Evan walked behind the witch with a wicker basket in hand. Walking into the garden he had been to just a couple of weeks earlier had him feeling conflicted. It was where he had failed to drain the witch the first time. Well, maybe it wasn't a failure, after all.

He followed her into a shed, where she grabbed some shears and gloves. There were all sorts of herbs and deadly bulbs of garlic hanging from the ceiling. Evan backed towards the door. The witch moved within the small space, picking up dried flowers and vegetables.

She shook her head as she loaded the bounty into the basket.

"All out of wolfsbane."

Evans's ears perked up. Even he knew that that would be crucial to ward off the werewolves. If she didn't have that, she'd need to spend even more nights with him. More dinners. More answered questions.

But she looked dejected about the whole thing.

"I told you, stay with me as long as you need to."

She shook her head. "I want to reopen the shop for the mixed mortals."

At least her reasoning didn't have anything to do with him. But she was obviously upset, and that bothered him.

"Well, you said business had been slow, so no harm done, right?"

That did not seem to improve her mood. In fact, the air had started to lean bitter. Gods, he never said the right thing.

"I can try to help you, with the shop I mean. I've got a good business sense, and I'm handy with a needle apparently."

The air shifted, but she didn't look at him. Her arms were still crossed.

"I guess if you were there, I wouldn't have to worry about the alpha coming back," she mumbled.

Evan wasn't exactly looking to get into another fight, but he'd rather be there than not if the alpha or his pack had shown up. And if she were adamant on reopening, he knew he couldn't stop her anyway. At least with this excuse, he wouldn't have to stalk the store anymore.

"Right."

"And you can sew the eyes on the amigurumi!"

Her smile lit up the shed.

"We should still try and find some wolfsbane first, do you have anywhere else we could find some?"

She shook her head no.

"It's hard to find, especially during this time of year since it isn't flowering. I can try to use some of the soil around the plants I have, but I'd rather not disturb their roots."

He nodded. "I imagine it'd affect its potency as well. Hang on, isn't there a big garden somewhere here in town? A famous one?"

"Yeah, the Underdweller Friendship Garden, but we can't take anything from there, for obvious reasons."

"Would anyone really miss a wilted blossom? Or dried leaves? I think it'd be worth a try at least."

She bit on her lip, teetering on whether to go along with his plan. It was a long shot for sure, but it was also a good distance away and somewhere he had always wanted to visit. With her, he wouldn't have to worry about anyone bothering him or questioning his presence too much. He took her hand and pulled her from the shed.

"If you don't have a good reason not to, why not just go for it?" he said.

"That's not one of your twenty questions, is it?"

He shook his head. "Come on, do you think I'd make it that easy?" Evan relaxed his hand around hers, and when she didn't pull it away as he led them away from the garden, he allowed himself to enjoy the small bit of warmth coming from her small hand.

***

The Underdweller Friendship Garden was on the opposite side of town, on a lone bluff in the shadow of an enormous manor. While the mansion above lay abandoned, the garden still had its fair share of visitors, thanks in part, which Evan only remembered when they arrived, to a farmers market that was set up outside of the garden's entrance.

Lights were strung along the street and parking lot, illuminating the stalls filled with food and other miscellaneous items for sale. Evan could smell the presence of many underdwellers and mixed mortals commingling in the tight space, but he did not smell the werewolf from the other night. He looked at the witch. She was staring intently at the market, and Evan saw the slightest purple flash across her eyes.

"It looks like a festival," she murmured.

"You've never been here before?" he asked.

"Selene would never agree to come."

Evan could see why. It didn't seem like her personality to enjoy something like this, and for a succubus, he could understand that an environment like this could be troublesome for her. It wasn't like him to enjoy crowds either, but he did enjoy the childlike giddiness coming from the witch enough to endure it.

"We should check and see if there are any vendors selling wolfsbane, don't you think?"

She nodded instantly. They walked into the market, passing stalls of farm fresh produce, free-range chicken eggs, rare furs, and dried entrails. There were even artisans selling paintings on sprawling canvases and river stones, wood carvings of ancestral deities, and dream catchers. The witch marveled at everything they passed as if she had never seen anything like it before. She was a witch, and while she looked mortal, she was as much of an underdweller as anyone else there. Still, she looked at everything so bewildered, as if she were taking in every little detail as she passed by.

"Do you like that?" he asked. She was holding a river stone that had been carved and painted into a sunflower.

"The details are much more intricate than all the other vendors, see?"

"I do all of the carving myself," a nymph on the other side of the table said. She was young, and her display lacked the elaborate details of the others she was sandwiched between. "Everyone else is just reselling bulk stuff they import overseas."

"Well, it certainly shows." Evan pulled out his wallet and handed the girl some cash. "Thank you."

"Oh, wait you don't have to buy it," the witch began.

"Don't be rude, Vicki, this girl deserves to make a profit on her work. You can understand that, right?"

The nymph put the stone in a paper bag along with her social media card. He thanked her again and handed the bag to the witch. Finally finished with the market, and without any wolfsbane, they continued into the garden. The witch turned over the stone in her hands.

"So these are the things underdwellers like to buy?" she said. He had the feeling she was asking herself that question, and not him.

"Why do you sell things to underdwellers if you know so little about them?" he asked. Honestly, it was a question he wished he could ask everyone in town.

She looked up at him.

"That isn't one of your twenty questions, is it?"

"It is."

She sighed. "The cold weather drives the mortals away, so it just makes sense to sell to whoever is actually here."

"Makes perfect sense."

"It's just been a rough transition. I was raised with regular mortals, you know?"

He hadn't assumed that.

"I didn't know. I don't know much about your childhood or what possessed you to start a store."

She tilted her head.

"It's not like it's particularly interesting."

"I'm interested, and we have time. Unless you planned to spend all night silently staring into my eyes?"

She sighed heavily.

"I grew up in an orphanage in the central valley, it was a middle-of-nowhere kind of place. I was just a baby when they took me in, so I don't know anything else. I was there so long I became everyone else's big sister, so it wasn't bad. During this time of year, I would collect walnuts in the orchards the harvesters had missed and sell them back to the farms for extra money. That's how I bought the little kids toys for Christmas. You know, since elves always seem to have a hard time finding orphanages."

Evan nodded even though she was speaking of a world far beyond where his existed. They passed through a tunnel of blackthorn and found a bench at its end. He sat down and motioned for her to join him. He didn't want to pressure her to say more, but he hoped she would. Hell, he'd use every question he had left if it meant he knew every step that brought this witch to him.

"And you never knew you were a witch."

She shook her head. "It wasn't until one of our mothers, Zenia, had passed that I realized I was different than everyone else there. She was the one who found me, and she taught me to crochet blankets and toys for the kids. Her funeral was the first time any of us had ever been around mixed mortals or underdwellers. I had gathered some wildflowers to go on her casket, but compared to the other adornments there, they looked ratty and out of place. They were so bad that I heard some of the adults talk about throwing them away. But it was winter, and I had tried to find the best flowers I could, to be my last gift to her, but all I could find were weeds. So I prayed that at the very least, if they couldn't be pretty, they would smell nice. And wouldn't you know it, they smelled better than all of the roses, daylilies and daffodils put together, so the priest had her buried with the flowers I brought in her hands."

Evan watched a small smile spread across the witch's face. He wished he could have been there, to watch the young unknowing witch place weeds on a casket and use her magic for the first time. It was so unlike anything he had ever heard of. Miles away from what he heard went on at covens or the legends of witches inhabiting caves.

"I bet they smelled amazing."

She smiled bashfully. "Even after she was buried, everyone would always say her grave smelled like-"

"Let me guess," he said. "sweet, yet fresh, like a bramble of berries in a spring meadow."

Her eyes went wide.

"Your store, that's what it smells like. Like a breath of fresh air."

He noticed the faintest rosiness paint her cheeks. She looked away when she began speaking again.

"I found a witch there one day when I was eleven, a girl in her mid-twenties dressed in blue. She could tell there was magic below the headstone, and she knew it came from me."

"She just...appeared one day?"

She nodded and shrugged her shoulders.

"After the funeral, we had lots of weird visitors. A vampire one day, a witch another. Anyway, she only told me a few things and just disappeared. I taught myself everything else with some books from the library and saved money to open my own store. There have been a lot of ups and downs for the last few years, but its been fine. That is, until a vampire attacked me on the street."

He wanted to kiss the edge of that smirk and see what she'd make of it. What was he thinking? He couldn't do that. But, gods, did he want to. She wasn't the kind of witch that he had read about, or that his father had feared.

"I'm pretty familiar with that part of the story," he said, taking her hand. "Let's go, we have wolfsbane to find."

"Wait, hang on a second," she said as he pulled her through rows of thornapples. "I just told you my whole life story, don't you think you owe me the same?"

Evan wasn't interested in explaining the intricacies of his own upbringing. He didn't leave there for no reason. He ran away, and he'd hate if him revealing his reasoning would have her run away from him too.

"I just asked you a question. You can ask me one in exchange," he said.

"What brought you to Elara? We don't usually get vampires here."

Evan let out a breath, he could navigate this one without lying to her.

"I came to see a special flower. It doesn't grow many places, but I heard it grows here."

She crossed her arms. "You came for a flower?"

"Not impressed? Thought I came here just to get a harem of blood wenches, didn't you?" he chuckled. "I heard of a moonflower that blooms only during a full moon. I came to see that."

"Apollo's flower. That's the one isn't it?"

He nodded and suddenly felt silly for telling her. But she had opened up to him, it was only fair for him to give her something in return.

"I heard it absorbs light from the sun and when it blooms it glows as brilliantly as sunrise. It's something I want to see, for obvious reasons."

She let go of his hand. She looked like she was staring through him. Maybe she didn't believe him. It did seem like such a lame reason to come all this way from the circle. She probably thought he was on the prowl for blood or on some murdering spree.

"During the next full moon, I can show them to you. As long as you don't mind coming with me while I brew my magic for the store. I could use the spare hands."

Always the negotiator. He didn't need anything in exchange. Spending time with her was so much better than being alone, and seeing the flower with her, it was worth more than him carrying a basket. But he'd rather not come off too eager.

"Sure, if you need to."

She had no idea he would literally be counting the hours until the full moon rose. Just three days. Less than 72 hours.