5. Chapter 5
Chapter 5
I dreamt that night of the fire elemental, Keith. Of a fireball ploughing towards my head whilst I frantically tapped my watch to slow time to give me a few precious seconds to duck. In my dream, the watch didn’t work and Bastion wasn’t there. The fireball hit me and I burned, my skin cracking and peeling whilst the flames consumed me. Keith stood over me and laughed, shouting, ‘Burn bitch!’
In the distance, my mum watched and did nothing.
I awoke with a choking sob. Bastion’s arms were already around me and he stroked my hair, whispering a constant litany of love and reassurance. I shook in his arms as I sobbed my heart out. If anyone else had been there I would have tried to throttle back the tears, but as it was just Bastion I let myself go .
A repetitive tap on my bedroom window finally pulled me out of my crying jag. I knew that tap. ‘Let him in?’ I asked Bastion softly.
He kissed my forehead and padded across the bedroom, naked and unselfconscious. When he opened the window and Fehu flew in, I felt the jet-black bird’s concern like a tingle on my skin. ‘I’m okay,’ I reassured him. ‘It was just a bad dream. A really horrible one,’ I conceded, ‘but a dream nonetheless.’
‘Kraa!’ he said firmly. He flew to me but didn’t land on my naked shoulder; instead he landed on the duvet covers and hopped anxiously from foot to foot.
I smiled. ‘I really am okay, Fehu.’ I reached out and stroked his feathers. ‘I’m sorry I upset you. It was only a dream.’
‘Tell us about it?’ Bastion asked softly.
‘It was about the fire elemental. You didn’t get to me in time and I burned,’ I said, keeping my tone as matter of fact as I could manage.
‘I’m sorry.’
I snorted. ‘For what? In real life, you did get to me in time. Clearly my subconscious is feeling bad about Keith’s death. It’s harder, now that I know his name – it makes him human, a man that lived and breathed and had a mother and a father, and probably someone that loved him. And I killed him.’
‘He attacked you. You defended yourself. He was a mercenary – he knew the risks of every job he took,’ Bastion pointed out. ‘He knew witches carried potion bombs and yet he chose to attack you. His death is on him – and maybe his employer – but definitely not on you.’
‘A little bit on me, Bastion,’ I said with a wobbly smile. ‘I threw the bomb that killed him.’ Admittedly, I hadn’t intended to hit him, but my aim was terrible.
‘If he’d walked on by, he would have lived. You can’t choose other people’s paths, only your own. Let it go, Bambi.’ He kissed my forehead again lightly. ‘Do you want to try and go back to sleep?’
I checked the time: 3am. I winced, but all hints of sleepiness had faded. ‘No, I’m not going to get back to sleep now but you go ahead. I’ll get up and do some more potion work.’
‘I’ll work out, then we can have breakfast together,’ he suggested instead.
I smiled gratefully. ‘Sounds perfect.’
I slid into the shower and washed the nightmare’s sweat off me. I dried and dressed perfunctorily, runed myself up, then sat on my dresser chair and looked into the mirror to make my affirmations.
‘I am grateful I saw Mum yesterday. I am grateful I have Bastion in my life. I am grateful for all the challenges that I face because life is never boring. Today, I am going to create a potion to save Lucille.’
I nodded at myself, at the determination in my face. The first step in achieving anything is self-belief – and I believed in myself in spades.
Time to save Lucille.
I poured over the DeLea potion bible. There wasn’t anything in there that could help Lucille directly, but I made notes about a few potions I thought I could combine.
I’d started work last night before exhaustion had pulled me under. Despite the nightmare, I felt fresh and my brain was clear. My main problem was that I didn’t know what was ailing Mum, and Mum and Lucille were intimately and permanently connected. I’d been so sure it was temporal displacement, but the potion hadn’t worked – not because it wasn’t right but because the issue with Mum was something else entirely. Without knowing exactly what was wrong with her, it would be difficult to fix.
Lucille’s problem was that she was giving too much of her energy to keep Mum going. I needed to give her both a physical and a magical energy boost until I could get to the root of the problem and help Mum.
My ORAL potion gave a magical boost, but it didn’t have a physical energy component. I was pretty sure I could add to it, but potion interactions are tricky. I pored over my old textbooks, checking for mention of any adverse reactions with kelpie waters. Unfortunately there was none – because no one had survived the kelpies long enough to borrow their waters. That put me slap-bang in unknown territory. Luckily, the unknown doesn’t faze me.
My best bet was to combine the energising and the ORAL potions, but I’d have to remove certain elements from the energising potion that would react badly, then I needed to substitute other ingredients to reflect the reductions. I would definitely need to remove corydalis, but I was confident I could bring in velvet bean and griffonia without any adverse effects. Motherwort, of course, to strengthen Lucille’s heart. I had neither of those in my personal store, but the Coven store was sure to have them .
I reviewed the potion that I’d been researching to help Kass with her fibromyalgia. I could take the rhodiola, which is used for chronic exhaustion, from it. Confidence surged through me as I realised I had a very good starting point; I just needed to work out what amount of each ingredient needed to be added, and that was a matter of gut instinct rather than science.
I frequently measure with my soul rather than my weighing scales; that is my true gift in potion excellence. Something – instinct or the Goddess Herself, perhaps – tells me exactly the right amount of each ingredient as I brew. It is the one thing I’ve never managed to impart when I teach. I can teach the acolytes how to follow a potion recipe, but to make them into potion masters is something else. It is a calling, not simply a job.
I dashed down to the potion store with Bastion on my heels. I’d walked into the bedroom while he was in the middle of his workout and a fine sheen of sweat covered his body, but he’d pulled on a T-shirt and insisted on coming with me. I tried hard not to get distracted as I looked at him and shoved the ingredients I needed into my bag. I signed them out and gave Briony a smile as I left.
I jogged back up the stairs to my apartment; that counted as fitting in some exercise. When we walked in, Bastion shucked his shirt off again and started to do crunches. I left him to it and hauled my spoils back to my lab.
I cleaned the surfaces and decided to get started: there’s no moment like the one you are in. First I brewed a fresh base in my pewter cauldron, making notes as I went so I could replicate the potion exactly. That way I wouldn’t need to listen so closely to my gut when I made it next time, and it would be on hand to teach to others if it proved efficacious.
For now, though, I tuned into my instincts: a little more motherwort, less lemon balm, make the potion hotter… When I was satisfied that it was ready, I added the final ingredient, Lucille’s blood, to maximise the potion’s efficacy. It would bind the potion specifically to her.
I stirred it in and the cauldron shone golden. I grinned in exultation.
Finally, the potion was ready for cooling, decanting and testing. Optimism buzzed through me, a welcome lift from all the negativity I’d been struggling with. This was going to help Lucille, I was sure of it.