Heena stared at her ruined list, the sweet, sharp ginger melting on her tongue.
God, Heena sighed internally, violently scrubbing her thumb over the dried ink. I really, really miss ballpoint pens.
As she walked the rest of the way back to her East Market apothecary, her mind shifted from smudged ink to the broader, far more dangerous logistics of her new empire.
She had two hundred taels of silver, a syndicate protection contract, and a back-courtyard kitchen equipped to brew high-end cosmetics for the underworld. But she still had an entirely empty, two-story storefront facing the main street.
