Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
We settled into a routine over the course of the week.
Freya refreshed her runes every few hours, while I woke her during the night to ensure she kept them intact.
Auggie’s suggestion had proved the perfect solution.
I was rather proud of him. I still wasn’t ready to believe in divine intervention, but perhaps the knowledge alchemists spread wasn’t completely useless.
We made good time, and the captain seemed happy with our progress. I, however, was not as happy with how long my potion was taking to reduce in the kitchen. After five days of ruminating, the water simmering and slowly reducing, the concoction was refusing to bubble and brown, like it was meant to.
Is something wrong with it? I wondered, pacing the small kitchen.
I ticked off the ingredients on my fingers.
Moonbeams from brackish water. Hangman’s toe.
Piranha teeth. Smoke from a dragon’s breath.
Stone chipped from the victim of a gorgon.
Bramble root. It was all there. I supposed I had to trust the recipe Mother had provided. I didn’t have much choice.
“Are you terribly worried?” Narcissa asked from her perch on the counter.
I sighed. “I just don’t want to make it worse.”
“How could it be any worse? She’s stuck in the body of a slimy, green rodent.”
I sent her a look.
“I’m just saying what everybody is thinking. And anyway, she seems to be adapting very well to her new body. If the potion doesn’t work, perhaps she’ll be better off this way.”
“It’s going to work,” I told her.
“Then stop delaying and give it to her.”
I stared at Narcissa, then nodded, pulling the pot from the stove to allow it to cool. “Thank you. I needed that.”
Narcissa bumped her head against my arm. “The sooner you return her to her human form, the sooner you can lift this awful curse of coughing up furballs when I’m in the mood to hunt.”
“Who said I was going to lift it?”
Narcissa didn’t blink as she gazed back at me, as if waiting for me to admit I was joking. Just to keep her guessing, I didn’t.
When I strode into the quarters I’d been using for the past few days, Therese was sitting on top of my pillow, a spider in her mouth.
She quickly devoured the arachnid and watched expectantly as I approached with the cup of amber liquid.
It steamed with warmth and had a rather pleasant aroma for something filled with such vile ingredients.
“Is that it?” Auggie asked, standing from the desk where he’d been writing letters back home to his alchemist friends.
“It is,” I said, holding up the cup.
“And this nightmare will finally be over,” Therese sighed, tongue flicking out to lick her eyeball. “I hope Father hasn’t been overly worried.”
“I didn’t give him any indication that you would be in any danger. As far as he knows, this is a rather pedestrian trip,” I assured her, as Freya entered the room.
She crossed her arms, eyeing the cup. “That took a while.”
Narcissa didn’t look as concerned as I felt about it not coming out quite like I’d expected. “Some magic makes you work for it.”
“Are you ready, Therese?” Auggie asked excitedly, perching on the edge of my bed for a better view as I approached Therese with the potion.
Therese considered. “I just hope it doesn’t itch as terribly as it did when I took this form.”
“It will,” I said. “Apologies in advance.” I held the cup on the pillow before her and tilted it so she could press her frog lips against the rim.
Very carefully, I tipped the liquid into her mouth, watching eagerly as her throat bobbed with each swallow.
When it was empty, I pulled back and watched expectantly.
The potion didn’t disappoint. Almost immediately, her frog arms began to balloon out, growing rapidly in size, followed by her frog legs.
“Oh, my,” Therese gasped. “It tingles.”
“It’s working!” Auggie exclaimed, face lighting up.
I took a step back when she slid off the bed to allow her body room to expand, her frog face puffing up. She began to grow more humanoid in shape, her torso elongating, her throat reducing. Red-orange hair began to sprout along the crown of her head.
And then it stopped.
I blinked, waiting for the transformation to continue. When a minute passed and nothing more happened, a sinking feeling settled in my gut. It should really not have stopped.
Auggie turned to me uncertainly. “Is that it?”
“Am I all better?” Therese asked, excitedly. “It’s so nice to stand taller than four inches. Someone hand me a mirror.”
Freya kept a smile frozen in place. “Callum …”
“I can fix this,” I said quickly, sweat breaking out over my forehead. I could fix this, right? But what could I do? How had I gotten the potion wrong? I’d known it wasn’t right.
“I personally think it’s an improvement,” Narcissa said, observing calmly.
“Not helping.”
When no one rushed to bring her a mirror, Therese searched one out herself, snatching a hand mirror from the desk. She lifted it to her face and stared.
And then she screamed.
“Calm down,” Auggie told Therese, placing his hands on her shoulders. “It’s just a little hiccup. Callum will find a way to turn you all the way into what I am sure is a perfectly healthy girl.”
“Absolutely,” I said, nodding emphatically. “Just a hiccup.”
“I’m a monster!” Therese wailed, dropping the mirror and covering her face.
“You’re hardly a monster. You’re just … between states at the moment.”
She looked up. “Will I ever be human again?” She blinked back tears. “How can I be seen in public like this? People are going to be scared of me!”
I considered, then snapped my fingers. “Like you did with Xander, remember? He looked so much better with ribbons in his hair and some rouge.”
“Ribbons are not going to help in this situation!” Therese shouted at me. “I don’t even have enough hair for ribbons!”
“Then … rouge?”
Freya looked at me accusingly, and I froze unsure of what to do. “What went wrong?”
“Nothing!” I insisted. “I collected all of the necessary ingredients. I followed the directions flawlessly.”
“Then let’s go over it. Again.”
I sat down hard on the edge of my bed, watching Auggie try to console a sobbing Therese. I felt horrible for her. I would fix this. I just didn’t know how yet.
I pulled Mother’s potion book from my cloak.
She couldn’t have gotten it wrong. She was very exact and triple-checked her work.
The mistake had to have been on my end. I flipped to the page for the potion and scanned it, careful to take my time, focusing on the ingredients for the potion.
But it looked the same. “Hmm … I could repeat the recipe. Maybe she just needed more of it?”
“Do you have enough ingredients for another dose?” Freya asked.
I nodded. “Yes. Yes. Moonbeams from brackish water—Lexi gathered those for me. Hangman’s toe. I only needed part … of it. I still have …”
Freya sensed my concern. “What is it?”
I flopped back onto my bed. “I suppose it’s possible that the man in the Ember King’s realm hadn’t been hanged. I mean, he was hung, but if he didn’t die by hanging, it might not meet the requirements of the potion.”
Freya nodded slowly. “Okay. So, we do it again, but this time we use a real hangman’s toe.” She turned to Therese. “You hear that, Therese? We figured out what went wrong, and we’re going to fix it as soon as we can.”
“Everyone is going to point and laugh at the monster girl!” Therese bawled.
Narcissa butted Therese’s leg with her head. “But just think, you still have your frog legs. I bet you can jump as high as before, but as large as you are now, it’ll be like magic.”
Therese wiped a hand across her face to dry her tears. “Do you really think so?”
Narcissa sat on her haunches. “Of course. Look at those legs. Slender, strong.”
Therese tested her legs by squatting. Her legs were a little longer than a human’s and seemed like they could launch her well enough. Perhaps Narcissa was right.
“I want to try it,” Therese said.
Auggie frowned. “I thought you didn’t want people to see—” He held his hands up as Freya glared daggers at him. “Of course. Let’s see what you can do.”
Freya led Therese out onto the deck. It was mealtime, which was probably a good thing, as most of the crew was below deck. The few hands on deck stared for only a moment before returning to their duties. Above us the sails, full and bloated, tugged the ship toward America.
“Now just jump straight up,” Freya instructed. “We don’t want to have to fish you out of the water.”
Therese nodded, then squatted. Her face set, she sprung upward, catapulting into the sky. She leapt much higher than the tip-top of the sails before crashing back onto the deck with a wet smacking sound.
“I did it!” Therese announced, giggling. “It’s almost like flying.”
I felt some of the panic in my chest abate.
At least she wasn’t soul-crushingly upset about her in-between state anymore.
This was a temporary reprieve, but so long as Therese wasn’t miserable, and there was hope to quickly remedy my mistake, I could focus on getting Auggie to his destination, and we could all move on.
Therese leapt into the sky again, laughing gleefully, and Narcissa joined her, encouraging her to jump higher and higher, meeting her in the sky. After several jumps, Therese seemed to be tiring, which was probably for the best.
Narcissa settled onto the deck beside me and cocked her head. “You know how much I detest the water, but I have to admit that it has some very interesting qualities.”
“Yeah?” I asked, hardly paying attention as I watched Therese stretch her legs.
“Oh, yes. I didn’t know water could glow green like that.”
“Green?” Auggie asked beside me. “The water’s glowing green?”
I frowned, my attention shifting to my familiar. I didn’t see the water growing green around us. “Where is this?”
“Just ahead,” Narcissa said. “We should arrive at it soon enough, then you can see for yourself.”
A bell began to sound overhead, and a man shouted. “Pirates ahead! Pirates ahead!”
If it came to battling pirates, I could certainly make sure this crew remained safe, with the help of Freya. But what did that have to do with green water?
I pulled eye of newt from my cloak, as well as a sprig of holly, ectoplasm, and tarantula pus.
I added them to a bottle of water and shook them vigorously before swallowing the concoction, its effects nearly immediate.
The orb at my chest only depleted slightly, still mostly full despite the potion-making for Therese.
I focused ahead and my eyesight seemed to traverse the water, where indeed, the ocean glowed an eerie green. From a pirate ship populated by ghosts.
I sighed. “I was hoping this voyage would be uneventful. I suppose you can’t have everything.”
I turned to Freya. “Better sharpen your blades. We’re going to be in for …” I watched her stiffen, eyes widening. She put a hand to her chest. “Freya?” I reached out for her.
“No!” she shouted, putting out a hand to stave me off. She dropped to her knees. “I’m … I’m sorry.” Her eyes became unfocused, and then she straightened, her stance changing entirely. She grinned an evil grin and flipped her hair back before her eyes settled on me. “That is so much better.”
My eyebrows knit together as she got to her feet again. And then I realized what was happening. Ghosts rising from the ocean floor; Freya, with her body made from previously dead parts and previously under the rule of a cruel necromancer.
Ambrosia was back.