Chapter 5 #2
Whispers rose all around me.
“Can’t believe they let a first-year in our class.”
“—heard she insulted Lord Lukhan to his face—”
“—won’t last a semester—”
I focused on arranging my pen and brand-new notebook on the desk, and prayed class would begin soon.
The door at the front of the hall swung open with a bang, and the room fell instantly silent.
Mage-Instructor Marcus Varro strode in, silver-haired and ramrod straight in his flowing sapphire instructor’s robes.
His cold blue eyes swept the room, pausing briefly on me with a slight narrowing that sent a chill down my spine.
“Good morning, class. I hope you haven’t forgotten last year’s lessons over the summer. Today we begin our exploration of stabilizing agents in complex medical elixirs,” he announced. “Open Koveric to page ninety-four.”
The rustle of pages filled the room. I opened my textbook and was relieved to see familiar material.
Mama had focused on teaching me and Jacinthe medical elixirs last winter, when a nasty fever had swept through Bernswick and neighboring villages.
We’d brewed stabilizing potions by the gallon, Mama and I casting spells while Jacinthe prepared the ingredients, tended the fire, and washed our flasks and stirring rods.
Mage Varro launched into his lecture, his staccato diction and clipped tones suggesting a military background. He paced as he spoke, occasionally stopping to draw alchemical diagrams and arcane equations on the blackboard.
I took a lot of notes. Each time Mage Varro glanced my way, his expression soured as if my very presence offended him. Twice he stopped the lecture to ask me pointed questions.
“You—first-year with the braids,” he snapped, pointing at me with his lecture rod, “what is the critical temperature threshold for adding moonseed oil to a fever-reducing elixir?”
“One hundred and four degrees, Mage-Instructor,” I answered promptly. “Any hotter and the volatile oils will evaporate; any cooler and the oil won’t properly emulsify with the potion base.”
A muscle twitched in his clean-shaven jaw. “And the stirring pattern?”
“Seven clockwise rotations followed by three counterclockwise, repeated three times without pausing,” I said. Mama had relentlessly drilled that part into me.
Varro’s lips pressed into a thin, displeased line. “Correct,” he admitted grudgingly before resuming his lecture.
When the dining hall bell tower chimed the hour, Varro put his lecture rod down on his desk with a loud snap. “Theoretical knowledge is worthless without practical application. To the laboratory.”
The students rose in unison, gathering their materials. I followed everyone else into an adjoining chamber lined with stone workbenches. Brass burners gleamed at each station, alongside racks of clean glassware and measuring tools.
I was heading toward an empty bench when a familiar, cold voice cut through the chatter.
“This is intolerable.”
The room fell silent.
Lord Lukhan stepped into my path and stood glaring down at me, his striking green eyes blazing with contempt. Today his obsidian hair was pulled back into a loose tail, emphasizing the sculpted perfection of his features. Damien Corvellan loomed at his shoulder like a huge golden shadow.
My heart began pounding.
“Is there a problem, Lord FitzMurad?” Mage Varro asked, approaching us with a raised eyebrow.
“This first-year doesn’t belong in our class.” Lukhan gestured toward me as if I were an offensive smell. “Surely this is some kind of mistake. An administrative error, perhaps?”
Heat crept up my neck as every eye in the room turned to me. Mage-Instructor Varro swept me with his chilly gaze, then shrugged.
“Mage-Instructor Mundise sent Miss Bernswick here. Take it up with them if you have concerns,” Varro’s tone said, coolly. “She stays… at least until the mid-term examinations. Then we’ll see.”
Lukhan’s perfect features twisted with displeasure. “Then perhaps she should work at a station befitting her background.” He pointed to a workbench in the back, furthest away from Varro’s desk and the blackboard.
Varro nodded curtly. “An excellent suggestion. Miss Bernswick—that will be your assigned workstation for the term.”
I bit back an angry protest and walked to my assigned workstation, painfully aware of the smirks and sidelong glances following me. The bench’s stone surface was sticky with old residue, and the burner looked as if it hadn’t been properly cleaned in years.
“Today you will prepare a basic stabilizing potion for Summer River Fever,” Varro announced.
He tapped his lecture rod against the blackboard, and the recipe appeared in flowing script.
“My assistants will pass out baskets containing the ingredients you’ll need, but you must weigh and measure them yourselves. You have one hour.”
I lined up for supplies behind the other students. Everyone studiously ignored me. When I finally reached the front of the line, the fourth-year teaching assistant handed me a basket of ingredients filled with jars and bottles with a barely concealed sneer.