As soon as Felix touched the coin, it burst into flame. The flame hovered in the air for a moment before it started flickering rapidly, the air warping in time to its rhythm. A moment later, he could hear Grandma’s voice coming from the flame.

  “Ah, Felix, don’t mind the way I’m delivering this message. Listen, I need you to pick up a package for me. Go to Caelwyn and find a little golem shop run by a guy named Kethrix. He’ll ask you some questions to make sure it’s really you and tell you what to do with my delivery. Thanks, sweetie. Bye.”

  As soon as the message was done, the flame finished consuming the coin and winked out of existence.

  For a long while, Felix sat still, frowning at the spot the flame used to be. Calling Grandma’s behaviour unusual would be an understatement. Before coming to any conclusions, he read through the rest of her mail, no longer concerned about taking his time to enjoy the correspondence. He copied her letters into his Inner World and used the full force of his mind to examine them, stopping only to make sure she didn’t hide anything else in the seals.

  He might have missed it if it weren’t for how closely he scrutinised her letters. Apart from the last one that told him she’d be out of contact for a while, there was nothing strange in any of the letters. No hidden codes or out-of-place references, nothing to explain the bizarre message. The only hint that anything was wrong came from what she didn’t mention.

  Usually, Grandma’s letters were like an old-age home’s gossip circle. Filled with stories about distant relatives he struggled to remember even with his Inner World. It was to the extent that he’d sometimes wondered if she were making up family members. She had a nose for sniffing out titillating stories even when no one should know about them. More than once, she’d surprised him by teasing him with embarrassing stories of his own, even after his move to the Feywild.

  Even before she’d sent the letter with the hidden coin, her letters became subtly more closed off. They didn’t change in tone, but the stories she shared were more mundane, and she mentioned no one close to him in her letters. She even included a few stories about people who weren’t family and whom he had no way of knowing.

  It was subtle enough that even after noticing it, Felix wasn’t sure if there was actually a change or if he was just finding patterns where there were none.

  Leaning back in his chair, Felix squeezed his eyes shut and let out a breath. For a while, he just sat in thought, his foot tapping the ground in agitation without his notice.

  “She didn’t say anything about Claire.”

  His frown deepened as he went back and examined the rest of his mail. With only letters from the girls left, he regretted leaving them for last. Normally, he enjoyed writing to Lara and Aster the most, so he kept their mail until the end. Now he was too worked up to enjoy the experience. He quickly scanned through the letters he’d glossed over before dinner and examined them with the same scrutiny he’d applied to Grandma’s.

  In theirs, he found nothing out of place. The only minor oddity he noticed was that they didn’t seem to think they’d be away on a mission quite as long as they were. He forced himself to calm down. It wouldn’t do him any good to start jumping at shadows. They didn’t mention any exact timelines, and if they were a little late in coming back, it wasn’t to the extent that he needed to start worrying.

  Even examining everything he knew, he had no way of knowing what, if anything, was wrong. He certainly felt like something had happened, but it was little more than a hunch. Still, Felix decided to be cautious.

  If something really was amiss, then he didn’t want to let on that he knew anything. Felix carefully considered his next move. He needed to pick up his Grandma’s package, but if he wanted to be inconspicuous, he’d need a plan.

  Rather fortunately, his reason for heading to Ilmaréth provided the perfect cover for any unexpected changes in his usual behaviour. His mind churned as he came up with a plan. He’d owe Agrona an apology. It looked like he wouldn’t be taking that nap after all.

  The next morning, Felix handed off a neat stack of letters and a note to one of the manor staff, asking that they be sent out through the guild. He’d carefully replied to all the letters, never letting on that he knew something was wrong.

  He made a big deal about Claire changing her path, asking Grandma about it and telling Aster and Lara how exasperated he was that she’d once again left out crucial details. He asked them how their mission went and told them about his plan to learn more about formations while travelling somewhere new. In none of the letters did he mention the package Grandma had asked him to collect.

  After handing off the letters, he headed to the garden to find Gaelin, so he could help with the stellar daturas. It didn’t take him long to examine them and give Gaelin instructions on how to care for them. He’d done his research into the celestial flowers and already devised plans to care for most of them.

  It wouldn’t be cheap, but he doubted Aunt Eirlys would mind overly much. After drawing up a plan for how to plant them and explaining the formation and materials they’d need to create a fire that would mimic starlight, he left the frowning gardener with the task. He felt a little disappointed that he couldn’t stay to see the formation expert do their work. Given his new interest in the topic, it might have been a valuable learning opportunity.

  Shaking his head, he chased away his errant thoughts. There was no point in dwelling on it. He had more than enough to keep him busy. Finding his cart, he quickly cleaned up his plants and made sure they looked presentable. After that, he took out the most valuable plants and left them before he started pushing the cart out of the estate. He’d left a letter for Aunt Eirlys with a list of the valuable plants.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  No doubt her gardening club would be interested in them. Felix couldn’t afford to raise any of the truly magical plants. Not only would his wallet not support it, but raising them while travelling would be far too difficult. But he’d learned to cater the plants he raised to the tastes of elven gardening enthusiasts. He often found rare and overlooked plants during his travels and brought them back for sale.

  While he couldn’t raise them as well as an elf, his expertise meant his plants would undergo miraculous changes once someone with the appropriate affinities had a chance to work on them.

  He’d need to get Gaelin a present while he was out, so he could ask for his help getting the plants ready once Aunt Eirlys arranged a meet-up with her club.

  Felix strained as he pushed the cart through the winding path of the manor’s garden. He didn’t bother finding Menium. It might be hard work pushing the cart on his own, but it was far easier than trying to convince the monkey to help him instead of playing with Vaelis.

  Slowly, the garden gave way to the bustling village and, eventually, to the crowded market square. By the time Felix could hear the first faint yells of merchants hawking their wares and Travellers negotiating for bargains, his sweat had already soaked his shirt’s collar.

  He didn’t let it slow him down as he paid the market fee and found a spot to set up shop. Digging through his cart, he found a little chair, an umbrella to keep off the worst of the sun and the sign he used every time he set up shop. It didn’t take him long to convert his cart into a passable stall, and without Menium to worry about, he looked forward to a peaceful day at the market.

  He quickly started ignoring the constant stream of Travellers passing by his stall. Most of them left, hardly sparing him a glance. A few read his sign before moving along. Felix expected a peaceful day, not a profitable one.

  The fact was, most Travellers weren’t interested in buying garden plants, while most elves didn’t like him. Ilmaréth was still one of the better places to set up shop since it wasn’t likely the locals would hassle him, and a few regulars might recognise him and stop by to see what he had in stock.

  With everything ready, he sat down in his chair, kicked his feet up on the cart’s wheel and dropped a crudely woven grass hat over his face to block out the light.

  Pretending to sleep might be a poor business strategy for most, but Felix found that it increased his chances of success remarkably. It meant Travellers couldn’t see his face to see how young he was before they engaged with him, and elves were less likely to notice him.

  Just as Felix started dozing off in an effort to fulfil his promise to Agrona, he heard a voice calling out to him.

  “Hey! Why would you appraise plants while refusing to buy them?”

  Lifting his hat, he noticed a young group of Travellers, no doubt fresh graduates or students out on a mission. Felix put on his best customer service smile before answering.

  “Well, if I bought them, you’d doubt whether I gave you a fair appraisal. If you have something truly unique, I’d be happy to show it to a buyer for a small cut of the profit, though it’s rather unlikely you’d have something good enough for that. That way, my interests are always tied to yours, and I can make sure you get the best deal.”

  Before he even finished his spiel, he could see doubt creeping into their faces as they stared at his face and started frowning. After pausing for a moment, he added a comment before they could say anything.

  “You’re in the Feywild. Is it so surprising that you’d find Travellers with a life affinity?” He asked them, raising an eyebrow.

  It took them a moment to process the seemingly random comment before a few of them averted their eyes in embarrassment. Felix chuckled inwardly. It was a practised routine, but one he enjoyed performing. Now, instead of asking how old he was, they’d just assume he was much older than he looked.

  The group sheepishly conferred among themselves before a muscular young man raised his voice above the others.

  “This is dumb. Why would we pay someone to look at it? If we take it to a proper shop, they’d have to tell us what it’s worth anyway.”

  Felix leaned back on his cart and chuckled.

  “This really is your first time selling a herb, isn’t it?”

  The party looked over at him.

  “It’s simple, really. The fact that you think you have something that might be worth appraising means you picked up something that stands out, maybe it’s really mana dense, or maybe it had something guarding it. Either way, you have reason to think it might be valuable.

  “Odds are you’re right. Not all mana-dense herbs are valuable, and not all herbs that are valuable to beasts are worth shipping to a place where they’d have a market. That being said, most of the time your find will be worth something.

  “My appraisal fee is set low enough to make sure you’d still make a profit even if it’s one of the less valuable finds, but it’s true that you’d be wasting your coin if it isn’t worth much.

  “If you’ve managed to find something valuable, however, you don’t want to walk into a merchant shop not knowing what you have. They’re unlikely to outright cheat you, but they’ll definitely offer you the minimum when they see a bunch of youngsters with no idea what they have.

  If you get it appraised however, you walk away with a certificate telling you what it’s worth. You walk into a shop with one of those, and they’ll offer you something good enough to make sure you don’t take your goods somewhere else.”

  The group discussed it a little more, but Felix already knew they’d take his offer, and indeed, after a little more discussion, one of them pulled a box out of their backpack while another one paid him his dues.

  As soon as they opened the box, Felix’s eyes lit up, only for him to scowl a moment later.

  “Whose bright idea was it to replant this?”

  Important announcement:

  Hey! I'll be taking a break from posting next week to work on the plot and hopefully build up a bit of a backlog. The first third of vol 2 is already done on Patreon, and while writing it I thought of a few major improvements to the plot. I need to figure out how to incorporate them into the story without ruining what's already there and what I already have planned. I know it's frustrating to pause for a week but I think the story overall will be much better by making sure I give it the time it needs.

  If you find yourself desperately missing the story during the off week, might I recommend Markets and Multiverses or The Allbright System. That's not a shout out swap, I'm currently subscribed to both their Patreons and I've really been enjoying them! Considering you've liked my ramblings enough to read this far I'd venture we might have similar tastes, maybe you'll like them too!

  If you like the story, please support it by rating and following! （*＾-＾*）

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