Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Dafni
I followed Gideon through the dome, entering the hallway of classrooms that made up the Academy.
We walked past the classrooms the more experienced water element witches used to practice potions, the empty classrooms used for practicing air magic, and classrooms with potted plants—many of which looked half dead—that were probably for the earth magics.
This was much deeper into the Academy than I’d ever been.
My heels clicked along the floor, two taps to every one of his.
I couldn’t help but stare at his shoulders.
He wasn’t more than six inches taller than me, but the way he held himself made him seem larger.
With his shoulders back and his head facing forward, he walked with a confidence I couldn’t emulate as I walked hunched over, staring at my feet so I wouldn’t trip.
“Here.”
I almost ran into where he’d stopped in the middle of the hallway with his hand extended toward me.
“You’re having trouble keeping up.”
Against my better judgment, I put my hand in his. He gripped it tightly and continued walking, this time pulling me along with him.
Gideon stopped in front of a door, letting go of my hand. The loss of warmth had me bringing my hand to my chest. He pressed numbers into a keypad, and the latch unlocking echoed down the hall. I looked around. There was no one here to catch us, or to tell us to go back to the dorms.
“Are you coming in…?” Gideon held the door open, standing inside the room waiting. I tilted my head toward the ground and walked into the room. He let the door shut behind us.
With the flick of a switch, Gideon turned on the lights.
It wasn’t a classroom but a room dedicated entirely to potion making.
The hum of boiling liquid and the crackle of the flames the small cauldrons sat on top of filled the air.
A wooden work bench with all sorts of tubes, cauldrons and fires took up most of the space.
Books covered the walls, their spines reaching out to me.
There were shelves lining the walls with all sizes of flasks and tubes containing different colored liquids and dry ingredients.
Some were labeled, others weren’t. This place looked nothing like the rooms I’d trained in. Real witches worked here.
“Are we supposed to be here?” I asked.
Gideon bent over to look at a flask with green bubbling liquid. “I can go wherever I want.” He reached out to touch the flask.
“Don’t,” I snapped. “That’s an expelling potion. It’s skin sensitive. A drop of that will have you bent over with your last meal on the floor.”
Gideon dragged his hand back. Maybe I should’ve let him touch it. He’d be too busy puking, and I wouldn’t be thinking about kissing him again.
I rubbed my hands together. This was all too tempting, all these ingredients and supplies at my fingertips.
“Can I make something?” I asked.
Gideon smiled. “Of course, you can.”
My brain whirled, potions and their ingredients running through my brain. “What should I make?”
“Maybe an antidote to the love potion that was spilled on you,” Gideon said. “I can keep some in my pocket in case you decide you want to kiss me again.”
My face heated.
We were both thinking about kissing each other.
“I can see the way you look at me,” Gideon said.
I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. They captured me, and I couldn’t look away.
He tilted his head as he stared. “You want to kiss me again, don’t you?”
I looked down, too slowly, my eyes stopping too long at the space between his legs. I heard a chuckle from somewhere deep inside his body. Immediately, I turned to face the work bench. He didn’t need to see how red my face could get.
“Fine, fine, I won’t tease you anymore,” Gideon said. “But you really should practice. Make that love potion antidote I just mentioned.”
I could do that. My fingers tingled as I looked around the room.
There were more ingredients here than my grandmother ever had at her cottage.
I started a circle around the room, glancing at the different bottles and their contents.
I recognized most of the materials, although I’d never seen them in such large quanities.
It must’ve taken years to gather everything here.
I grabbed jars and bottles off the shelves as I went around the room, collecting what I needed for the potion.
Jack pine needles, thimble berries, oyster mushroom extract, deer’s blood, and wild licorice root.
I also grabbed a jar of wild bee honey from the shelf.
It didn’t add anything to the potion except to help it taste less bitter.
Gideon watched from the middle of the room near the workbench, arms crossed in front of him, his body turning as he followed me around the room. I could feel his gaze on the back of my head. I pulled down the back of my skirt just a tad, suddenly aware of how it had ridden up as I walked.
My arms were full when I came to the workbench, and I dropped my ingredients on the tabletop. They clattered, some rolling to the edge, threatening to fall on the floor. I caught them, setting them upright. Thanks for the help, Gideon.
I set a clean cauldron on top of the burner, looking around for matches to light it with. In classes, the matches were in the drawer next to our workstation. There were no drawers here.
The whoosh of the flame catching had me turning back to the burner. Gideon was leaned over, his index and middle fingers pointing under the metal grates.
I took a step back. I’d only seen it once, when Gideon was made to perform at the last evaluation. Males were the only witches that had fire magic. I couldn’t help but to be impressed.
With his other hand, he fiddled with the gas, twisting and turning it in such a way that I wondered if he’d ever taken a potions class. The burner suddenly lit, the flame reaching a foot into the air. He stood, backing away from the flame.
“Jeez, Gideon.” I bent over the burner, taking the knob that controlled the flow of gas in my fingers, and turning it down. “Don’t you know how to work these things?” He could’ve started a big fire. There were so many flammable things in the room.
“There isn’t really instruction for my element,” Gideon said, his arms once again crossed in front of his chest.
I stared at him for a moment. No instruction? He shrugged.
I returned my attention back to the cauldron that was growing hot.
I popped the cork of the flask of deer blood and poured it into the cauldron.
It hit the hot metal, sizzling for a moment.
Next I added the thimble berries, grabbing a wooden spoon from the crock on the workbench.
I smashed them into the blood, the berry juices mixing in.
A tart smelling steam rose from the cauldron.
Time for the mushroom extract and licorice root.
I stirred them in, letting the liquid come to a boil before I sprinkled in the jack pine needles.
Glancing in the cauldron, I turned down the flame until the liquid was simmering but not boiling.
It needed a few moments to cook. Only when the potion turned a pink color, the same shade that my cheeks continually were around Gideon, would it be ready.
My grandmother had made this exact potion many times for my mother to bring back to the Coven.
Witches training in potions never got it right on the first try.
Bad love potions were part of the territory.
I turned around, looking around the room.
There were so many new-to-me ingredients and texts.
Gideon put his hands on his hips as he turned his head sideways, reading the labels of the jars on the shelves, his broad back pushing against the white button-up shirt he wore.
My heart pattered in my chest. The fast beat had me gulping air.
What was happening to me? Every time he was near, I reacted that way.
My heart rate increasing, my breathing going heavy, an odd tingle between my legs.
I’d been raised by women, exposed to only women—until recently, when the unfortunate series of events found me here.
It couldn’t be that all men made me feel this way, could it?
I had spent a year with Luke and hadn’t felt this way.
I’d spent a terrible string of days with Wilder and his roommates and had never felt like this. Was it because Gideon and I had kissed?
Gideon turned around, and so did I—as quickly as I could, so he didn’t catch me staring. I could hear his footsteps coming up behind me. I could feel his body heat against my back.
“You know I get whatever I want at this Academy.” His voice turned into a purr.
I turned around to the cauldron and peeked inside. The perfect shade of pink. I took the wooden spoon, giving it a quick stir before scooping some up. I turned slowly, careful not to spill. Gideon was within striking distance.
“And I want—”
I didn’t think, just acted, as I pushed the spoon between his lips. His hands clenched as the liquid slid down his throat. He bent over, sputtering and coughing, letting out a litany of curse words, some I’d never heard before, between breaths.
“What the fuck was that?” he gasped.
“The love potion antidote,” I said, still holding the spoon in my hand, watching him.
“It’s supposed to taste like asshole?”
“If you’re referring to an anus, then you’ll have to let me know how you found out what that tastes like.
” I turned around and scooped another spoonful of the antidote from the cauldron.
I eyed the bottle of honey I’d grabbed but forgotten to add.
It probably did taste like asshole, whatever that tasted like.
“You’d better try a couple more spoonfuls just to make sure it’s right. ”
Gideon’s face lost color, and he shook his head. “No way—that stuff’s terrible.”
I extended the spoon further. “You never know, you might just fall in love with me,” I teased.
He leaned forward, wrapping his lips around the spoon, taking the liquid into his mouth.
Ouch. I didn’t know what exactly hurt or why it hurt, but it did.
No one wanted a frizzy redheaded weird witch like me.
I turned back to the cauldron, ladling another spoonful.
I let out a breath. Why did I want him to like me anyway?
He made my body feel out of control. I wasn’t here for silly love games or to meet my prince charming.
I was here for power, for control, for Prime.
“Do you know how to make other potions?”
I spun around, the pink potion flinging from the wooden spoon still in my hand. “What else should I make, Gideon?” I knew I was lashing out, but my feelings were hurt. “A learning potion because you don’t attend classes? A pleasure potion so you don’t have to stare at me with those…eyes?”
“My eyes? What’s wrong with my eyes?” Gideon asked, a smile growing on his lips.
He knows what I meant. I scowled before turning around and continued ladling the extra potion into small flasks.
“But seriously, Dafni.” Gideon leaned against the workbench, the liquid sloshing around in the cauldron as his hip pressed against it. “If you can make potions, all different kinds of potions, you should practice.”
I pushed the cork into the flask forcefully. I probably wouldn’t be able to remove it again without some pliers. “And why would I need to do that?”
“Because I know something you don’t.”
“And what’s that?”
“What the water task will be.”