The Potion Diaries

by Amy Alward

  He squeezes my hand. ‘Easy, right? This is the part where you get to shine. We’ll all pitch in.’

  ‘Right, we’ll both be your apprentices,’ says Anita. ‘When the three of us are together, there’s nothing we can’t do.’

  ‘I just wish we knew who we were up against.’ Now we’re far enough away that I can’t see the phoenix, I settle back down into my seat.

  ‘You and me both,’ says Anita.

  ‘Well, let’s puzzle this out,’ says Arjun. ‘What do you know? That this clearly affected Gergon before everywhere else, and it started within the past year, so it’s got to have started in Gergon.’

  ‘Yes. And someone stole the page with the recipe on it. Then somehow, it spread everywhere in Gergon – including to the Royal family. But they had Emilia Thoth, and she was able to create some kind of pill that stopped her and Stefan from being contagious – while they were taking it.’

  Just saying her name makes me shudder, but I remind myself that she’s dead: she can’t hurt us any more.

  ‘Why?’ Anita wrinkles her nose.

  ‘Stefan said he had recruited her. She probably owed him.’

  ‘Okay, so they must be looking for a cure too,’ Arjun muses.

  ‘Yes. At the time of the Royal Tour – when I was hunting down the aqua vitae – Emilia was working against the Gergon Royals, that was clear. She was rebelling against them because she saw that they were weak. It was her one shot. She blew it, yes, but she didn’t count on having us working against her.’

  ‘The ordinaries there are so downtrodden – I can see why they might be desperate to be Talented,’ says Anita.

  She’s right. Ordinaries are notoriously suppressed and shunned in Gergon. The alchemists are the only ordinaries who have some respect, and that’s because synthetic potions aren’t trusted. They haven’t joined the modern world like the rest of us. I see the scepticism in Arjun’s eyes too. ‘Or maybe someone was trying to find a way to make themselves more powerful. You know . . . a way to drain other Talents of power and transfer it to someone else, a bit like what happens with the Princess when she gets married?’ muses Arjun.

  ‘That seems more likely . . .’ says Anita.

  ‘That must be it,’ I say. ‘Any way this truck can go any faster? We need this cure ASAP.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ says Anita, and she puts her foot down a little harder on the accelerator.

  There’s a niggle in the back of my mind that I can’t ignore, though. A hint of something else I saw in Stefan’s tiger eyes, back before I was his captive, and when I thought he might be my rescuer. When I think about everything he’s put me through, my heart turns to stone against him again.

  ‘Maybe when we’ve cured the Princess, and Stefan is arrested for his crimes against ordinaries, he can be sent back to Gergon and we can be done with them forever,’ says Arjun.

  That thought sends my stomach reeling too. The people of Gergon didn’t deserve this any more than the people of Nova.

  We pull into the town, where the siren is still wailing. Some people are loading up their vehicles and evacuating – I would be one of them, if I lived in the shadow of that volcano. But when we enter the Jing laboratory compound, everything is quiet.

  ‘Should we be evacuating?’ I ask Mei, who comes running out to meet us. I really hope not. Their laboratory is the best chance we have of making the cure in time.

  She shakes her head. ‘Our monitoring system says that although there’s activity, it’s still below our evacuation thresholds. So – was it a success?’

  I nod, holding up the filled fire-trap. Her eyes go wide with relief. I follow her into the main mixing room of the lab, and when the smell of ingredients rendering and potions bubbling away hits my nostrils, I instantly relax.

  The Waidan looks up from the cauldron he’s leaning over, and raises an eyebrow.

  ‘We got it,’ I say, with a smile.

  ‘You did?’ Trina rushes in from the other room. In her hand is her tablet. ‘Awesome. Look, our plan worked.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I place the jar containing the phoenix flames on the table, then crane my neck to see what’s on the tablet. There, on YouCast, is the video I shot before we left for the volcano. It’s already had over a million views and rising. ‘Wow, seriously?’

  ‘Yeah, apparently it got picked up by a major news outlet for a while, but then they stopped showing it. Must’ve been pressure from the Palace. Stefan keeps trying to block every website that shares the video – but every time he does, I find a way around it. He might have people that are good but trust me, I’m better. Connect is going crazy – you have so many shares.’

  ‘So people aren’t freaking out about the ORA any more?’

  Trina shakes her head slowly and switches off the tablet. ‘I wish that was the case. If anything, the situation might be heating up.’

  ‘What? But they’ve heard the truth now – they know it’s not the ordinaries behind this after all!’

  ‘You have to remember, while you have a lot of credibility, you’re up against the Palace here. The Royal family have ruled for centuries and once Stefan married the Princess, he became one of them.’

  I bite my lip. I hadn’t thought about it from that perspective. Trina continues: ‘Plus, there are more and more restrictions being added all the time. There’s no more travel into or out of Nova any more. Reports of the “virus” are spreading around the world and other countries don’t want it in their borders – understandably. All the Transport streams are blocked. Look at this.’ She switches on the tablet again and swipes to a news page. The headline reads: ORDINARY UNION BUILDING VANDALISED. It shows a picture of a building with broken windows and GIVE US OUR TALENT BACK, SCUM written in bright red spraypaint.

  Fear grips the bottom of my spine and makes me choke. ‘Oh my god.’ We haven’t seen that kind of hate speech for a century or more. I don’t have a moment to waste. ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘I’ve got a potion to make.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Samantha

  ANITA AND ARJUN ARE STANDING BY. Arjun and I have changed out of our heavy jumpsuits, into more casual clothing ready for hours of work in the lab. ‘We’re ready when you are,’ Anita says with a smile.

  I nod. ‘Let’s go.’

  I set them to work immediately: chopping and slicing and boiling the different ingredients. ‘Arjun, there’s a bit of tough work to do pounding the emerald powder.’

  He flexes his bicep. ‘Tough manly job, coming up.’

  Anita throws a cloth at him, then turns to me. ‘Hey, are you trying to say I couldn’t pound emerald powder? I’m just as strong as my stupid brother.’

  ‘I know that,’ I say, my eyes twinkling. ‘That’s why I need you to crush the ruby powder. Just as hard, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, I was kind of worried you would say that.’

  Arjun throws the cloth back at Anita, and it lands on top of her head like a flat cap. ‘Serves you right.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t have some galium root I can cut up or some pixie dust I can sieve?’

  ‘What, and let the man do all the hard work? I don’t think so.’ I say with a wink. ‘Besides, sieving the pixie dust has to be done straight into the cauldron, so I’d better do that.’ This is my potion, and I need to make sure all the ingredients are mixed in properly.

  ‘Okay,’ she finally concedes.

  I’ve brought my potion diary and placed it on my work station, so I can consult it as needed. But I’ve read the recipe so many times now, I think I know it off by heart. Still, it doesn’t hurt to read it again.

  Sieve pixie dust into lotus-water base.

  See? I knew I had it right. Trust yourself, Sam. Trust your talent.

  I stir the lotus-water base, admiring the consistency as the wooden spoon ripples across the surface. It’s slightly more viscous than water, so it moves more like a gel than a liquid. It looks like you could bounce off it, if you were small enough to fit.


  I take the jar of pixie dust and balance the sieve over the gently simmering base. With a few taps, the dust falls like snow into the liquid. I hold my head back to keep from inhaling any dust particles launched into the air, but when I’m confident everything is settled, I tilt forward to watch the reactions as they take place.

  Watching a potion come together is the ultimate balm for my mind: I find that I can’t panic when I’m fully engaged with mixing. The logical part of my brain takes over, pushing out almost everything else: emotions like fear, anxiety, or even dreams. I’m totally focused.

  It blows my mind that the cure for this raging virus can be relatively so simple. This isn’t half as complicated as making the love potion cure – even with the fact that I have the recipe – and it’s far easier than it was to cure my grandad. This is like making a sleeping draught – all I have to do is make sure I put everything in the right order. The pressure I have now is time – before the drain spreads in Nova and before the volcano erupts and we need to evacuate.

  Of course, that’s where the difficulty level comes in. It’s a challenge to Find all the ingredients: the phoenix flames being a case in point. The rubies and emeralds to make the powders: they’re far from cheap, and not something we would normally store in our stockroom.

  But now that it’s all here . . . I could be back in Nova tonight, even.

  ‘Finished,’ says Arjun, almost at the same time as Anita. I hadn’t realised they’d been racing until I hear Anita’s groan of disappointment at coming second. I grin. I’m so glad I have my friends with me.

  ‘Okay, pour it in there,’ I say. He tips the crushed-up contents of the mortar into the cauldron, and the precious jewel powder makes a satisfying sizzling sound as it settles in.

  ‘Me next,’ Anita says. ‘See, I wasn’t that far behind,’ she continues, sticking her tongue out at her brother. She tips the ruby powder in after his emerald, and I stir it with my wooden spoon. It’s weirdly sludgy and surprisingly not expanding too much inside the large cauldron. I hope we’re going to have enough cure for everyone in Nova. They should all hopefully only need a drop, but we’re going to have to get into the Palace before the virus spreads too far.

  There certainly isn’t going to be another trip to get any more phoenix flames any time soon. The phoenix has likely left by now, since we disturbed it. I feel a pang of sadness that I didn’t get to see it properly – but I have to be content for now.

  ‘I think we need to leave it for a bit, guys. Just to let the ingredients simmer together before we add the final ingredient.’

  ‘Is that what it says in the recipe?’ Anita looks over at my diary.

  ‘No . . .’ I say. But then, I’m a Kemi – and I know something about Tao that I don’t think the others know. The secrets he hides close to his chest. The shorthand he uses to disguise the proper sequence of events – except to people who know the code. I imagine that there are steps he left out deliberately in dictating the recipe – and filling in the gaps is left up to me. Kemis don’t believe in following recipes to the letter – nor leaving recipes so easy to follow that they could be mixed by anyone. We all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, becoming giants in the process. But ancestors like Tao wanted to make sure we could stand on our own two feet, too.

  No one said that alchemists were perfect, after all.

  I’m sure that this potion just needs a little more time. A bit of breathing room, before the final ingredient is added.

  Anita studies my face, then shrugs. ‘You are the master,’ she says, with a small smile.

  I puff out my cheeks. ‘Let’s go see what Trina is up to. If we sit around here, we’ll just drive ourselves crazy. And I’ll just second guess myself.’

  We find her in the next room, hunched over her laptop. ‘How’s the potion going?’ Trina asks as we walk in.

  ‘Surprisingly well,’ I say. ‘Suspiciously well. I just hope it’s right. We don’t have a second chance at this.’

  ‘No second guessing, master.’

  We collapse down onto the sofas, and I close my eyes to take some deep breaths. We don’t turn on the TV – it’s too distressing to watch as the media struggles to fill in the gaps in their knowledge with speculation and misinformation. Instead, after I’ve calmed my heartbeat, I read over the notes in my diary again and again, making sure there’s nothing that I’ve missed.

  After an hour or so, I look down at my watch. ‘Okay, let’s go back and check on the potion.’

  Anita and Arjun jump up as soon as I speak, and together we hurry back into the lab. I peer over the lip of the cauldron. The potion is an unappealing grey-brown colour which . . . it’s not supposed to be. But that’s okay. Maybe. There’s still one ingredient left, and sometimes the final ingredient can change everything.

  Anita, Arjun and I hold our breaths as I open the jar of phoenix flame. I direct it down into the liquid and it slithers out like a snake. Our hands squeeze together beneath the table. A puff of smoke as delicate as a cloud rises into the air as the fire reacts with the liquid, and the cloud settles above the cauldron like a cloth. We hold our breath, counting down inside our minds. Five . . . four . . . three . . .

  The smoke disappears and instantly the potion changes colour from the murky grey to bright red.

  Exactly as was described by Tao Kemi.

  We’ve done it.

  We’ve made the cure. The one that could save my sister and the Princess and the whole of Nova.

  I take a vial and dip it into the liquid, stoppering it with a cork. Then I turn to Anita. ‘How are we going to get into the Palace?’

  ‘Simple. I will take you there.’

  The deep voice makes my heart stop. I spin around and Trina takes a step forward so that she’s in front of me, her bodyguard instincts coming out in full force. But even her solid form can’t hide me from the fear I feel at the sight of that silhouette darkening our doorway.

  He steps forward, emerging from the shadow. The light hits his sharp, angular face, his tiger eyes lit from within by the flames of madness. He takes another menacing step, then another.

  ‘Stay back from her!’ says Arjun, using his most commanding voice.

  ‘Samantha, I came because I need your help.’

  In a burst of speed that is almost superhuman, he leaps forward, closing the gap between us. Trina draws a weapon I didn’t even know she’d been carrying, and aims to fire. With barely a flicker of his hand, he flings her to one side. Even though I know she is wearing clothing that is designed to help her withstand a magical attack, she’s no match for Prince Stefan. Not when he’s married to the heir to the Novaen throne.

  Now, there’s only the heavy wooden table between the Prince and me. I don’t know what to do. I can’t throw the potion at him – it’s the only cure we have for my sister and the Princess. I have no weapon.

  There’s no one here who can save me. And I can’t even save myself.

  Trina jumps at Stefan, but it’s a split second too late. Stefan launches himself over the table, crawling like a bear on all fours, and he reaches me before I can scream again. He grabs my arm, wrenches it behind my back, then claps his other hand over my mouth. He stares at Trina. ‘We’ll be back,’ he says.

  Then before I can stop him, he throws something over my head and I feel a wrenching darkness pull me down, down and away from everything that I’ve ever known.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Samantha

  WHEN MY FEET HIT THE GROUND again, I pause. I’ve been Stefan’s prisoner once before, and I have no desire to be it again. I need to be alert, focused. The problem is, I’m surrounded on all sides by dark, cold stone and I’m a prisoner to his magic.

  ‘Where have you brought me?’ I ask. My eyes dart around the room, trying to take in any clues. There are none. It’s a perfect square, the same rectangular grey stones forming the walls, ceiling and floor.

  ‘Home,’ he says. I spin around and take in the sight of the Prince. He’s down on o
ne knee, dressed in a black suit and matching black shirt, the cloak he used to transport us settling over his shoulders. His tiger eyes face the ground; he doesn’t look up at me. ‘You’ll need to wear this before we can leave,’ he says. He throws me a similar cloak, this one in a rich sky-blue velvet. The traditional colour of alchemists – the same colour that ribboned along the edge of the Waidan’s white robes. ‘Your modern clothes have to be covered up as much as possible. Not that there will be anyone around to witness you, but she might get agitated.’

  I stare down at my white-soled trainers, my scuff-kneed jeans and button-down shirt. Then at the velvet cloak in my hands. It has a clasp to attach around my neck, a bright gold pin. I run my fingers along the rich fabric, fighting the urge to dig my nails in and attempt to rip it to shreds. ‘Who is she?’ I ask, through gritted teeth.

  ‘You will see soon enough. Put the cloak on.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  Stefan stands up and now stares me straight in the eyes. ‘You want to save your sister, don’t you?’ His eyes are wild and desperate, but it is a different kind of desperation that I expect. He doesn’t look as if he wants to stop me. He looks as if he wants my help.

  What’s a stupid cloak in exchange for saving Molly?

  I throw it over my shoulders.

  ‘Fine, let’s go,’ I say.

  ‘Good.’ He flings an arm out wide, and at the same time a gap appears in the stone wall in front of me. ‘This way,’ he says.

  He strolls out of the gap and down a hallway. The hallway is made of the same cold stone but – unlike the tiny room – it is more opulently decorated. Or maybe opulent isn’t the right word. There’s a layer of decay visible alongside the veneer of wealth. At first glance the carpets that line the floor look rich, but as I walk across them I can see they’re moth-eaten and threadbare in places, dust filling the gaps where the wall meets the floor. No one has swept these halls in months, at least. Large windows bring some light into the hallway, the glass frosted with dirt, and as we pass them I sneak glances outside. I see a sprawling town, a mix of old and new – concrete towers like ugly blemishes on an otherwise perfectly historic, thatched-roof town.