A low murmur of alarm goes up in the room, young women pausing to look up from their labors. There are no Keltic scholars here, no Elves, no Elfhollen. Gardnerian females dominate the apothecary trade, especially those with a little bit of Magecraft.
“It doesn’t matter,” the apprentice snipes, cutting off my explanation. “It doesn’t matter if there’s an army of Lupines on your tail. Guild Mage Lorel expects you to be on time. As correction, you’ll stay after class and scour all the retorts.” Her eyes bear down on me, white-hot. There’s something vaguely familiar about them.
A sick, sinking feeling pulls me down. This sensation is something new. Desperation. Now that Uncle Edwin is ill, I need this trade. And I need the Lead Apprentice to like me.
“Yes, Mage...” I shuffle through my papers, searching for her title. “Mage...”
“Bane,” she says, with unpleasant emphasis. “Gesine Bane.”
The sinking feeling pulls me deeper, weakening my voice as I take note of the wand hanging from her waist. “Might you be related to...”
“I’m Fallon’s cousin.” She flashes a quick, brittle smile. “We’re quite close.”
All heads turn as the lab door opens and our professor strides in, the smattering of whispering snuffed out. Gesine immediately takes on a studious, deferential manner.
Our professor, Guild Mage Eluthra Lorel, sets her thick stack of well-scuffed botany texts down with a thump, then glances at some papers Gesine holds out to her. She wears conservative attire under her open professorial robe, an Erthia sphere dangling from a silver chain, along with a gold Apothecary Guild Master pendant, and slim, silver glasses set upon a finely chiseled nose.
“Mage Gardner,” she says as she reads over the papers, pausing to acknowledge me with a quick glance and nod. “It is a pleasure to have you with us.” There’s no pleasure in the statement. Only cool formality. She turns to Gesine, a slight hint of reproach in her eyes. “Why isn’t Mage Gardner working on her Pertussis Elixir?”
“I was late, Guild Mage,” I put in, quickly explaining what happened and how I had to stay late to convince my Chemistrie professor to pair a traumatized Aislinn Greer with a Gardnerian research partner instead of a Lupine.
Professor Lorel’s jaw tightens. “I don’t tolerate lateness, Mage Gardner,” she snaps, then shakes her head as if reconsidering. “But you were helping a fellow Gardnerian avoid a potentially dangerous situation. And that is commendable. So I will overlook your lateness. Once.”
“Thank you, Guild Mage Lorel.”
She goes back to looking through her papers. “You will read chapters one through three of your Apothecary text this evening, Mage Gardner, and be ready to present tomorrow.”
My stomach drops through the floor. “Present?”
Everything grows still. Guild Mage Lorel raises her head slowly, her eyes gone flinty. When she speaks, her voice is soft and even. “You will recite every medicinal in the first three chapters—their origin, uses and cultivation. Tomorrow morn. From memory.”
I swallow uncomfortably as all hope of sleep flits away. “Yes, Guild Mage Lorel.”
Guild Mage Lorel waves her hand lightly at her Lead Apprentice. “Gesine, pair her up.”
Our professor launches into her lecture as I follow Gesine toward the back of the room.
“There,” Gesine says with a flick of her hand as if throwing me toward a refuse bin. “With Tierney Calix. We’re arranged by wand level.” She shoots me another quick, disdainful smile. “The powerless in the back.” Then she turns on her heel and strides away toward the front of the room.
Several young women take turns glancing over at me, some with open dislike, some with wary concern. There’s some nasty sniggering, and my heart sinks like a stone. This class is bound to be torture with Fallon’s cousin as Lead Apprentice.
I walk around a maze of tables to the very back of the laboratory, self-consciously embarrassed over my lack of power. In wider Gardnerian society, my wand level is a common thing, but not here. These are the best of the best apothecary scholars.
Most of the young women sport military-style silver bands pinned around their arms—almost all of them Level Two.
My lab partner comes into view.
She’s hunkered down over her preparations, and I immediately give a start at the sight of her.
Tierney Calix is, by far, the ugliest Gardnerian girl I’ve ever laid eyes on. Reed-thin, her face is sharp, her nose unevenly hooked, her straight hair oily and uncombed. And she appears bent, her back twisted to the side, trapping her into an odd, unforgiving posture. Like a spider protecting her webby lair, she seems to shrink down at the sight of me, drawing around her experiment protectively as she glares up at me through resentful eyes.
I set my book bag down and force out a perfunctory hello as I adjust to her unpleasant appearance. She ignores me and turns back to the equipment on the table, as if it can form a wall between us, her book open to the formulation of the Pertussis Elixir, her face tight with tension, as if wishing me away. She makes no move to make space for me at the table.
I sit down near the table’s edge and push my violin under it. I pull out my Apothecary text and open it to the correct page as anger flares.
“Are you friends with Fallon, too?” I challenge in a tight whisper. I instantly regret how petulant and weak I sound.
She glares at me as she begins to effortlessly milk liquid out of a pile of large glassberries with nimble fingers. “I lodge with her.”
“Oh, wonderful,” I say darkly. I grab up some berries and a ceramic bowl, push her text over to make some room for myself and attempt to mimic her deft milking. My bowl is quickly filled with a useless, coarse mash.
I glance over in jealous wonder at Tierney’s skill, her bowl already topped off with glossy, syrupy liquid, the berry pulp neatly discarded to the side. She’d clearly done this before. Disheartened, I glance around the room. Many of the young women have their wands out and seem to be drawing liquid smoothly out with spells.
In a huff, I pull my book open for guidance and am instantly disheartened by the complexity of the preparation. Clearly, Guild Mage Lorel believes in forcing us to learn on our feet, the elixir involving a cold-water maceration, a complicated distillation and a decoction involving eight different powder ingredients. Pertussis Negri is a nasty illness, afflicting mostly infants, and often fatal. It’s called the Black Cough because of the dark sputum it produces, and the elixir we’re preparing today is its only known cure.
I grab at some nigella tree bark and feel its familiar tingle on my fingers—winding black limbs graced with deep purple leaves sputter into view toward the back of my mind. It can lull you, this tree, its sap rich and slow as warm molasses.
Instinctively aware of its grain, I slice the nigella into strips and began mashing each line into a fine, dark powder. Tierney glances over at my work and I see her do a quick double take. I notice her own nigella powder is badly prepared, lumpy and mottled with strings of gummed-up bark.
Tierney grabs up my fine powder and pours it into a pot of water she has brought to an even boil. Then she pours her berry liquid into the first of a series of bulbous glass retorts. Eager to keep up with her, I light the flame below the first retort, fiddling with its intensity as the berry juice begins to boil unevenly.
“I know about you and Lukas Grey,” Tierney says as she stirs the concoction, watching as the roiling water turns deep purple. The scent of hot, ripe plums fills the air.
“Not surprising, if you live with Fallon,” I snipe as I jiggle the distillation flame, increasingly frustrated by everything, hitting at the burner when I can’t get the steam to flow in the right direction.
Tierney takes it from me, inches the flame higher and effortlessly positions it in just the right spot. A strong, steady jet of steam bursts through the entire series of retorts.
I slump back, defeated. It’s no use. Everyone in the room is more advanced than me. Most have the advantage of magic at their disposal, and everyone seems to be friends with or afraid of Fallon Bane.