Dove put the cap back on the bottle before answering. Her fingers were steady enough to manage the threads on the second try, which she considered excellent work under the circumstances.
"My supplier," she said. "Before you ask, no, cutting yourself does not qualify you for their address."
Ash looked at his healed knuckle again. The basin held a thin wash of pink water, and she wished very badly that she had offered him a rag instead.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Water that helped a cut. That’s what you saw, and that’s what I know it can do."
"You expect me to believe you carry something like this without knowing anything else?"
She could tell him about the pool, the shelves, and the customer service nightmare living inside her skull. He could then lock her in a comfortable room while everyone discussed which parts of her belonged to the settlement. The room would probably have better blankets. That did not improve the offer.
"I know more than nothing," she said. "I know less than you want. I haven’t tested it on a broken bone or a sick person, and I’m not about to start guessing because you’re glaring."
A man carrying folded towels glanced toward them. Ash waited until he passed before lowering his voice further, which frightened her more than shouting would have. He understood this was something worth keeping quiet.
"How much do you have?"
"This bottle isn’t full."
"That wasn’t my question."
"It was the part I was willing to answer."
He held out his hand. Dove moved the bottle behind the counter, where he would have to reach over her stock to take it. The little gate felt painfully thin beside her knee.
"I need Kael to examine it," Ash said.
"Then ask Kael to come here. You can watch him look at it while I keep hold of my things."
"Dove, you do not understand what this could mean."
She understood enough. A few minutes ago she had owned a secret that helped her sleep without a throbbing shoulder. Now she could almost see the line forming, every person certain that their need explained why she should stop having a choice.
"I understand that you found something you want," she said. "I’m still the person you were happy to leave counting stolen soap two days ago."
His mouth tightened. "This could matter to everyone in these tunnels."
"Then everyone can wait ten minutes while the person holding it thinks."
The answer cost her more nerve than it looked like. She wanted to pull the tarp shut and sit down, but that would leave Ash alone with her displayed goods. Instead she stacked the mittens, moving slowly enough that her hands would not give her away.
Ash called to Varek when the guard passed the hall entrance. He asked him to tell Kael that they needed him at the stall when his current patient could wait. He did not say why. Varek went without asking, leaving Dove with the Alpha and the miserable knowledge that this was now an appointment.
"Nobody gets cut for a demonstration," she said.
Ash’s eyes came back to her. "I didn’t suggest that."
"Wonderful. We’ve found something we agree on. Let’s treasure it."
She put the stock away in the lidded tin and neat piles behind her, rather than disappearing it in front of him. The tin was too small for most of it. For once, being organized was not going to solve the whole problem.
Kael arrived with his sleeves pushed up and a towel over one shoulder. He took in the basin, Ash’s hand, and Dove standing stiffly behind her counter.
"Who is hurt?" he asked.
"Apparently nobody," Dove said. "It’s become very inconvenient."
Ash explained the cut without dressing it up. He showed Kael the sharp hinge edge, then his knuckle. Dove corrected only one thing: she had offered the bottle to rinse the blood away, not to prove what it could do.
Kael asked whether he could see the remaining water. She held it toward the light herself, and he watched the clear liquid shift inside.
"Has anyone swallowed it?" he asked.
"Not that I’ve seen. I’ve used it on small injuries. That’s all I’m promising."
He did not reach for it. "Then we keep it away from the drinking supply while we learn more."
Ash looked irritated by how little that answer gave him. Dove almost liked the sentence enough to put it on her wall. The healer had managed to discuss a miracle without making her responsible for serving it at dinner.
"I need a sample," Kael said. "Small, sealed, and separate from anything I give patients. You can refuse, but I can’t tell you much by looking through a bottle."
The choice made her chest hurt in a stupid, unexpected way. He had said she could refuse in front of Ash. He had not waited until the Alpha left to be decent about it.
"I have one empty bottle for sale," she said. "If I use it for this, the clinic replaces the container. The sample is for you to examine. Not to pass around."
Kael agreed. Ash did not interrupt, although the look he gave her suggested he had several opinions about charging a bottle to a miracle.
She poured a shallow amount into the empty sale bottle, capped it, and wrote WATER SAMPLE on a scrap of her paper. Kael added his own mark beneath hers before taking it. One container gone, one replacement owed, and a secret narrowed to something she could count.
Ash remained after Kael left. "He’ll examine it this afternoon. I expect you at the clinic when he has questions."
"I sell soap, Ash. I don’t answer bells. He can ask me when I’m available."
He looked past her at the tarp, then back at her face. "You used it on your wrists."
Her grip tightened around the personal bottle. She had not shown him the marks before healing them. He had seen Thorne holding her, though. He had seen enough to imagine what those hands would leave.
"Yes," she said, and watched him understand that something had needed healing after all.