I heard footsteps, they sounded too loud to me but I smelled a scent I recognized, and then Serru came into sight, a small bottle in one hand. The shape was the same as the Quickheal bottles, but the contents were swirls of transparent colour, chasing each other around. I should probably be able to identify it by now, since it looked vaguely familiar, but it just wouldn’t click. She paused a short way off, evaluating; I gave her as much of a smile as I could, which would probably have fit better in a bad zombie movie, and she came over to kneel in front of me.

  “Here,” she said, holding out the bottle.

  I didn’t bother to confirm what it was. I just opened it and took as much of a swallow as I could.

  It tasted, no joke, like the best chocote ever, with a touch of vanil that softened and deepened the fvour. Thin though it looked, I could feel it slide down my throat, radiating heat gently as it passed, and the warmth soaked into my aching muscles and coaxed them into rexing, settled the churning of my stomach, even eased the emotional edginess and the brain fog. It didn’t wave a wand and make it so nothing had happened, but as it spread and did its work, it made the world feel much less difficult to bear.

  “Remind me what that was?”

  “Recovery,” Serru said. “One-fifth each of Quickheal, Anodyne, Refresh, Lulbye, and Soce. It will help recalibrate everything in your body in the aftermath. The ones we had got used and I couldn’t repce them.”

  A trace of Quickheal might help stabilize things like core temperature, blood pressure, blood glucose levels, even though I’d already had one. Would a very small amount of Lulbye act as a muscle rexant? I was pretty sure it had. Refresh’s energy boost might help with brain fog. Pain control against lingering aches. Soce to chase away the troubled emotions so they didn’t complicate things further.

  And the fvour was very... comfort-food-ish. The fvour lingered, not normally one that appealed to my kitty pate but nonetheless somehow reassuring in itself.

  “Wish I could make that one.” Carefully, I got up, using the tree for support until I was sure I was stable. Neither of my friends touched me, but Serru stepped closer, clearly ready to catch me if I fell. Aryennos scooped up my backpack before I even thought of that and slung it on his own shoulder. “Someone mentioned an inn? I think I’d like that.”

  “I’ve made arrangements already at an inn on the edge of the city, one popur with felids and others who are sensitive because it’s quiet and protected. We can go outwards and around to reach it, without being anywhere deeper. It’s some way around.”

  “Oh, yes, please. That sounds great. Wait, maybe four legs?” One hand still on the tree, I gestured to bring up my interface.

  Rosy-pink light flickered into sight, but it was blurry, like the low-res victim of too much cropping and zooming over and over, the words illegible and the icons so indistinct that I could barely make them out. When I reached for the dial, it wouldn’t move in response to my touch.

  Wow. That must have been one massive short-circuit.

  “Not going to work,” I said. “Can we go to the inn?”

  Serru nodded. “Take your time, we’ll go at your pace. Has this ever happened before?”

  “No.” Recovery was good stuff. I could actually focus now, more or less. Okay, still less, but better all the time. “Seen it happen. Never me.”

  “Hm. It is more likely for felids, perhaps it’s connected to this shape. We’ll need to be careful in cities. There are things we can buy that will help.”

  “What things?” Her voice was giving me something familiar and trusted to keep my attention on, while she led the way out of the orchard and back to the street.

  “There is a type of tent which is too small to sleep in but comfortable to sit in, they don’t st nearly as long but the setup is much faster. Like any tent they are completely dark and have a steady temperature, but these ones are also nearly soundproof and they keep out scent. On the outside they are highly visible, patterned with bright colours. They are meant to create a small private space with no sensory distractions. Some people use them so they can concentrate on something, but they were meant for this sort of situation. It’s perfectly acceptable, at need, to simply set one up at the side of the street.”

  “That sounds helpful. And kind.” I was fairly sure that many of the people I’d talked to would love access to something like that. Knowing this world, they wouldn’t even have a jacked-up specialist-item price tag.

  “I will not ask right now why that should be unexpected kindness. We will make sure we have extra Recovery potions. There are also objects, often somewhere between toys and jewellery, that help distract and redirect. One of my sisters has a favourite one that helps her when she is feeling overwhelmed, she wears it as a neckce. We will see what is avaible that feels right to you.”

  “No potions that stop it? Or fix it?”

  “Fix what? Nothing is broken. My sister Charlisa is highly sensitive to taste and scent in particur and the things she bakes are wonderful because of it. She would not be herself if that were somehow taken away. If she sometimes fails to recognize a joke as such, especially when tired or distracted, and finds eye contact uncomfortable and rge gatherings tiring, and those who love her need to be more mindful, what of it?”

  I had questions, but I wasn’t sure I could deal with the answers right now. I just tried very hard to ignore sounds and smells, my ears fttened and a sprig of rosemint Serru gave me held just under my nose, until we got back out where it was quieter. We went around the city, and ventured back in at a different point. I winced, expecting a repetition that I really didn’t have the strength for, but the inn wasn’t far in and mostly we passed houses and their gardens, not businesses, until we reached our goal.

  The inn itself was literally surrounded by a staggered double row of rge trees with a dense hedge between the rows. Between the trees I saw several wooden benches alternating with beds of leafy pnts. Upper-floor rooms had small balconies.

  The innkeeper, a human woman around Serru’s height but about half again as wide, her hair vividly green and her skin a soft brown with ruddy highlights, simply greeted Serru and nodded towards the stairs. “You have eight, nine, and ten.”

  “Thank you,” I said, although it was mostly on reflex—always be polite! She smiled and inclined her head, but didn’t reply. Aryennos shooed me towards the stairs, and followed me up them, and I assumed Serru was behind him, though I heard a brief murmur of voices.

  Aryennos stopped at the room with a symbol on it that my mind said meant 9, although I wasn’t sure that was right, and opened the door.

  The room in question was cozy and comfortable. It primarily housed a simple bed, rge enough for two humans if they were friendly, the frame made of wood and the bnkets the usual soft stuff I couldn’t quite identify. There was a small wooden table with two chairs, and a kind of alcove that had a compact copper-lined sink with a mirror over it, and a number of pegs along one wall with a stack of shelves in the corner near them.

  The walls were a basic cream, and the floor the same mellow golden-brown I’d seen often here and the furniture and windowframe were the same; the bedding had a soft gradient from deep teal to pale aquamarine and back again, and the pegs and shelves were painted in variations of that.

  Having left my backpack on one of the chairs, Aryennos partly opened one of the pair of gss doors that gave access to the balcony, then pulled the teal curtains closed over them. They were very heavy and dark and did an excellent job of shutting out the light, even muffling noises, without having to cut off all fresh air.

  “Rest,” he said. “We’ll see if we can find something easy to eat. Try not to be startled if we knock on the door, all right? No one’s going to bother you otherwise, you have as long as you need.”

  I nodded and sank down on the edge of the bed. “Sorry.”

  “I don’t know what for.” He smiled, and closed the door behind him on the way out.

  I flopped on the bed. The rosemint was still in my hand, its gentle pleasant scent masking anything else.

  This was something that I needed to make sure never, ever happened again. Once, well, I could probably categorize it as educational, but that was plenty.

  Honestly, it didn’t one hundred percent match a lot of what I’d been told, but I’d also been told, over and over, that every single individual experienced it differently, and there was no checklist. I was recovering retively quickly, but I’d also had friends who knew what to do, a quiet pce to hide, and two potions to give me a substantial boost. And despite all that, I still felt like I’d done a double shift overnight on New Year’s while still not quite over the flu.

  Resting sounded good. Here in quiet twilight.