a few kamera."

"And today?" I secured the clasp.

"Today I am less certain." That quieted him until we were halfway down the street. The morning had turned colder while we were inside. Wind flattened smoke against the rooftops and tugged at hanging shop signs, while the stones remained dark from the previous evening's rain. Walking still felt strange because there was nothing to manage. My hip moved freely, and the old warning from my knee never arrived, even when we took the slope near the western market.

"You are testing the leg again," Amon said after watching me take the longer side around a cart.

"You chose the slope on purpose."

"There was more room on this side."

"There was also more hill."

"I am walking to the restaurant either way."

"You wanted to know whether it hurt going downhill." I kept walking. Amon smiled.

"That is usually how you admit I am right." The Second Spark came into view before I decided whether pushing him into the canal would count as undoing the potion's work. Yesterday, the restaurant had been closed and quiet enough for the music to carry cleanly through the room. Today, the windows were fogged with heat, and three wall workers came through the door as we approached, carrying wrapped meals while warm air rolled around them with the smell of broth, browned onions, bread, and roasted meat.

Inside, the room carried several conversations at once. Bowls touched tables, chairs scraped over wood, the tray route rattled through the passage, and someone near the front window laughed while a child attempted to balance a spoon across the rim of a cup. The music was still there beneath everything else. Nessa noticed us before we reached the counter.

"We need Joe when he has time," I said.

"There is no reason to interrupt lunch." Her eyes moved toward the kitchen.

"Then take the table near the window before someone else does. I'll bring tea." Amon waited until we sat.

"We did not order tea."

"You were going to." Nessa kept walking. Amon watched her go.

"She does that deliberately."

"She feeds you deliberately too."

"That does not disprove my point." We waited with the warm cups between our hands while the restaurant moved around us. Tovan worked the production stove, Evelyn handled the routes, and Nessa crossed between the counter and tables without looking toward the kitchen for help. Joe stayed at his stove. Amon noticed.

"He is not running around."

"He built things so he would not have to."

"The restaurant?"

"The work." Amon looked around again, quieter this time. Tovan eventually glanced through the service opening and saw us. His attention paused on my face, dropped briefly toward my arms, and then shifted to Joe. He said something. Joe looked up. The cloth in his hands stopped moving. His eyes found me, then my forearms. Amon leaned back.

"That is the face I wanted to see." Joe came out of the kitchen and pulled over the empty chair.

"You're walking normally, and your scars are gone." His attention moved between my arms and my face.

"Those were both true yesterday?"

"That question would have sounded absurd this morning." I placed the padded pouch on the table.

"Now it is merely repetitive." Joe opened it. His expression changed when he saw the label.

"Batch Eleven."

"That appears to be what I drank. I took most of the remaining half bottle after eating about half your soup." Joe looked at me sharply, then at the bottle. He asked about dizziness, shaking, nausea, sleep, appetite, and anything unusual in my mana. I answered while Amon listened with decreasing patience, though he managed not to interrupt until Joe reached the end of my notes.

"So what exactly did he drink?" Amon asked.

"Because 'recovery potion' seems to be losing some accuracy."

"That is what I made it for." Joe touched the bottle with one finger.

"On me it helps with training soreness, bruising, and fatigue. It has never removed old injuries." I rolled my sleeve farther back.

"Some of those scars were more than twenty years old." Joe reached toward my wrist, then stopped.

"Can I check the old scar location?" I turned my arm closer. His fingers rested lightly where the longest mark had been.

"You are certain this was still here yesterday?"

"Joe, I did not accidentally lose several decades of scar tissue while walking home." Amon took a drink of tea.

"I was going to phrase that less politely." Joe considered the point.

"Fair." A tray rolled behind him carrying three steaming bowls toward the front. Joe stayed seated. That caught my attention. A year ago, he would have looked over his shoulder every few breaths. Now Tovan had the stove, Evelyn had the routes, and Nessa had the room. Amon tapped one finger beside the bottle.

"What happens next?" Joe turned the glass slowly beneath his fingers.

"I make Batch Eleven again exactly as I made it before. If the result cannot be reproduced, there is no point building theories around it." Amon studied him.

"That is annoyingly reasonable."

"Most of my reasoning is reasonable." Amon looked at me. I looked at Joe. Joe noticed.

"You both disagree?"

"I said nothing."

"You did not need to." That earned the smallest smile from Amon. Joe folded my notes beside the bottle.

"The dose and food condition were close to mine, but the result was completely different. The body receiving it may matter more than I assumed." That was as far as he went. One strange morning was enough evidence to ask better questions. It was not enough to answer them. The front door opened again, letting cold air run along the floorboards before the warmth swallowed it. Around us, lunch continued while the little brown bottle remained between three cups of tea. Amon looked at my arms once more.

"So the good news is that Dad feels better, and the bad news is that nobody understands why." Joe rested his hand beside the bottle.

"That is a reasonable summary." Amon looked pleased.

"I would like that noted somewhere." I finished the last of my tea before either of them could improve the conversation further. Outside, wind moved along the gray street. Inside, the windows stayed warm and fogged while The Second Spark carried on around us. Whatever Batch Eleven had done, we had enough questions for one morning.