Tien gave Rose an astonished look before his lips quirked up. “Good grief… Not even my own father hits me on the head anymore.”
Rose asked Mona to rewarm the still-hot tea, getting the maid to beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen with the teapot.
“What are you trying to figure out, Tien?”
“Hmm… Good question. Judging by your earlier reaction, that’s not something you made, right?”
Rose nodded. She didn’t recognize the dainty bottle.
“I was planning to have a word with you about its value if you had made it, since the person who let me have it seemed to have obtained the potion at a very reasonable price. But if you aren’t the maker…then I can’t overlook someone hawking imitations, as someone who makes a living selling witches’ secret potions.”
The value and rarity of the witches’ secret potions would plummet if they became widely available. Even worse, people who purchased the counterfeit potions might start to suspect the quality of the real thing. Tien’s misgivings had merit as something Rose must worry about as a witch who took pride in her work.
Rose popped the top off the bottle and sniffed the contents. “…Water?”
“The bottle was already washed out by the time I got it.”
Then there was nothing Rose could determine from it. The bottle was a dead end. She might have been able to learn something if there was at least a drop left. Rose had never encountered a counterfeit potion before, so she was unsure how to proceed.
“Now then, how shall I handle this?”
“I strongly advise against you chasing Mona into a corner.”
Rose warned off Tien before he pressured Mona to the point of crying—or, knowing him, beyond that. After seeing how Harij interacted with Tala and the others, Rose realized how much he cared about the people he let into his life. He might even sever ties with Tien if he deemed it necessary to protect them.
“There goes our only potential source of information, then.” Tien pouted with pursed lips, but Rose didn’t take the bait. “Fine, fine. You win. I don’t want to be hated by my brother-in-law or my little sister.”
Who are you calling your brother-in-law and little sister, huh? Rose swallowed her sharp retort with her tea.
Tien seemed to be triggered by his own words, as he set the teacup back on the saucer and emotionally muttered, “I can’t believe you’ll be a bride the next time I see you…”
Surprised by how sentimental he sounded, Rose glanced at him.
Ever since she told him she might get married, he was nothing but ecstatic all the time, as if he had forgotten every other emotion. On the surface, at least, he appeared happier than Rose herself.
He had also relayed the news to his father, whom Rose used to do business with, and convinced him they should accommodate her with anything she needed.
So Tien was the last person she expected to sound disappointed about it.
Just as she was genuinely starting to worry he was against her marriage, he broke the silence.
“The first time I exchanged greetings with you,” Tien began in a nostalgic voice, “you glared daggers at me from behind the Great Witch’s skirt. I had earned your ire by snagging the weasel you were after in the forest right before meeting you that day.”
Rose didn’t remember that. She was flustered over what he might say and was annoyed he had the advantage because she couldn’t remember, so she snatched up one of the apple candies on the plate in front of him.
Tien continued his story without commenting on her thievery. “You were eight at the time. You wouldn’t let me sleep at all that night. You forced me to read the hundred picture scrolls I brought back from the desert kingdom until my voice cracked.”
Mona, who had just returned from the kitchen, visibly stiffened when she heard Tien say, “You wouldn’t let me sleep at all that night.” She probably thought she was about to hear a story about her lord’s fiancée’s infidelity. Ticked off that Tien deliberately worded it so Mona would misunderstand, Rose snatched another candy.
“When the Great Witch found out I let you drink too much cognac to celebrate reaching your tenth birthday, she hung me from a beam.”
Rose didn’t remember that, either, but she stole another apple drop, as was her right.
“You poor, naïve little girl… You forgot what I had made you drink, and you begged and begged the Great Witch to let me down from the beam with tears in your eyes because you felt bad for me,” Tien regaled with glee. Rose felt like punching his lights out. Two more candies disappeared from his plate.
“When you were twelve, you did your best to make stew because the Great Witch ordered you to cook, even though you didn’t want to. You were crushed because the stew came out a horrifying color, right? The thing is, I secretly added in saffron because I wanted to see your reaction.”
Rose grabbed all the confections on Tien’s plate, not caring if her hands got sticky.
“…When the Great Witch entered her eternal slumber, I feared you might join her in heaven. You lost your will to live and were more skin and bones than you are now… I had to leave the kingdom on a job I couldn’t neglect no matter how much I wanted to, but I was worried sick about you the whole time. You didn’t have any motivation to keep on living… But then, when I saw you for the first time after getting back, you were acting like things had gone back to normal—I seriously suspected you had picked up and eaten something weird from the forest. Like, did this girl spell herself?”
The last morsel vanished from Tien’s plate.
Teardrops plopped into Rose’s cup of tea.
“…Please be happy, my adorable little witch.”
Rose might have been under a misconception all this time.
After her grandmother’s death, she thought she lost her only family. Thus, she believed she was creating a new one with Harij.
But maybe, just maybe, she had a family all along. Family in the form of an older brother who looked out for her from a reasonable distance.
“…I would never strip you of your family after already making you leave the forest you call home.”
When Harij had referred to Tien as Rose’s family, she’d casually dismissed the idea. But Harij had seen more between them than even she had.