“The shop always smells of rain-wet mint, lamp soot, and chamomile. Jars near the old ford district spoil within days, leaves blacken along their veins, and the proprietor quietly keeps a second list of failed remedies that does not match the public records. A soft-spoken civic official, likely the same one funding relief work near the river, has been pressuring the shop to understate the worst findings so panic does not spread through Brackenford. Customers are told the marsh is merely seasonally ill-tempered, but the owner has begun to suspect a buried magical contamination tied to the settlement’s central problem. The narrow brick front is crowded with drying herbs overhead and river-silt stains on the steps, and rainwater drips from the awning into chipped blue bowls set to catch it.”