Elian pulled the satchel from beneath the counter where it had sat untouched for three months. His mother's leather bag still smelled faintly of sage and something sweeter he couldn't name. He'd avoided opening it since the funeral, but a customer had asked about a fever remedy his mother used to make, and he'd run out of guesses. The bag's interior held bundled herbs gone brittle, a few copper coins, and a journal wrapped in oilcloth. The journal's cover was black leather, scratched and worn at the corners. When he opened it, pale blue symbols glowed faintly across the first page. They twisted like smoke, forming patterns that looked almost like letters but weren't. His mother had hidden this deliberately. She'd used a cipher he'd never seen before. Elian carried the journal to the worktable near the window where light from outside caught the spiral arrangement of his mother's old harvesting knives. The blades hung on wooden pegs in a rising column, each one catching the afternoon sun differently. He sat on the stool she'd used and turned the journal's pages slowly. Every entry bore the same glowing symbols. Sometimes they clustered tight. Other times they spread thin across the paper like scattered seeds. His hands shook as he closed the book. His mother had written something she didn't want anyone to read easily. Maybe remedies she'd kept secret. Maybe the timing he could never master. He set the journal on the table between two of the knives and stared at it. For the first time since her death, he had something concrete to pursue. A path forward that wasn't just guessing. But first he'd need to break the cipher, and that meant admitting he couldn't do this alone.