Adilene balanced a cauldron on her portable hot plate in her bedroom. It wasn’t really a cauldron, but a stainless-steel pot was better than nothing. Nervous about heating anything up on the carpet, she had placed the hot plate on a TV tray and had opened her window to prevent any exhaust from setting off the smoke alarm. Several sheets of her handwritten notes she had taken during the many brewing sessions with Gordy lay strewn about her on the floor.
Cadence sat cross-legged, perusing Adilene’s seventh-grade yearbook in her lap. “Is this him?” she asked, pointing to a small picture midway up the page.
Adilene glanced over. The picture was of a boy with dark hair, dark eyes, and wearing a Gryffindor T-shirt with a small rip underneath the collar. Adilene remembered that day; one of his potions had exploded, and a piece of shattered test tube had sliced through the air and his shirt. “Yeah, that’s Gordy.”
“Funny—you wouldn’t be able to tell he was a potion master just by looking at him,” Cadence said.
Gordy wasn’t really a potion master. Not yet, at least. Still, Adilene couldn’t help but smile about her best friend’s amazing talent. “Isn’t that how it works, though?” she asked. “You’re all just regular people, but with a special gift.”
“His mom’s an Elixirist, right?” Cadence asked, staring at the picture.
Adilene nodded. “Yes, she’s great.”
“What does she do for B.R.E.W.?”
The coils on the hot plate glowed red. The cauldron was ready for ingredients, but so far, the two of them had yet to decide what to make.
“She catches people.”
“Catches people?” Cadence looked up from the page, frowning. “Why do they need catching?”
Adilene couldn’t remember the name Gordy had called them, but it started with an S—savages or scavengers, or something like that. “They brew bad things and harm people, and she’s someone that goes out and stops them.”
Cadence closed the yearbook and ran her hand over the cover. “Where do they put these bad people once they catch them?”
Adilene shrugged. Shouldn’t Cadence, a Dram, already know the answer? “I guess in prison.” She gestured to the cauldron. “This is getting hot, and we need to start putting in ingredients, I think.”
Cadence rubbed her hands together. “What are you going to make?”
“I don’t know. Um, Gordy has a potion that can make plants play music from your phone.” Adilene pored over her notes, no longer certain. “It creates a Bluetooth signal through photosynthesis, or something like that.”
“Let’s see that one,” Cadence said eagerly.
Adilene’s grin faltered. “You’re going to have to look at the recipe, and then I can hand you the ingredients.”
“Why?”
Why? Adilene flinched. “I told you I can’t brew. Oh, here’s one that Gordy made last year that makes the paint on your wall see-through.” She held out the paper to Cadence. “It’s good for spying on your neighbor, I suppose. But it’s an easier one, I think. Not too many ingredients. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Cadence refused to take the page. “They both sound great. Whatever one you want. Go ahead.”
Adilene’s shoulders dropped. “Is this how you’re going to be?” She didn’t want to sound agitated. She hardly knew Cadence, and she didn’t want to seem rude to her new friend. “I’m not a Dram, remember?”
“Neither am I.”
Adilene lowered her recipes and scratched the side of her nose. “What do you mean?”
“I never said I was a Dram,” Cadence answered. “You just assumed it.”
Adilene could have sworn Cadence had told her that she was a Dram, but now that she thought about it, that conversation hadn’t ended the way she had imagined. “Then what are we doing?” she wondered aloud, turning down the knob of the hot plate and killing the heat beneath the cooking pot.
“Maybe we can’t brew together, but we could try something else.” Cadence pulled open her bag and removed a vial that Adilene had seen on two separate occasions. The contents had an inky, bluish hue to it.
Adilene dropped the page of notes and rested her chin on her hands. “If you’re not a Dram, where did you get that potion?”
Cadence held the vial up to the light. The substance remained murky, despite the glow from above. “It’s a gift.”
“From your uncle?” Adilene asked, confused.
Cadence shook her head. “No, from me. To you.”
Adilene narrowed her eyes, studying the strange liquid, watching it bubble as Cadence rolled the vial between her fingers. “What can it do?” she asked.
“Rub some on your skin and you can go wherever you want, whenever you want, and no one can keep you out.”
Adilene leaned forward, and to her surprise, Cadence handed her the vial. Clasping the glass container in her fingers, she swirled the liquid round and round. As she took hold of the wax stopper, she paused to see what Cadence would do.
“Go on,” Cadence urged. “Open it.”
“What if I spill it?” She didn’t want it to stain the carpet if she dropped some on the floor.
“You won’t.”
Adilene pulled out the wax and held the vial up to her nose. The dark blue liquid smelled metallic and oily. “You don’t drink it?” she asked.
“You can, but it might make you sick the first time. Drinking it will make you disappear.”
Adilene’s eyes widened. A disappearing potion? Gordy had never shown her one of those. “Like really disappear?”
Cadence wiggled her fingers. “Poof,” she said. “Gone.”
“Why are you giving this to me?” Adilene asked.
“Because I would like to be your friend.”
“You are my friend. You don’t have to give me anything.” She held out the vial, but Cadence shook her head.
“Try it. But just a drop the first time to see what happens,” Cadence said. “Rub some on your arm.”
Adilene hesitated. “What does it do again?”
“Here.” Cadence took the vial from Adilene and placed her index finger over the opening. “The skin on your fingers and hands is too tough for this to penetrate,” she explained, removing her finger, which now had a light-blue coating. She rubbed the liquid on her forearm.
The inky substance glistened on Cadence’s skin. As it dried, it became nearly invisible. Adilene waited for something to happen. Several seconds passed while Cadence held her arm perfectly still, and then . . .
“Boo!” Cadence tapped Adilene on the back of her shoulder, and Adilene screamed.
“How did you get over there?” Adilene demanded, clutching her chest and whirling around. Cadence knelt on the ground behind her, giggling gleefully. “You were just in front of me a moment ago!”
“Was I?” Cadence gave Adilene a mischievous look. “Are you sure?”
“Well, no. I’m not sure anymore.” It felt as though some time had passed. Was that how the potion worked? Did it confuse Adilene into thinking that Cadence had stayed seated the whole time? “So what do you do with it, besides sneak up on people and scare them?”
“You can fool people into thinking you’re someone you’re not,” Cadence explained. “You can go anywhere. Into Gordy’s home. Or his lab. Or into B.R.E.W. Headquarters, if you wanted it. You could walk right past the wards, and if you don’t want them to, no one will see you enter.”
Adilene felt a prickle on the back of her neck as tiny hairs stood on end. “Why would I go there?”
Cadence smiled innocently. “No reason. But if you wanted to, you could. And once you’re past the wards, you won’t be turned away even after the effects wear off.”
“Cadence,” Adilene whispered, staring at the floor. “You’re scaring me a little.”
“Oh!” Cadence stiffened. “I didn’t mean to. That w
as just an example. It’s actually really fun. Do you want to try it?”
Adilene looked at the vial again and thought she might want to. Would she feel different? Would she still be the same girl? Maybe she should talk to Gordy and ask his opinion. If Cadence wasn’t a Dram, where had she found such an unusual potion? She seemed like an ordinary girl, but perhaps she had stumbled upon the vial by accident.
“I don’t think so.” Adilene pursed her lips. “I want to wait for now.”
“Suit yourself. Why don’t you keep it, and then, when you’re ready, we’ll try it together.”
Adilene looked down at the mess of glass containers and the still-warm cauldron balancing on the hot plate. “What do we do now?” she asked. “Should we bake brownies?”
“I should go.” Cadence stoppered the vial with a soft piece of wax and gently laid it on Adilene’s upturned palm. “Carlisle will be expecting me.”
“Oh, okay,” Adilene said uncertainly, but she followed Cadence out of the room regardless.
Sure enough, Uncle Carlisle had returned, the truck rumbling in the driveway.
“I had a wonderful time!” Cadence hugged Adilene.
“You did?” Adilene asked.
And then Cadence joined her uncle in the vehicle, and they backed out of the driveway. Cadence waved goodbye, and Adilene returned the gesture.
Someone needed to explain to Cadence that when you came over to “play,” you generally stayed longer than thirty minutes.
“Why did your friend have to go?” Adilene’s dad asked from where he knelt in the flower bed.
“I guess she had some place to be,” she said.
Her dad tapped two garden trowels together and motioned for her to join him. Adilene started for the steps but realized she was still holding something in her hand. She looked down at the vial of inky liquid and felt a shiver travel up her spine.
“Just one second, Papa,” she said, hurrying back to her room. She placed the bottle into the top drawer of her dresser and nestled it beneath her socks. Eventually, she would gather her courage and test out Cadence’s mysterious concoction. But for now, Adilene would tend to her chores and daydream about potions.
The Beekman Room of the Maestoso Grande Hotel had been transformed into an assembly hall of Scourges. Lolly and Walsh Gittens had been working around the clock, sending word throughout the country about Mezzarix’s return and their impending attack on B.R.E.W. Headquarters. At least a dozen new recruits arrived each day, filling the hall with a volatile mass of chemicals as they all brought their own eclectic mixes of potions and rare ingredients. Not to mention the smell. Scourges had never been known to bathe much, and the noxious cloud floating above the immaculate hotel may not have been the by-product of so much potion making as it was the lack of personal hygiene.
“Where did you find these people?” Mezzarix asked Ravian. He nodded toward a group of about fifteen individuals who looked as though they were wearing animal skins covered in mud. Several members of the group were laughing boisterously at a woman who was pouring a corrosive, acid-like potion onto the center of the ballroom, reducing the marble floor to slush. After several moments, the liquidized floor began to bubble, and a cephalopod-like creature emerged, blinking one enormous yellow eye at the group.
“Charming,” Mezzarix said as the mud-covered woman tried coaxing the squid from the hole with her finger. “Is this how far we’ve fallen? These people are savages, and most of them I don’t even recognize. They’re practically babies.”
“That’s because they are babies,” Ravian answered. “Sons and daughters of those once faithful to you, but who have since been banished or ExSponged. Lolly’s telling everyone that once you regain control of the Vessel, you’ll right the wrongs carried out against their families over the years.”
“I wouldn’t get their hopes up.” Chaos was one thing. Mass hysteria was something entirely different. Once he took over B.R.E.W., Mezzarix intended to be selective of whom he freed from banishment and whom he invited into his close-knit circle. These newbie Scourges would be at the bottom of that list, if they were lucky enough to make it at all.
Mezzarix returned his concentration to his workstation, where he had constructed an elaborate contraption of Bunsen burners and cauldrons. A single vial containing a few ounces of Silt had been clamped beneath an evaporator. Glass tubing snaked across two banquet tables, eventually reaching the other end, where a dropper dispensed a turquoise liquid into a beaker. The beaker was nearly filled to the brim, and Mezzarix removed it from under the dropper and placed it next to a row of six other containers, each identically filled with a bluish-green potion.
“How’s it coming?” Ravian selected one of the beakers and examined the contents with one squinty eye.
“It works,” Mezzarix said dryly. “But the effects wear off within ten to fifteen minutes, depending on the mixture.”
“That should do just wonderfully.”
“It doesn’t give us much time to storm the castle.” Mezzarix increased the heat on one of the burners and tossed several Portuguese man-of-war tentacles into the center cast-iron cauldron. He slid another beaker under the dropper as it once again began dispensing liquid.
“We don’t need much time, remember?” Ravian studied Mezzarix’s face. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine,” Mezzarix replied. “I just—” He felt something jerk within his stomach, a painful tugging sensation that dropped him to his knees.
While Ravian scrambled for help, Mezzarix curled into a ball on the floor, his fists digging into his abdomen. Lolly and Walsh, who had been arm wrestling in the corner of the hall, rushed over, pulling out potions from their satchels. Ones for healing and ones that numbed pain and several that could turn a patient bright yellow and give off heat like a radiator. Mezzarix swatted away their offerings.
“Take something for it, will you?” Ravian begged. “It’s not natural seeing you squirm like a maggot baking in the hot sun. How long is this going to last?”
“I need my space,” Mezzarix managed to whisper.
Such episodes had transpired sporadically since Mezzarix’s departure from the Forbidden Zone in Greenland, but they had become more intense as time progressed, now often happening two to three times a day. They gave no warning, and Mezzarix always ended up in the same fetal position, gasping for breath.
“How about I break his legs?” Lolly offered. “Take his mind off the stomach pain for a while?” She looked at her husband as though wondering if he’d like to help carry out her suggestion.
“And how will that help if he can’t walk into B.R.E.W. on his own?” Ravian scowled at Lolly. “Are you going to carry him?”
“I could carry him,” she grunted, swiveling her neck in a way that produced a series of pops from somewhere buried in her spine. “Piggyback. He can’t weigh more than a buck twenty-five.” She elbowed Walsh in the ribs, a goofy grin stretching across her wide face.
“Touch me and I’ll brew a potion that makes that curly wig of yours float above your head for the rest of your life,” Mezzarix wheezed. “It’ll follow you around like a conscience, reminding you of how it was to once have hair.”
Lolly’s smile rapidly fizzled.
“There has to be a better way,” said a voice near Mezzarix’s workstation, but seemingly coming from thin air. Ms. Bimini appeared, her frail body materializing next to Ravian, deep concern apparent in her eyes. “What can we do for this poor soul?”
“Bring him the boy. Don’t look at me like that, old friend,” Ravian said when Mezzarix glared up at him. “It’s the only way you’ll be able to see this carried through to the end.”
Mezzarix gritted his teeth, fighting back the urge to scream as another painful thrust attacked his gut. “Gordy is not to be involved. That wasn’t part of the arrangement. I will approach him when it is necessary, but no one e
lse.”
“Always the soft one when it comes to family.” Ravian knelt down and squeezed Mezzarix’s shoulder. “You don’t take anyone’s potions. You don’t take advice. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not stay any longer than I have to in this cursed town and watch you shrivel and die.”
“Tell us what to do to help you,” Ms. Bimini said.
Finally, the pain subsided, and Mezzarix sat up. He glared at the group of Scourges congregating behind the Gittens, and they returned to their mischief on the other side of the Beekman Room. Above him, on the banquet tables, Mezzarix’s potions bubbled in their cauldrons. He needed to get back to work. Six beakers of Replicated Silt would not be enough to overthrow B.R.E.W. These stomach pains were a distraction and a hindrance, but Mezzarix refused to bend on his rules. Having Gordy there could end his suffering immediately, but without the proper protections in place, Gordy’s life would be in danger. And while Mezzarix sought for a chaotic end to B.R.E.W., he would never be able to live with himself should something happen to his grandson.
Dusting off the lapels of his suit coat, Mezzarix turned his back to the others and stared at his Replicating workstation. Lolly harrumphed as she and her husband wandered away.
“Are we going to have to endure many more of these disruptions?” Ms. Bimini asked, sidling up next to Mezzarix. “And what if the next bout sends you into a coma?”
“Wouldn’t that be pleasant?” Mezzarix muttered, not looking the old woman in the eyes.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said. “But I don’t have time to waste watching you writhe. I care not about your life or your suffering. I only care about our arrangement. An arrangement that, so far, has only accomplished in gathering you an army to meet your needs. I need you to be able to keep your end of the bargain. Should these episodes become worse, I’ll send for the boy myself. I know how to find him.”
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