(21 Days Left)

When the nearest clock tower rang eight times, the backdoor of the Axiom Apothecary unlocked, letting out a weary-looking blonde girl in white robes.

Mila’s blue eyes spotted me immediately, and she rushed to my side.

“You’re… still in town?” she asked, smothering me once again in her white cloak. “I thought you would be gone by now.”

“I can’t leave today.” I sighed. “Skyway Central is under scrutiny thanks to the baron hunting down topaz drug dealers.”

“Do you need a place to stay?” the apothecarist asked before I could even open my mouth.

I replied with a nod.

“Come.” Mila wrapped my elbow in her arm and led me down the back alleyway.

***

Mila’s place could be best described as a very narrow attic space. The tiny bachelor apartment was on the top floor of an old semi-decrepit estate converted into rental units for the poorest serving class.

The building looked like it had been beautiful once, perhaps a few centuries ago, but now the rust-pitted back alley stairwell was overgrown with blue moss and reeked of garbage and fresh fish guts.

The way into the attic was through a small metal door unlocked with a hexagram that Mila touched with her fingers. The interior of the apartment was very sparse. The slanted ceiling was decorated with a large poster of Healer Hipocratii blessing a crowd of sickness-stricken pilgrims. The poster was surrounded by hundreds of smaller postcards depicting various cities of the Basq Empire.

My eyes ran over the city names under each card—Illatius, Agamemnon, Koper, Avont, Westroria, Polliix, and others.

Yes, the orphans belonging to Alaric had last names referencing various Basq cities.

“Want dinner?” Mila walked to a small mana-crystal-powered stove, pressing her palm into the hexagram to ignite the elements. Her head nearly brushed the slanted ceiling.

“I have provisions,” I said, sitting down on a small wooden chair.

“Save ’em,” the healer shot back.

“You don’t need to feed me. I don’t want to impose on you.” I shook my head as she set a large pot on the stove. “Seriously, don’t fret so much over me.”

“You’re not an imposition, Merv,” Mila insisted. “Also, let me bloody fret! You’re the closest thing I have to an actual family.”

“I’m quite surprised that someone raised by Master Milgrim is as nice as you are,” I said.

“I’m nice because I have an example of what not to do!” Mila snapped. “Alaric raised both of us, and you know what he’s like. I wanted at least one person in the orphanage not to suffer like I did...”

I nodded.

“When I was seven, I swore not to be like the alchemist bastard,” she said. “That I would save at least one person in the orphanage from ignorance and misery.”

“Why me?” I asked.

“Because you are bright,” Mila responded.

“A lot of good being clever did for me.” I shrugged.

“You are also deviously determined. The other orphans would not be able to use their freedom if they were offered such. They broke under Alaric’s care. You didn’t,” she pointed out.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Look at you, you’re wearing a cloak and armor befitting a high-level adventurer! Do you really think that another orphan would be able to procure such in under eight hours?”

“I got lucky,” I said. “The gods threw me a bone after giving me a kiss of death.”

“How did you get the money for all that stuff anyway?” she asked.

I narrated my experience at the Guild and purchase of supplies.

“Have you thought of anything that could help me?” I asked when I’d concluded my tale.

“I’ve been thinking about it all day, remembering everything I’ve ever read in the fat bastard’s journals and books.” Mila sighed. “There’s no alchemical solution that can help a shattered soul. Animism, the manipulation of souls, is incredibly illegal. Only our enemies, the necromagi of Novazem, know the cursed art of soul-craft.”

“Right, and a planetary convergence isn’t going to happen for years.” I sighed. “I can’t make it to Novazem, and I doubt that I’ll be able to find a necromage willing to fix my soul.”

“You need to eat, Merv.” Mila pushed a bowl of soup into my hands. “You know what the evaluation wand told me? You’re extremely malnourished, way smaller than you should be at your age. Please eat.”

“Why didn’t you run away before your auction?” I asked her as I accepted the offered meal.

“Do you think that I haven’t tried running away?” Mila sighed. “Alaric employed a manhunter to catch me.”

I gulped. It had indeed been a good idea to procure ridiculously overpriced armor and a cloak covered in anti-scrying and anti-tracking runes.

“They dragged me to the auction, kicking and screaming. I could not remove his monitoring spell-chain myself.” Mila sighed. “I wasn’t strong enough. A level zero mage is incapable of casting spells.”

“But what about now? Do you want to leave Acadia with me?” I asked.

“Leave and go where?”

“Anywhere.” I pointed at the postcards on the wall.

“I don’t hate the Axiom Apothecary as much as the orphanage.” Mila shrugged. “I got used to being there, helping people. In a decade I’ll save up enough to buy out my own contract and be completely free. If I break my chains now, I will never be truly free, will always have to be on the run from manhunters and Watchmen. I’m not as tenacious as you, Merv.”

“I don’t need praise; I need your help,” I said, my mind processing my options.

“I’ll offer what I am able,” Mila said with a nod.

“I want everything of value in your apothecary,” I said boldly.

“What?” Mila blinked.

“Is everything in Axiom Apothecary insured?” I asked.

“It is.” Mila nodded.

“If it is robbed at night, will you be held accountable?”

“No,” she said.

“Great. We’re going to burglarize the apothecary,” I said decisively. “We’ll head there at the darkest hour under my eye-redirecting cape and take everything not nailed down.”

“Why?” Mila’s eyes went wide. “What are you going to do with that many potion ingredients?!”

“What alchemical combination is able to keep a person focused and awake for twenty-one days?” I asked.

“Urm… Two hundred grams of crushed Borkroot entwined with a dragon heartstring is capable of keeping one awake for a month,” Mila said. “But after the month is over, the resulting magical cascade leaves the user paralyzed in a coma-like state for weeks!”

“Perfect,” I said.

Mila stared me down.

“I can sleep when I’m dead,” I said. “Every hour and every minute counts. You get that, right?”

“I… I guess.” She sighed.

“Then that’s what I need,” I said. “The more resources I have, the better.”

“They’ll interview me,” Mila said as she paced back and forth in her small apartment. “A scrutimancer will make me confess everything with magic…”

“What alchemical combination will erase eight hours from your mind?” I asked.

“Sixty grams of Allaweed grass,” she said, her eyes growing wide.

“You cannot confess a crime that you don’t remember.” I smirked.

“I… erm…” Mila fretted, twisting her yellow hair with her finger.

“Do you trust me?” I asked, grabbing her hand and looking into her blue eyes.

“I do.” The girl nodded.

“What drug can instantly knock a person out for several hours if inhaled?” I inquired.

“Jumbarish powder infused with distilled Nightshadow petals,” Mila answered after mulling it over.

“For now, we’ll stay awake with coffee,” I said. “At 2 A.M. we’ll depart. Until then, I want you to teach me how to use magic. There’s a high-level Space mage in my heart, and I want to figure out how to activate her innate skills. I’m well aware of the theory, but practice is lacking.”

“That, I can definitely do.” The apothecarist walked to a cabinet and set a kettle on the stove. She looked equally determined and terrified.

I slid a Voicecast gemstone that I procured at the market into her hand. “Keep this on you. I want to hear everything that happens around you, forever. If you don’t want to leave Acadia then I want your alchemical knowledge at my side for as long as I have left.”

Mila nodded and slid the gemstone into a slot in her armacus, activating the connection.

“Testing,” she whispered.

[Testing.] I heard her soft voice coming from the partner Voicecast gem encased in a wax ball that was sitting in my ear and smiled.

I retreated to the tiny bathroom and closed the door. “Do you hear me?” I whispered as quietly as I could.

[Loud and clear,] Mila replied.