Fantastic Schools, Volume 3

by Emily Martha Sorensen

  I glanced at the clock as I put the ingredients into the cauldron. It was late morning. I had no way to know if Lilith or Master Landis would come to the lab. Lilith might even come looking for me, despite everything. The thought made me frown as I finished the preparations and lit the flame under the mixture. Who knew what was going through that girl’s mind?

  The mixture heated slowly. I kept a wary eye on it. The brew shouldn’t turn magical until I inserted the rest of the charged blood, but it was hard to be sure. Master Pittwater had cautioned me to watch for tainted ingredients, pointing out that the slightest hint of excess magic could cause an explosion, but I had no way to sense it. The rune hadn’t vibrated when I’d held it close to the ingredients. I had a nasty feeling that proved nothing. The background magic wasn’t so strong in the lab. In hindsight, I understood why it had been steered away from the chamber.

  I smiled as the liquid started to smell, then stirred four times and added the blood. The stench grew worse, immeasurably worse. I swallowed hard, trying not to gag as the magic worked its way through the brew. Durian fruit was supposed to be good to eat, but it would be a brave or foolish man—or one without a nose—who actually put it in his mouth. I’d been in washrooms and toilets that smelled better. The liquid shimmered, boiled and started to glow. I breathed a sigh of relief as I put out the flame. It had worked.

  Grinning, I lifted the cauldron off the heat—just to ensure it cooled quicker—and put it to one side, then walked into the kitchen to make a cup of Kava. The kettle whistled as it boiled, the water steadily turning to steam. It looked like a miniature steam engine, vibrating frantically on top of the stove. I picked it up, poured hot water into the mug ... and stopped, dead, as a thought occurred to me. If water became steam, and steam was a type of gas, what else could become a gas? What else ...

  The idea stuck in my mind and refused to go away. I knew how a steam engine worked. I also knew that boiling water purified it, that steam was effectively purified water that would—eventually—condense back into water droplets. What if I found a way to turn a potion into a gas? What if ... I stared at the collection of equipment, from beakers to tiny kettles and heating globes. If I turned the potion into a gas, what would happen if someone breathed it in? I took a breath, tasting the stench in the air. To me, it was just unpleasant. To a magician ...

  I knew I should take the idea to Master Landis. There were strict limits on just how far an apprentice could go, without his master’s permission. And yet, I was too enthused to care. I took some of my potion, a potion I knew might not work properly, and started to experiment. It wasn’t easy to turn the liquid into gas without causing the ingredients to separate. If it hadn’t been a potion, I wasn’t sure I could have done it at all. The magic I’d used to turn the ingredients into magic was holding it together, even as it became a gas. I felt my heart pounding as the air slowly filled with steam. It would probably smell terrible, I decided, if the air didn’t already stink. And ...

  She wanted me to impress her, I thought. I was gambling everything and yet ... I thought it would work. It was worth a try. I didn’t have that much time before I had to leave or Lilith carried out her threat or ... or whatever. Let me see if this impresses her.

  I headed to the door and peered outside. There was a messenger station positioned at the top of the corridor, manned by a pair of students who paid for their education by fetching and carrying for magicians. They eyed me worriedly as I beckoned to them. I had the feeling they didn’t know what to make of me. I was no magician, they knew, and yet I worked for one. Their eyes looked past me as they approached. I guessed they were afraid Lilith was right behind me.

  “Here,” I said. I held out a coin. We didn’t have to tip, but I’d been a shopboy long enough to know that tipping ensured better service. “I want you to take a message for me.”

  The messengers exchanged glances, then one stepped forward. “Yes, sir?”

  “Go to Lilith,” I said. They’d know where to find her or they’d ask someone who could check the wards. “Tell her to come to the potions lab.”

  The messenger looked reluctant—I guessed he wasn’t too keen to go to Lilith’s bedroom, wherever it was—but took the coin and hurried off anyway. I smiled as I went back into the lab and closed the door. The wards should keep the smell from getting into the corridors, but there was no point in taking chances. There would be so many complaints if it did get out of the lab, that Master Landis would probably dismiss me on the spot. Who could blame him for throwing me to the wolves? He’d be the one facing the wrath of his peers.

  I waited, hoping Lilith would come without an argument. The messenger might not tell her who’d sent the message. Perhaps she’d assume Master Landis had summoned her. I hoped so. She’d probably make a point of being late, or not coming at all, if she knew it was me. I felt the seconds ticking by, the air growing warmer as the steam continued to boil. It was impossible to even guess at the concentrations of potion hanging in the air. It was quite possible I’d overdone it.

  Or that the concentrations aren’t high enough to have any real effect, I thought. If this goes wrong ...

  Something cold settled in my heart. If it worked ... I looked at the empty dish and winced. I’d proven blood could be used to store magic, at least for a few hours. Perhaps that would have been enough to secure my apprenticeship. If not, I could have taken the concept back to Master Pittwater or sold it to the Alchemical Guilds. The secret wouldn’t stay that way for long—it wouldn’t be hard to work out what I’d done—but I might be able to parlay it into a secure place in one of the guilds. Or somewhere.

  The door opened. Lilith stepped in, wearing a dress. I blinked. I’d never seen her in anything other than magical robes. Her face twisted in disgust as she took a breath. I’d grown used to the stench, but she’d walked into it blind. The look she gave me suggested that hanging, drawing and quartering was too good for me. I knew how she felt. The sudden stench was enough to put anyone off their lunch.

  “Adam.” Lilith coughed and started again. “Adam, what are you doing?”

  “An experiment,” I said. I waved a hand at the cluster of equipment on the table. “What do you make of it?”

  Lilith glared. “Did you just call me here to show off a mess? I should ...”

  I held up a hand. If this went wrong ... I was doomed. “You should turn me into a frog?”

  “You ...” Lilith raised her hand. “You ...”

  She jabbed a finger at me. I braced myself. Nothing happened.

  Lilith stared in incomprehension. The look on her face ... I couldn’t help myself. I sniggered. She blinked, then jabbed her finger at me again. Nothing happened. She looked at her fingers in shock. They were powerless, as powerless as my own. She stumbled back as she raised her eyes, looking at me in horror. I could see the question she didn’t want to ask, written all over her face. What the hell had I done?

  I felt a surge of ... of something I didn’t want to look at too closely. Lilith was smaller than me and a girl besides. I could knock her down, as easily as she’d once been able to freeze or transfigure me. A wave of sheer rage washed through me. I could beat her. I could put her over my knee. I could teach her a lesson she would never forget. I could ...

  Shame overwhelmed me. I wasn’t going to do that. I couldn’t even begin to do that. It wasn’t me.

  Lilith stumbled back until she hit the wall. I could see panic in her eyes, panic and fear and a grim awareness she was powerless. I could do anything to her, and she knew it. Guilt warred, in my mind, with a sense she needed the lesson before she picked on someone much more powerful than herself. I’d knocked her down, but only for a few seconds. The next person she picked on might blast her into little pieces and scatter them over the entire world.

  “What ...?” Lilith forced herself to stand up, despite the fear in her eyes. “What have you done to me?”

  “I made Durian potion,” I said, waving a hand at the table. The stench should h
ave tipped her off, if nothing else. There was nothing that smelt quite like Durian. “And then I turned it into a gas.”

  Lilith blinked. “You made Durian potion?”

  “Yes,” I said. For an instant, I thought I saw a keen alchemist peek out from behind her eyes. Lilith didn’t have to be an alchemical apprentice. She could easily have done something else with her life. There were plenty of careers open to magicians—and, I supposed, she could always get married. If she could find someone willing to marry her ... “I made it myself.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Liar.”

  “I’m not lying,” I said. “Listen.”

  I outlined everything I’d done, from the moment I’d realised that blood could be used to store magic to actually using my blood in a potion. Lilith’s face kept twisting, as if she was unsure if she should be impressed or horrified. I wondered, not for the first time, if I’d made a terrible mistake. I could have taken my insight away from the university and worked on it in private, without the risk of making an unrelenting enemy. And ... I went through the calculations, showing her how I’d woven my blood into the potion. It had worked. That was the important thing. Everything else was gravy.

  Lilith muttered a word I didn’t catch as she forced herself to go through the calculations. Her dress was stained with sweat and potion ... I wondered, grimly, if I’d interrupted something. Why had she put on a nice dress? It was her day off, but she didn’t have anywhere to go. Or did she? Magicians could teleport. I had no idea if she could, but it was possible ...

  “And you made me breathe the potion,” Lilith finished. “You ...”

  Panic filled her eyes. “How long does it last?”

  “Not long,” I assured her. I wasn’t sure how long. There’d been no way to calculate the dosage, let alone how quickly the gas would lose its potency. Lilith might regain her powers the moment she went back to her bedroom, had a shower and changed into something less comfortable. Or it might be a few hours before she could use magic again. She was still breathing in the gas. “An hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade, a ...”

  “You don’t know,” Lilith said, flatly. “Do you?”

  It wasn’t a question. “No,” I said. “But it shouldn’t be longer than an hour or two.”

  Lilith sat down at the table. I wondered what was going through her mind. I’d asked her, only a day or so ago, what made her special. Nothing, as far as I could tell. And now I’d stripped her of the one thing she could hold over me. I remembered how I’d felt when she—and Matt—had used magic on me and told myself I shouldn’t feel guilty. She felt helpless and vulnerable ... she’d made me feel helpless and vulnerable. I told myself that time and time again, but it didn’t work. I’d stolen her confidence in herself ... no, in her magic. I didn’t have to do anything else to her for her to know I could.

  I sat on the other side, keeping my distance. Girls didn’t like to be crowded—my mother had drummed that into my head when I’d been a child—even when they weren’t feeling weak and helpless. I’d give Lilith that consideration, even if she didn’t give me any in return. It was the right thing to do.

  “You challenged me to impress you,” I said. “Have I?”

  Lilith said nothing. I wondered what was going through her mind. She was very far from stupid. The longer she breathed in the gas, the longer it would take to regain her powers. Probably. She could take a purgative, I supposed, but it would be a thoroughly unpleasant experience, with no guarantee it would speed things up. I tried not to think about it. I’d taken one once, when I’d swallowed something I really shouldn’t have, and it had been enough to convince me I really didn’t want to do it again. She should go ... did she think I’d stop her? Or was she reluctant to leave the room without her powers? She was hardly the most popular person in the university.

  “Yeah,” Lilith conceded, finally. “I guess you have.”

  I smiled. “And you think I can do more?”

  Lilith grinned. I think it was the first time I’d seen a genuine smile from her. “I suppose you can.”

  I stood and started to clear up the mess, pouring the remains of the potion into the vat for disposal and putting the caldrons, tubes and kettles in the sink. They’d have to be cleaned carefully, just to make sure there was nothing left to contaminate the next batch of potion. I’d never met an alchemist who wasn’t a real stickler for cleaning, even the ones who liked pushing the limits as far as they’d go. Lilith watched, unmoving, as the air started to clear. I wondered, suddenly, just how long it would be until we could breathe freely again. The spells Master Landis used to clear the air wouldn’t be any use if we didn’t have magic ...

  Lilith picked up my calculations and frowned. “You’re good at this.”

  “Thanks.” I hoped it was a peace offering, of a sort. Lilith would regain her powers and then ... she might set out to take revenge. “So are you.”

  “I don’t have a talent for theoretical magic,” Lilith said. “I can cast spells. I can brew potions. But I can’t improve on them.”

  “We can, if we work together,” I pointed out. “I’ll devise the spells, you cast them.”

  Lilith shot me an unreadable look. I had no idea what was going through her head. The idea of working with me wasn’t that bad, was it? It wasn’t as if she had anyone else who might work with her. She was isolated, alone in a crowd. I opened my mouth to ask why, then thought better of it. Lilith would tell me if she wanted to tell me.

  “Father won’t be too pleased,” Lilith said. “He wants me to follow in his footsteps.”

  Something clicked in my mind. “Master Landis is your father?”

  “Yes.” Lilith looked surprised. “You didn’t know?”

  I kicked myself, mentally. It was rare for a male magician to have a female apprentice. People would talk. Rumours would start to spread. I should have realised. The only reason someone hadn’t asked hard questions about the apprenticeship was because they were closely related. Father and daughter ... no one could question them being alone together. I wondered, suddenly, what had happened to the mother. And why Lilith was so isolated.

  “No,” I said. I was sure I was missing something. If Lilith was Master Landis’s daughter, why wasn’t everyone sucking up to her? “I never realised ...”

  The door opened. Master Landis stepped into the room, followed by two strangers. One was an old woman, with cold grey eyes and greyer hair. The other was a young man with floppy brown hair and scars on his hands. He waved a hand in the air, casting a spell to remove the remnants of the potion. Good thinking on his part, I noted. And quick, too.

  “Well,” Master Landis said. It was suddenly impossible to miss the resemblance between him and his daughter. “Adam. Lilith. What are you doing?”

  I swallowed and started to explain.

  Chapter Nine

  “Blood,” Master Landis said, when I’d finished. “You used blood.”

  I swallowed. His tone suggested I was dead. I tried to think as he looked at his two companions. Blood ... using blood wasn’t illegal, just highly dangerous. And the only person at risk had been me. It wasn’t as if I’d stolen blood from a genuine magician and worked it into a spell. I wondered, suddenly, if that was even possible. One didn’t need a sneaky potion to render a magician helpless. A quick blow to the head, followed by steady doses of sleeping potion, would be quite enough.

  “Indeed,” the older woman said. She looked thoughtful, rather than angry. “Did you understand the risks?”

  “I believed there was minimal risk,” I said, carefully. “And if there had been risks, they would have fallen on me. It was my blood.”

  “Experimenting with blood is not something we want to encourage,” the older woman said, tartly. “The risks are often unpredictable.”

  “Mistress Irene, it was his blood,” the young man said. “I think Emily would approve.”

  I blinked. If the older woman was Mistress Irene, Administrator Irene, did that mean the young man was
Caleb? I’d heard stories about him, although most of them had grown in the telling. Had he really been Lady Emily’s lover? And had they broken up because he’d wanted to ... to do what? The stories had grown in the telling, to the point it was hard to believe the young man in front of me was the same person. He didn’t look like a creature out of myth and legend. He certainly didn’t look anything like his painting. I hadn’t recognised him.

  “I dare say she would,” Mistress Irene said. She looked at me. “You do realise you have made a real breakthrough? The concept of storing magic has been discussed extensively, but using blood—mundane blood—as a storage medium has never been considered, let alone tried.”

  I felt a thrill. “I’m the first?”

  “Yes.” Caleb smiled. “Well done.”

  “As far as we know,” Mistress Irene corrected, coldly. “There are plenty of unanswered questions about how certain things were done in the past. It is possible that you have rediscovered something that was lost, rather than being the first person to so much as consider the possibility.”

  “However, none of us know that,” Caleb said. “Even if he wasn’t the first, he might as well be.”

  Mistress Irene speared me with her eyes. “Your achievement will be discussed extensively during the next board meeting,” she said. “It will be taken as proof, one hopes, that the idea of merging magic and mundane concepts is not as foolish as some believe. However” —her eyes hardened — “you will also study the risks inherent in blood magic. You could have hurt yourself quite badly, if something had gone wrong. You could not have been certain your blood was untainted.”

  She nodded to Master Landis, then turned and marched out the door. Caleb winked at me—I had a feeling he intended to talk to me later, when we were alone—and followed the older woman, closing the door behind him. Master Landis paced around the room, inspecting my papers and calculations as he calmed himself. I forced myself to wait, not daring to speak first. On one hand, my achievements reflected well on him. On the other, I’d broken at least nine different rules and bent dozens of others. And I’d rendered his daughter powerless. He would be quite within his rights to give me the boot, if he wished. I wondered, sourly, if I’d managed to impress Lilith only to lose her father’s regard.