A Remedy for Winter

The apothecary can heal anyone. Except the woman who runs it.

Three months into her new life in Saltwhistle, Philippa Ashmore is falling apart. Her hands shake when she measures ingredients. Her heart stutters at night. The doctor's warning echoes in her mind: rest, or worse will follow.

But The Threadbare is busier than ever, the Frost Hearth Festival approaches, and remedies that could heal her in days sit on her own shelf, useless in her own hands.

The constraint does not care that she is exhausted. The constraint does not bend.

Then winter turns cruel in ways that have nothing to do with weather. A killing frost silences Douglas Cartwell's bees, the same bees that have protected the village for generations. Flowers die inside sealed greenhouses. Something unnatural has come to Saltwhistle.

And on Philippa's doorstep: Tansy Kettering. Young. Terrified. Chased by something she refuses to name.

To save the village, Philippa must first do the impossible.

She must admit she needs saving too.

Douglas is offering more than honey. His quiet presence, his steady hands, his way of seeing her when she has forgotten how to be seen. Tansy is offering more than help. She is offering the daughter Philippa did not know she needed.

The apothecary itself seems to be pushing her toward people who want to care for her.

Maybe fifty-two years of giving is enough. Maybe it is finally her turn to receive.