Calculus has to be the most difficult subject ever designed. My brain never truly wraps around the factors of limitation or how the fundamental theorem relates to figuring out integrals. Luckily, most of the class is related to figuring out tricks instead of actually solving equations and problems using the proofs of mathematical logic. Given that my memory is near-perfect these days and that I can ask Galea to show me a window that displays anything I have ever seen before, the tests are actually quite easy.

  Every mathematics professor is the same, and given that I am taking three different mathematics courses simultaneously, I think I have some authority in saying that. They only care about tests. So, despite finding it the most difficult class, it is the one I have the best grade. Chemistry is rather easy, actually, maybe I just have a mind for it. My classes on Enchantment are by far my favorite and most numerous. In the few weeks following the start of classes, I took the time to read all of the assigned books, something I discovered not many others bothered to do.

  Learning Enchantment is different with an instructor. Honestly, that shouldn’t be that groundbreaking a discovery, but my teachers in the past haven’t been all that good at teaching. Each has their own approach, their own speciality, and covers the material in a unique manner. Instead of feeling exhausted at the end of the day, I find my mind buzzing, barely able to contain my excitement to toil away in the lab throughout the night.

  That enthusiasm has waned somewhat, and now, as I look down at the figures on the pages in front of me, it is gone entirely. There is simply no way to make it work.

  I have already purchased the entire suit of obsidiante armor, but the true expense comes in the enchanting supplies. Even if I replaced as much of the mana as I possibly can with fire-affixed mana, I would still require at least thirty-one different kinds of render the entire suit into magical gear. The expense is incredible.

  Yesterday, I visited Matos to see about selling some more of my unique mana to him, but I found his shop closed. Another storeowner in the same building told me that he had been taken away for questioning by the authorities more than a week earlier, and hadn’t come back yet.

  Is that somehow related to me? Could the Faeth Authority have looked through his wares and found that he was holding onto some unique and dangerous kinds of mana, mana that hadn’t been checked at any of the city’s gates? Why hadn’t the authority come for me yet, then?

  Maybe it was entirely unrelated to me, but I didn’t want to risk it. For the time being, I wouldn’t be selling my mana.

  I can’t sell mana. I can’t go and hunt monsters on the continent below. My avenues to secure funds are growing woefully tight. The numbers on the page in front of me tell a story, a story about not being able to afford finishing even the enchantment on my obsidiante greaves.

  A knock comes from my door, and I turn to find Dovik standing there. “Are you still sulking, or should I come back later?” he asks. The man’s eyes are bloodshot, almost more red than white, and there is a tremor in his left hand that he tries to his nonchalantly under his elbow.

  “You look horrible,” I say, turning in my chair and leaning back against the table. “And, when I’m done sulking, I’ll make sure to change the notice on the door.” I point to the clearly marked sign quick-glued to the wooden door.

  “You left the door open because you wanted me to distract you,” he said, walking into the room and grabbing one of the free chairs from near the wall. The tremor in his hand grows more pronounced as he spins the chair and sits in it backward in front of me, resting his chin on the headrest. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know if you noticed, but we are broke,” I say to him.

  Dovik makes a show of looking around the laboratory, his eyes roaming over the expensive new equipment I bought less than a month ago. “Because of Darkness Hydra?”

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  “Shadow Hydra,” I correct.

  “Right. That is distinctly different. What did you do to piss it off?”

  “Do monsters need a reason to hunt pretty girls?” I ask him back.

  “The strong ones usually go after men,” he comments. “We have more meat, I guess. I don’t think they actually need to eat to live, not most of them anyway, but they sure do enjoy listening to people scream as they’re eaten alive.”

  As he talks, I can’t take my eyes off his trembling hand. The discoloration in his eyes is worse than I saw at first: there is a hint of toxic blue light eating at the edges of his brown irises.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. “This seems more extreme than usual.”

  “Extreme is right,” he agrees, nodding a little too vigorously. “I don’t know how much concern enchanting has with measuring precise concentrations, but it is rather important in alchemy. I messed up a bit. Didn’t understand that a particular reaction was pH-dependent and thought it was only a chlorination reaction. Logarithms, am I right?” He says it like a joke, but I miss whatever it is that he is getting at.

  Ever since he started with his alchemy, Dovik has been almost eager to use himself as a test for his concoctions. The man has an incredible resistance to magic, so much so that I doubt my dragonfire would do much to him, but the giddiness he showed in his self-exposure has worried me. From the moment he started experimenting with alchemy, his enthusiasm has grown a bit scary. He behaves like this is something that he has to do, that he is desperate to do. I can see it in his eyes; I just don’t know where it comes from.

  He dismisses the odd behavior, tremors, and the color of his eyes as side effects of four different concoctions he has taken recently. Dovik reports his findings to me, almost manic in how he does. The information is interesting enough that I almost lose sight of the fact that his shakes are growing more vigorous, almost.

  “I had thought there were only four delivery methods,” he explains, gesticulating manically. “The acid/base reaction of the concoction entering the stomach environment is obvious. Then you have reaction chains requiring the chlorine of stomach acid as a vital component; easily the safest kinds of potions. But what is truly interesting, what is truly difficult, is using the mettalo-chorline catalysts. That’s the issue with regular portions. Due to their nature of requiring that specific environment of the stomach to activate, they either neutralize the hydrogenation of the solvent or react with the chlorine and reduce its concentration. The catalysts, the catalysts, Charlene, they are the key to the true alchemy as they don’t change the stomach environment. That is the thing, the thing that makes me different. While all those other people are slowly dying from infused platinum poisoning, it doesn’t affect me. It doesn’t even accumulate at all if my blood tests are to be believed. If I can master this…”

  “I’m worried,” I tell him, grabbing his shaking hand between my own and steadying it. “These don’t seem like simple side effects.”

  Dovik’s rant ends. A strange mixture of pain and anger flashes across his face before he releases a long breath. The man forces a smile and nods at me. “I’ll take a break. There is no point anyway if my hands shake so badly that I can’t hold my sword.”

  “I think that is a good idea. Give your body time to heal.”

  “You know all about that, huh?” His smile doesn’t fade, but he pulls away from me. Dovik stands, turning the chair back around to face me, and holds his hand over the seat. A leather purse drops from his open hand, clinking with the distinct sound that only sixteen thousand suns worth of coin rendered into emerald fields can.

  “Where did you get this?” I ask, scooping up the purse and looking down at the glittering green coins inside.

  “You aren’t the only one capable of earning coin around here.” The smile on Dovik’s face turns genuine as he registers my shock. “You’ve been worrying about us a lot. Until that big snake decides to leave you alone, leave worrying about money to me. I have to start pulling my weight at some point.”

  When I ask him where he got the money, he changes the subject in a way that lets me know he has no plans of telling me. As long as he isn’t breaking the law, and I don’t think he is the kind of man to do that, then I have no problems with allowing him his secrets. Factoring the new infusion of money into the figures on my table, I find that there is a decent surplus left over. Rather than planning the next enchantment after the greaves, I set a small bit aside to put toward something that I have been planning to do for a while now.

  An hour later, I sit in a very nice study, sipping on the tea brought to me by a finely dressed butler. Lady Talagast enters her own study before I have gotten halfway through the cup.

  Her mouth half opens into an o as she sees me sitting on the plush couch, as if she hadn’t believed the man who went to bring her. “Charlene Devardem,” the Lady says, walking around the back of the chair sitting opposite mine and running her long fingers over the back of it. “I hadn’t expected you to stop by again so soon after your last visit. Tell me, what can I do for you?”

  “The last time I was here, you said that a history lesson would cost extra. Would you be willing to give me one now?”

  Lady Talagast smiles.

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