After examining the mold, she realized her mistake. By pouring one batch after another without the proper time to cool, the mold had gotten successively hotter until it had cracked. She could repair it with magic, but it would take hours.
The repair took half the time because she poured faez into the mold at double the safe rate. Her clothes were soaked and smudged. She attempted to set up the next batch, but her hands were shaking from hunger, so she gave in. After a detour to her room for a change of clothes and a chocolate bar, she returned to the glass room.
While she waited for the furnace to heat up, she examined the blanks only to find that a third of them had defects. She'd have to do a better job removing the impurities before pouring next time. Pi dumped them back into the crucible and sighed, squeezing the bridge of her nose between her fingers.
"Two steps forward, three steps back," she muttered.
The other initiates were giving her questioning glances and shaking their heads. Even Ashley seemed worried every time they made eye contact.
When she resumed the blank operation, Pi used water to cool the mold between pours. This was dangerous for two reasons: the sudden cooling could crack the mold again and moisture left on the mold could turn to steam when the molten lead hit, throwing hot metal everywhere. The deathgeists keened and sparks of bloodred formed in the smoke while she performed the operation, making her nervous.
When she finished, it was near morning of the next day. She'd made one hundred and five blanks, using all the available lead. Exhausted, she opened the door to let the heat out and curled up on the tile floor to sleep for a few hours.
While she slept, the other initiates returned to the workshop. The symphony of grinders woke her. The other initiates were grinding their test blanks into the proper shapes.
Pi spent a few minutes stretching, ate another energy bar, and started mixing the etching material she would need later for the runes. The directions said to grind the blanks first, but she thought it was a waste of time. The etching mixture would have to sit for thirty hours, so she could grind while she waited.
Like the lead blanks, the etching mixture was designed to be made in batches. The bowls could only hold about a fifth of the acid solution. With a thirty-hour window, Pi didn't want to repeat the process, so she scoured the tables for larger containers. Eventually, she settled on using the stainless steel sink as her bowl.
She started by removing the drain pipe and soldering a smaller bowl over the opening. Then she removed the spigot to remove the possibility of errant drops of water upsetting her acid solution.
The sink wasn't designed for mixing solutions, so Pi reinforced it with some runes and protections. If there was any point in the process that was going to get her killed, it was this one, so she went over the sink multiple times until she was absolutely certain she'd sealed it.
The container of concentrated hydrogen peroxide splashed into the sink, releasing sharp fumes. These concentrations were used in rocket propellant, so she had to be careful with spark sources, or bring the wrath of the deathgeists. Next she added copper sulfide and a half dozen other chemicals, weighing each one three times before adding it to the hydrogen peroxide.
Since the mixture in the sink was an explosive, the next part could only be performed with magic. Pi cast a series of transfigurations that turned the mixture nonreactive before she heated it with faez.
With one hand churning the large wooden spoon and the other making counterclockwise motions over the yellowish mixture, she heated it, bringing it to a rolling boil.
"Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn, and cauldron bubble," she said, feeling quite wicked.
She stopped adding heat after five minutes of stirring. The liquid bubbled, forming a whitish froth along the edges. She kept the clockwise motion of the spoon, expecting the rolling boil to subside, but it kept going. Her gaze went straight to the smoky walls when she realized that the concoction was headed for a reaction. Blotches of crimson bloomed around her.
"What's wrong?" she muttered in a panic, examining the sink as if it had the answer written on it. If the mixture didn't cool down by the time the enchantments wore off, the whole thing would explode. The deathgeists hadn't killed her yet, but they appeared to be readying themselves. She had to find a solution, and fast.
Pi tried adding cold to the mixture to counteract the heat, but the boil kept rolling. The heat seemed to be innate to the liquid. She didn't dare try to dispel the whole construct either since that would lead to disastrous consequences.
At the near wall, Orson had noticed the growing redness of the smoke and was watching intently as he moved towards his door. A few of the other initiates' heads had bobbed up. Her death felt imminent. Sparks of bloodred rippled through the glass, testing, teasing. Everything she'd tried should have worked. She'd thought through the procedure multiple times before she attempted it.
She was down to seconds before there wouldn't be enough time to cool it before the reversion. All four walls had turned red. The deathgeists were ready.
The professor stood outside her door. His face was drawn down, his lips white with concern.
For a moment, she thought about fleeing, but because the mixture was on its way to a chain reaction, realized that the deathgeists would kill her before her hand touched the door.
Alton Lockwood wasn't in the workshop area, which led her to believe that it was sabotage. This gave her hope that whatever the cause was could be stopped. Pi searched for the source of the added heat. The wooden spoon was still in the sink. Pi yanked it out, and the liquid stopped boiling right away.
Before anyone could draw conclusions, Pi dropped the spoon and faked a spell on the mixture. A tiny tug like a string pulling on her breastbone announced that the transfigurations had reverted. The walls quickly faded to pale. Pi shuddered with relief, then gave everyone a thumbs-up. She'd avoided disaster by mere seconds.
Realizing that the danger was over, the other initiates went back to their work, except for Ashley, who was wiping away tears. Pi wanted to go out and hug her, but the etching mixture had to be completed. The professor stopped in front of her glass wall and mimed wiping his forehead off.
Pi threw herself back into the work. After another hour of adding reagents and a few more minor enchantments, the mixture had been reduced to an inert state. It took all her self-control to make it back to her room so she could collapse in private. Her hands shook like a junky in search of a fix for a good twenty minutes before she could finally get them back under control.
She thought for a while about telling the professor about the sabotage, but decided the word would only get out, and she preferred to keep her battles quiet. Pi returned to the workshop after a quiet meal in the dining room alone.
With the etching mixture sitting for the next twenty-four hours, Pi threw herself into the boring task of grinding the blanks into switches. She ground the edges and shaped the cup and piston connections with a pencil grinder. After the first twenty, she had to take a break because her hands cramped into useless claws.
She worked through the second night because once everyone had left she was afraid that Alton Lockwood would return and sabotage something else. She figured that while the workshop was full, he couldn't mess with her equipment. As a precaution, she checked all her equipment and materials for hidden charms so there were no further incidents.
When the etching mixture was finished, Pi set up an assembly line. Each switch would have to soak for twenty minutes before having three separate spells cast on it. Then she would draw the runes using gold-flecked paint.
This last part Pi enjoyed the most. She only wished that Aurie was there with her. As orphans, they didn't have much money, but they could spend hours making crafts with the leftover colored pencils and construction paper that the schools usually threw out.
Pi took her time. Once the rune was on the switch, it couldn't be changed, and each one required faez to bond it to the lead. She also recognized arou
nd the fifth day that there was no way she could redo the switches if something was wrong. Only five switches couldn't work, or she'd fail the class and be out of Coterie at the end of the year.
On the seventh day, with all eyes on her, Pi marched up to the professor and informed him she was ready for the final examination.
"I hope you're sure about this," he said, following her back to the room.
The professor made a big display of examining the runic switches, all lined up on the table as if it were a cooking competition show and she'd made designer cupcakes. She half expected him to pick one up and bite into it.
After the initial visual inspection, he cast a few spells to confirm no dangerous defects. Once he was satisfied that he wasn't going to be maimed by a faulty switch, he pulled a master switch out of his pocket, picked up the first switch Pi had made, and connected the two together. When the runes on both started to glow a warm, honeyed light, he nodded and set it back down.
He tested each switch, nodding when they passed muster and marking down the level of intensity. Pi's heart tried to climb out her throat the whole time.
When she passed the halfway point without a defective switch, Ashley gave her a thumbs-up. Pi thought she was in the clear and had started to relax when he found a defect on the fifty-seventh switch.
At first, she wasn't worried. It'd taken that long to find the first one. Surely there couldn't be many more in the second half? But her confidence dipped when the fifty-eighth was also bad. Then when the runes on the fifty-ninth didn't glow either, she crossed her arms around her chest and hugged herself tight.
The other students were at least as concerned as she was, except for Alton, who had come in after the first few and was watching from the side with faked disinterest.
When the sixtieth switch was good, Ashley raised her arms, then shoved them back under her armpits. Pi's foot bounced nervously as she neared the end. Two more bad switches were found, and the remaining twelve had to be perfect or she would fail.
Pi dug her fingernails into her palms. She didn't know what she was going to do if she got kicked out of Coterie.
Then the worst happened. The final switch didn't glow when the professor connected them.
"I'm sorry, Pythia," he said, a frown tugging his lips.
Pi started to panic until she saw faint illumination emerge. She pointed rapidly, like a child finding her first Easter egg.
"It's glowing! It's glowing!" she exclaimed.
He looked down and a smile broke across his face. "Why, you're correct. Congratulations, Miss Pythia. You completed the assignment."
The professor held up the final glowing switch, and the class gave her a round of applause. She couldn't read the nuances of their smiles, but she didn't care. She'd survived.
"Great job," he told her before leaving. "I didn't think it was possible to finish this fast, and the quality was generally above average. Unless someone finishes the perfect batch, I don't know how you won't be first in the class for this assignment."
Afterwards, Pi cleaned up the workshop, taking care to wipe the enchantment from the wooden spoon so that Alton wouldn't know why it hadn't worked. She wanted him to question his sabotage so he might make a mistake at a later time.
After a sleep, a long shower, and a quiet feast in the dining room by herself, Pi spent the remaining time studying. While she'd finished tops in the assignment, the result only put her into the middle of the class. She wasn't safe from being expelled from Coterie at the end of the year, by any margin, nor did she have a sponsor. But she hoped her audacious performance might draw at least reluctant interest. She only wished that she could celebrate her success with Aurie.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It wasn't until late January that the first-year initiates of Arcanium returned to the room of truth. Their eventual return had been a source of discussion between the initiates, drawing nervous laughter and boasts of conquering their fears, but upon arrival the cocky laughter fell to silence.
"You must master yourselves before you can wield magic with any confidence. To do otherwise is to court disaster," Professor Mali began as she wheeled in the front of the seats. "These events in your life are like hairline fractures that must be repaired before you are whole enough to tackle real magic. Violet, you're first."
Violet trudged into the room, giving everyone a backwards longing glance. To bide the time, Aurie had brought The Artifacts of the Kings with her. She'd been reading and rereading the text and her parents' notes for clues. As far as she could decipher, they'd been planning an expedition to retrieve the Rod of Dominion before their untimely death.
Each time she read those passages, Aurie thought about how, due to her parents' death, Emily had lost out on a cure. Shame pasted itself on her face in blooms of crimson, darkening her olive skin, which only made the promise of the truth room more daunting. When it'd just been her family's life that she'd impacted, it felt like she was being properly punished. But now that she understood what her parents had been working on, she felt like she'd deprived the world of a cure.
They hadn't specified exactly how they were going to remove the Rod from the Valley of the Kings. A fatal curse had protected the artifact from previous attempts, leaving a swath of dead explorers in its wake. It was clear from the tone of their discussions that they felt they would be successful, but they made no mention of how they might avoid the curse. Those notes had probably burned up in the fire that had claimed their lives.
Aurie was so deep into her tome that she hadn't realized that Violet had returned from the Verum Locus and was softly crying a few seats behind her. It was initially hard to muster sympathy for the girl who'd almost kept Aurie from the Halls, but the continued sobbing broke down her resolve.
Aurie climbed over the seats as Violet blew her nose into a handkerchief. Her eyes were puffy and red.
Violet shot daggers at Aurie as she settled into the seat across from her. Aurie almost returned to her original seat, but lingering guilt made her stay.
"Do you need anything? A glass of water?" asked Aurie.
Violet said nothing. Her shoulders shook. Aurie glanced longingly at her seat before turning back to the blonde girl.
"Even though I don't know what you went through in there, I can tell you're strong. Much stronger than I am. Last time I went in there, I failed miserably. I'll probably fail again," said Aurie, quietly.
The muscles in Violet's face spasmed as multiple emotions tried to break through. A wheeze escaped out of her throat. She put a hand over her mouth.
Aurie sat for a while trying to think of something else to say. Realizing that Violet didn't want to talk, she started to climb over the seats again.
"I don't know why I'm here," whispered Violet in an anguished tone.
Aurie stiffened, not wanting to spook Violet, but realized she needed to say something. "You're here because you did awesome at the trials."
"But why am I not in Alchemists? Arcanium was practically last on my list, barely above those theater geeks," she said, wiping her nose with her handkerchief. "My mother hates me. She thinks I betrayed the family on purpose."
"It's not like you can't study alchemy in Arcanium," said Aurie. "You can make that your specialty in the fifth year."
Violet shifted in her seat, as if she didn't know why Aurie was being nice, and it unnerved her.
"I lost all my old friends," said Violet, under her breath.
"But now you've got new ones," said Aurie, head nodding towards the knot of girls near the front.
Violet's face wrinkled with suspicion. "Why are you being nice to me?"
She was going to give a saccharine answer, but given the looming assignment, switched to the truth instead.
"I don't know," said Aurie.
Violet struggled with speaking, before the words came out laced with apprehension. "How is that girl? The one from Golden Willow? She was cursed or something?"
A hole opened in Aurie's heart. "She's alive...for now."
They fell into a contemplative silence, each girl staring at her folded hands, until Aurie was called for her turn.
Violet might have told her good luck, but the words were lost as Aurie's fears whirled into action. She dreaded what was coming, but also looked forward to it, because she hoped to learn more about the Rod on this second visit to her past.
Professor Mali grabbed Aurie's wrist before she could enter.
"I know this is hard, but you must give up control. Let the vision show you the truth," she said.
Aurie didn't bother responding and marched inside.
The vision came faster and harder compared to the last time. It was as if she'd been hit by a train. One moment, the air was golden light, and the next she was sitting at the kitchen counter while her dad was cooking bacon on the stove, dancing around as the grease popped.
She felt the wounds of regret, the longing for comfort, well up in her chest until she was choking on her emotions. She forced them down, gasping, until she could breathe again.
It was earlier in the day than last time. Pi was sitting at the dining table with her face in a book and papers spread around her.
Aurie wanted desperately to jump off the stool and tackle her father in an embrace, but she was trapped like a visitor on an amusement park ride. She missed the way he could hug her for days, wrapping her up like a warm blanket.
Her father whistled a tune as he hopped from foot to foot, poking at the sizzling bacon.
"Hey, Dad?" asked the vision Aurie.
"Yeah, sweetie," he responded. He had a melodic voice and sometimes sang his spells. Her mother often said it was his voice that had first attracted her.
"Do you think I can go over to Natalie's tonight?" asked Aurie.
He tensed up slightly before setting the spatula down. He slid the pan off the burner and switched it off. He leaned against the other side of the counter. He had the most wonderful freckles that she'd loved to count when he would read her bedtime stories, though those days were long past.
Trials of Magic Page 17