Chapter 1 One

They say being in love is the safest place to be. What a charming little lie.

Love itself is a sham, you see. A beautifully wrapped trap, baited with promises and pretty words, only to leave you drowning in pain and sorrow once the sweetness wears away.

You cannot heal in the very place that broke you.

And so, I have made it my final act of kindness to mend what was so carelessly ruined. I brew my potions, bottle away the ache, soften the memories, and send broken hearts back into the world with no sorrow. Weighing upon them.

I shall not stop until love can no longer hurt anyone. Or at least, until I have found a potion clever enough to make it behave.

Aren’t I a darling?

I sat behind the counter of my little shop, listening to yet another poor soul cry her eyes out. It had been a dreadfully long and stressful day, and if only these people knew how terribly uninterested, I was in listening to them mumble on about the same sort of heartbreak I had heard a hundred times before.

“Please help me forget about him,” poor Evelyn cried.

“With pleasure, darling,” I said with a smile. What would the people of Merribell do without me?

Evelyn sniffed and pushed a small handkerchief beneath her eyes. “He said he loved me.”

“They all do.”

“He promised he would never leave.”

“That’s the lie they sell”

“He even said he was going to marry me, that I was his one true love.”

I paused, studying her tearful face before giving her a sympathetic smile. “That one is particularly unfortunate.”

She stared at me through her tears. “Why?”

“Because men who say such things tend to be the worst scum.”

Evelyn gave a miserable little sob, and I reached beneath the counter for a small amber bottle before placing it gently in her trembling hands. “Two drops in your tea before bed, and no more than two, unless you fancy forgetting your own name, because I assure you, it makes introductions terribly awkward.”

She looked down at the bottle as though I had just handed her the answer to every problem she had ever had. “How much?”

“For you? Three silver crowns.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s all?”

I smiled sweetly as she counted out the coins. “You’re family Evelyn.”

She pressed the coins into my palm, thanked me about six times, and hurried out of the shop with her little bottle clutched against her chest, leaving the faint sound of the bell above the door chiming behind her.

I sighed, watching her disappear through the window as I tucked the coins into the little wooden box beneath the counter, quietly pleased that another customer had left with a lighter heart and a potion that would hopefully keep her from crying herself to sleep tonight.

Another heart saved, another man forgotten, and another perfectly ordinary evening at the finest heartbreak apothecary in all of Merribell.

The bell above the door chimed again, and when I looked up, expecting another heartbroken customer in need of my services, I found my mother standing in the doorway instead, her lips pressed into a thin line and her arms folded tightly across her chest.

“Mother,” I said, forcing a smile as she stepped inside. “What a surprise

It had been six months since I had last seen my mother, although I could hardly say I was surprised by her sudden appearance because she had always been rather fond of disappearing from my life and appearing again whenever it suited her, as though motherhood were a peculiar sort of seasonal occupation.

I had grown used to it over the years, so I merely stared at her for a moment before reaching beneath the counter for the kettle.

“Tea?”

“I didn’t come here for tea, Nellie.”

“Pity. I make an excellent tea.” Her expression remained unimpressed, which was hardly unusual where my mother was concerned, and I poured myself a cup anyway, watching her carefully from over the rim.

I already knew why she was here. There was only one reason my mother ever returned after one of her long disappearances, and judging by the way she kept twisting the ring on her finger, she had come bearing news she expected me to be delighted about.

“You’re getting married again,” I said.

Her fingers stopped moving as she looked at me. “How did you know?”

“Because you only remember you have a daughter when there’s a wedding involved.”

“That isn’t fair.”

“Neither was leaving me with Grandma every time you decided you needed to find yourself. I’m grown now, Mother, and old enough to know what abandonment feels like.”

She sighed and removed her gloves, placing them neatly on the counter before looking around the shop with the same disapproving expression she always wore whenever she visited.

“You’re still doing this.” I glanced at the shelves filled with colourful bottles, dried herbs, jars of enchanted petals, and enough heartbreak remedies to cure half the kingdom. “Yes, Mother. I am still doing this.”

“You could have done something more respectable.”

“I could have, but then who would help all these poor people forget their dreadful decisions, such as the ones you’re always making?”

“Nellie.” She gave me a stern look, the sort that used to frighten me when I was little but had rather lost its effect over the years.

“Whatever. Why are you really here?”

For a moment, neither of us spoke, and then she reached into her handbag and pulled out a small cream-colored envelope, placing it carefully on the counter between us.

“The wedding is in three weeks,” she said.

I looked at the envelope, then back at her. “Three weeks? That fast? And who is the unlucky man this time?”

She paused, rolled her eyes at me, and then smiled. “His name is Bernard.”

I closed my eyes. “And how long have you known Bernard?”

“Almost four months.”

I stared at her. “So, let me get this straight. You disappeared for six months, met a man four months ago, and somehow arranged a wedding before remembering to tell your own daughter? Or your own mother, for that matter?”

Her smile faltered. “I wanted to make sure it was serious.”

“Mother, you have been married four times.”

“Three.” She corrected

“The second husband was technically an annulment.”

“Exactly.”

“Which means you have been married three times and engaged six times.”

She picked up her gloves again and gave a small shrug. “I can’t help it when my heart wants what it wants.”

“Wow,” I said, staring at her in disbelief. “What a convenient and rather messed-up way of putting it. You’re an adult, Mother. You have a perfectly good brain, so perhaps you might use it for once.”

“I know what you think of me as a mother, but I did my best to be a good one to you. You simply never saw it.” She said faking a sob.

Here we go again. She was playing the old guilt card, the one she liked to keep tucked away for moments when she realized she had run out of excuses.

“What do you really want?” I asked, tired of hearing her nonsense, and she paused, hesitating as though she were suddenly unsure how to say whatever had brought her all the way to my shop.

“Speak, Mother.”

She let out a sigh and finally looked at me. “I need you to make a potion for me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Whose heart did you break this time, and whose memory are you trying to erase yourself from?”

“That’s not it,” she said, shaking her head.

“Then what is it?” She took another breath, looking almost uncomfortable now. “I need you to make a potion for me to bear a child.”

I froze, staring at her as I tried to decide whether I had heard her correctly. Of all the ridiculous things my mother had asked of me over the years, this was somehow the one that had managed to leave me completely speechless.