I heated the water and took out the restorative. For the past several days he’d been adding royal cornflower to his dandelion tea, along with the amber potion. That changed now. This new ingredient was the inverse of the cornflower, and—according to Paulo—was to be added in modest amounts at first, increased, then tapered down. The outer packaging reflected those inverse qualities, the colors reversed and the flower itself not yet in bloom.

My brother had explained some of this to me that day in Hollywood, after he finished in the apothecary.  He told me to ignore Paulo on the dosage.

“How much?”

“You may have to administer it yourself.”

“Why?”

“He’ll be weak. And the new ingredients, the proportions, they may confuse him.”

“He’ll want to know.”

“These items come in different proportions, different mixtures, varying according to the supplier. Just explain to him: this is what the apothecary in Hollywood advised. Paolo might resist. So I’ll leave it to you whether to persuade him or simply administer it yourself, to his tea.”

“How much?”

“All of it,” he said.

––––––––

I shut the cabinet door. I didn’t look in the mirror but only at my hands. It struck me then how odd my hands were, how unnatural—how much they resembled my brother’s, though it was also true that my brother’s hands in turn were oddly delicate for a man’s, slender and refined. He kept care of his hands the way women do—with lotions and creams. I watched my own hands now as if they were his. I watched my hands work out the little cork and empty the contents of the vial. I stirred, mixing in some honey.

I glanced at the packaging. At the brightly colored box and the bottle. The labels didn’t match. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t notice that. If I said that after close examination I’d not suspected the contents were not an inverse at all but rather a concentrated version of the cornflower.

But I am not an expert on such things.

I snuck a glance at the woman in the mirror. We were handsome people. I smiled just like my brother had smiled, leaning toward me in the taxi, over that shopping bag nestled in my lap, whispering into my ear.

All of it.

Orsini was on his feet by the bedroom’s sliding door, looking out at the morning, at the intense light already breaking up the fog and the seals hollering in the distance. He appeared oddly invigorated. It seemed the regimen had been good for him, after all. He looked like a man just emerged from a fever, ready for health. He stood in his colorful robe, and I remembered the heat in the air when I’d first met him, how he’d looked me over with those black eyes.

He sipped the tea.

“I feel odd,” he said.