"You know," Cale said. "I can't help but feel like having the alchemy class inside a cauldron is a little over the top."
"Nonsense," Professor Rinkle said. "How else can we co to truly understand our potions? We must live as our potions do! Breathe as our potions do!"
"I think breathing in potion fus is usually bad, actually," Cale said, although that did explain a lot about their professor. She appeared to be a hobgoblin of so sort, but by Cale's best estimates he was pretty sure she was actually so sort of pixie that had transfigured herself into a hobgoblin? Who knew.
He liked her earrings, though. They were unnecessarily extravagant, sure, but he was also pretty sure they were sohow functional. How she'd managed to enchant sothing that small to actively brew potions was beyond him, but then this sort of size alteration magic seed to be sothing of a specialty of hers.
"We will engage only in safe potion-breathing," Professor Rinkle assured him, which didn't actually do much to assure him.
Beside him, Flia sighed. She'd supposedly only agreed to co to this class because she shared it with Cale—according to her, she was on the verge of figuring out what the Leviathan had told her and needed only a few more hours—but the nagerie's attendants were very insistent on kicking her out, so Cale was pretty sure she was just attending because she didn't have any other choice.
"Welco to Alchemy 101 with Professor Rinkle," she muttered. "She once tried to use water from my magic as a potion base. Now that I know where my water actually leads, I feel like I know why the potion exploded."
Cale snorted. "You're telling
she tried to brew a potion using the actual Abyss as a base ingredient?"
"I'm telling you she partially succeeded in brewing a potion using the Abyss as a base ingredient," Flia said. "Honestly, I have no idea how, now that I think about it. Most of the potion exploded, but she managed to save so of it and turned it into so sort of summoning enhancent potion."
"That's... not an easy potion to make," Cale remarked, impressed despite himself. Using the Leviathan's domain to brew a potion was bold. It made sense that it would enhance summoning magics, but it could just as easily have drawn the attention of an Abyssal. The fact that it hadn't ant Rinkle was either absurdly lucky or knew what she was doing far more than she appeared to.
Though Cale hadn't quite decided one way or another, as far as that second point went. On the one hand, the fact that she was teaching here ant he was inclined to believe she knew what she was doing. On the other, she was currently lecturing the class on how a true alchemist needed to "eat as their potions do."
"She did actually manage to brew a potion that eats things once," Flia whispered. "Not even as an ingredient, the potion bottle just occasionally manifested a mouth and ate whatever was closest to it. She kept it as a pet for weeks. I'm pretty sure half her potions she just invents so she can make up a saying about it."
Cale blinked at this, then considered it for a mont. "Honestly, if I had her potion-making chops, I'd probably do the sa thing," he admitted. He didn't have quite as much of an interest in alchemy—it lacked the sa elegance as baking, and for so reason tended to include a lot more screaming ingredients—but now that he thought about it, he could probably do sothing similar if he ever held classes for baking magic...
The Brightscale Academy didn't currently have classes that were explicitly about baking magic. He'd asked. Akkau claid that the rest of the professors had vetoed him on the subject, but had also told Cale that once he'd proven himself properly, he'd be able to put it up to a vote again.
What "proving himself properly" ant Cale had no idea, considering he'd done plenty to prove himself already, but it probably had sothing to do with not changing things up too much until the Red Hunters were gone for good. Which was fair, all things considered.
"Now," Professor Rinkle said. "Many of you are new to this class, so I will go over the rules! The first thing to rember about alchemy is that you must treat your ingredients and your process with respect. Do not change the recipe unless you know what you're doing! Anyone caught doing this will be expelled from this class until the next academic term."
Cale raised an eyebrow. She was being unusually serious about that compared to everything else, and to her credit, it did make every student in class sit a little straighter and pay more attention. Maybe that was part of her strategy? To act a little off-kilter so that her students would pay attention when she got serious?
"Alchemy is an art, but it is a dangerous art," Professor Rinkle added. "Until you truly understand your potions, you must not deviate, or they will visit their divine wrath upon your souls."
...Or maybe this was just what she was like. It might take a few more classes before he could properly figure her out.
Cale couldn't deny that he was a little distracted. It didn't matter how good he was at compartntalization—he couldn't completely ignore everything that had happened. Sternkessel was the only person he'd ever t that was capable of understanding a fraction of who he was.
And now he'd been twisted beyond recognition. The professor might not truly be gone, but it would take ti to bring him back, and even that was no guarantee. As far as he was concerned, the fact that he hadn't responded by imdiately nuking the Red Hunter camp out of existence was by itself an act of incredible restraint.
Granted, there were good reasons for not doing that. He just had a little trouble rembering what those were at the mont.
Still... as long as there was sothing he could do, it was easy enough for Cale to keep a handle on his mask. Damien had asked him the sa question Akkau had shortly before they parted for their next class, in fact.
"How do you do it?" the dreadshade asked suddenly. "This isn't the first ti this stuff has happened around you, is it? Even here. But you always act like everything's... normal. I know we're supposed to so the Red Hunters don't figure us out, but I don't understand how you can do that."
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Cale glanced down to see Damien's fists clenched and trembling, then sighed.
"I can do it because it's happened so many tis," he said. "So of it is just experience. So of it is because, despite how incredibly normal I might seem—" Damien let out a disbelieving, involuntary snort at that, and Cale smiled at him. "—I have so incredibly unhealthy coping chanisms and I am an expert at using them to pretend to be okay."
"...so what you're saying is I should take up drinking."
"Absolutely not." Cale shot his apprentice a horrified look. "What gave you that idea? Are you even old enough to drink?"
"I—Cale, I'm an immortal being of decay. How old do you think I am?"
"Doesn't matter. You're basically a child." Cale reached out to pat Damien on the head, to the dreadshade's absolute mortification.
"I don't know if I hate that you did that or if I hate that it worked."
"Are you pouting?"
"No," Damien lied. Cale squinted at him, and when he didn't budge, sighed.
"You want to know the real trick?" he said. He strode over to one of their windows to look out over the Inverted Spires—Akkau had done them the kindness of enchanting it to maintain a scrying spell over that area, just so they could keep an eye on Sternkessel. "I've wasted too many lives on regret and anger. If a problem can't be fixed with an expression of imdiate and incredible violence, then you know what I do next?"
"I have questions about the anger and the incredible violence part," Damien said.
"I focus on what's next." Cale flashed his apprentice a smile, ignoring the questions. "This isn't over. Not by a long shot. But no amount of anger is going to help Professor Sternkessel. If anything, it'll do the opposite. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to attend classes as normal while I put all the pieces we need together.
"That said..." He paused for a mont in contemplation. "If you want to get a little revenge, you should et with
tonight."
Damien stared at him blankly. "Cale, we sleep in the sa dorm room."
"Even better!" Cale said brightly.
"How much incredible violence does this plan involve?" Damien asked suspiciously.
"Believe it or not? Absolutely none."
Cale was pleased enough with his plans that he wasn't even just pretending to be fine. He was mostly fine. Which was, as far as he was concerned, a great step up from being an incandescent ball of rage.
"Now!" Professor Rinkle said, wrenching him out of his thoughts. That was a very official-sounding "now
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