As Hazel made her way to Myrefall, she frequently glanced back over her shoulder to check for movement in the trees. Even though Crow had told her that he wouldn’t follow her to the meeting, she was skeptical. In all the years she had known him, she had learned that the thief had a surprising amount of integrity for a criminal. Whenever he made a promise, he always tried his hardest to stay true to his word. However, she also knew that he could be quite the fox when he wanted to be. If there was a way for him to get what he wanted without breaking their deal, he would find it.

She narrowed her eyes as she caught a flicker of movement in the shadow of a tree behind her. In the next moment, a deer stepped into view, craned its neck to look at her, and then bounded away. She let out her breath in a quiet sigh, turning around to keep walking. Even if he was tailing her to the village, she didn’t know why she was even bothering to try to catch him. The thief knew how to slip past bounty hunters who based their livelihood on capturing criminals like him, so she, an herbalist with no training in hunting anyone, had no chance at even catching a glimpse of him.

After a while, she decided it wasn’t worth the effort to keep trying, so she gave up and hastened her pace to reach Myrefall faster.

When she finally arrived at the tavern, she was quick to spot the two noblewomen at a table near the back of the room. She weaved between the other tables and chairs until she reached the two and then sat down in an open seat across from them. Like the last time, Jane got right down to business by asking how the medicine was working now that they had adjusted it. The herbalist shook her head as she responded, “I’m honestly not sure. There hasn’t been as much of a change as I was expecting. My patient’s symptoms seem to have stagnated. He’s still coughing blood every other day, even after taking the improved poultice for almost a week. There’s slightly less blood than before, but other than that, nothing has changed.”

“That’s not too surprising,” Jane said with a faint smile, as if she was amused by something. “It will probably take longer than a week for you to see any real changes this time. The herbs you’ve been giving your patient are blood thinners. They don’t work overnight. If they’re doing their job, the results will come gradually as the blood clots are removed.”

“How long does that take?” Hazel frowned, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms.

“It depends on the person,” Jane shrugged. “Sometimes the symptom is more severe and takes longer to heal from, and sometimes a patient’s blood is just slow to thin. It’s impossible to give an exact range of time for you to expect to see any difference.”

“I see,” Hazel said thoughtfully. “But there will be a difference eventually?”

“Even that is hard to say,” the physician shook her head. “Sometimes the herbs don’t cure the disease; they simply prevent it from getting worse. Since you said you’ve seen no change in your patient for better or for worse, it is also possible that he won’t ever fully heal, but as long as he continues to take the remedy, he won’t die either.”

[i]Crow won’t be happy to hear that,[/i] Hazel thought with a grimace as she imagined the thief’s reaction to learning he might stay sickly for the rest of his life. “So how should I approach it from here?” she asked, taking out her journal. “Just keep doing the same thing until something happens?”

“Pretty much,” Jane nodded. “You can experiment with how much of the blood thinning herbs you add to the medicine too, but aside from that, the best you can do is keep trying and pray that your patient improves.”

“Alright then,” Hazel said, jotting down a couple of quick notes and putting her book and quill away. She pursed her lips in thought for a moment as she held the physician’s gaze across the table. “It seems like we’ve reached the closest thing to a cure for this illness as we can get from our shared knowledge. I suppose this means we no longer need to meet, does it not?”