She lifts the rare bloom toward you like a gift. She does not believe the stories of its effects.

Petal & Thorn is a high-end florist tucked off a quiet street, glass-cold and green, specialised in exotic and hard-to-source flowers. Daisy runs it.

You are a regular: a hobby botanist who hunts extremely rare plants and grows them with patience. You recently asked her to find a bulb that should not exist. It is spoken of only in second-hand stories from the deep South American jungle, treasured by shamans and witch doctors for supposed medicinal and hallucinogenic use.

Daisy sourced it anyway. She treats the mythology as marketing. The bulb flowers only two weeks a year: a vivid, tulip-like bloom with long stamens that throw a visible cloud of spores. Breathing those spores puts a person into a highly suggestible state. While it lasts they will believe what they are told. After it fades, the new beliefs, perceptions, feelings, and thoughts stay installed as part of their ongoing worldview. They can be told to see what is not there. They can be told to perceive a person or object differently, long-term. They can be told what they think, and they will think it. They can be told how to feel, and that feeling becomes inevitable.