“I’m really sorry Boss-” Visk started to say.

  “Don’t… Don’t apologize,” I rumbled at the same time. A mixture of frustration and unexpected happiness rose inside of me. “I felt resistance, so I was about to stop-”

  “No, no, no, It’s not your fault!" Visk interjected. "Your song was a perfect match an-”

  “Did it injure you in some way-”

  “I just wanted you to help you!” “I just wanted to be with you!” Our words rang over each other in the quiet darkness of the hovel.

  We both stopped talking over each other long enough to catch our breath. Visk was still draped over the top of my neck and head. They seemed reluctant to leave their perch for some reason. After a bit of awkward silence, I gave a low chuff from within my throat to nudge them to speak.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, Sanguine,” Visk said carefully. “You did everything I asked you to. It was… the problem was me. I didn’t realize how… how deeply tied my people’s magic was to the Dareen. It’s been… longer than you can imagine since I was under their control. But I guess they still had their hooks in me.”

  “So when you tried to accept the magic I tried to give you, the Dareen’s influence on you tried to stop it?”

  Visk coughed and rubbed their palm against the smooth texture of my horn. “Not… exactly? It was more like the… hooks inside of me tried to latch onto your magic. To steal or control it. Like I said Boss, it’s been years and years since I felt the Dareen’s direct influence on me. But when your magic got close, whatever was lingering inside of me woke up and…” They trailed off into silence.

  “You made a choice,” I rumbled, partly to myself. “... Is your connection to them severed now? To your people? You don’t smell like them any more.”

  That choice of words made Visk raise one arm to their nose to give it a gentle sniff. They wrinkled their nose in disgust. “I don’t know what you’re smelling, Boss, but to me it smells like I got dragged through a sewer.” They paused. “I mean, that did technically happen I guess.”

  “So we’re agreed that we both need a long bath when this is over. Do you feel topped up on magic now?”

  Visk squirmed on top of me, but gave a reluctant sigh and slid off of me to stand on their feet.

  “You don’t have to walk if you don’t want to,” I said softly. My Visk seemed to enjoy riding around on my back just as much as my Cassia did.

  As a secondary thought, I felt it was appropriate to give them the formal ‘My’ title. Visk had just made a big sacrifice on my behalf. There were still valid concerns that we needed to address between us, but they deserved my gratitude at a minimum.

  “Boss, you just reminded me that I’m filthy,” Visk griped as they looked down at their grime coated attire. The elf’s leather armor hadn’t been returned to them with their belongings, so they were dressed in the linen shirt and half length breeches that they generally wore beneath it. I could see sets of swirling tattoos on their limbs that they normally kept covered. “I just got this filth all over your scales… It’s in my hair! Yeugh.”

  Visk did a little disgusted dance on the tips of their toes while flicking their fingers back and forth. Their ears were stuck out completely flat from the sides of their head.

  “No more dragon cuddles until we both get a bath- Ahem. Until we both separately… get a bath,” Visk said with a fake sounding cough. It was quiet, but I was able to hear them also mutter: “My heart’s not ready for ‘mixed bathing’.”

  I didn’t understand what the problem was since Visk had once hopped into the pool of water with me back in my Den. A vague recollection surfaced in my mind of me demanding a hug at the time. I’d been fairly exhausted so it was fuzzy in my memory.

  “Okay, no ‘cuddles’ for now, but if things get dangerous I’m still grabbing you to fly out and escape. I don’t care if you’re a little messy, protection comes first.”

  Visk stared at me owlishly. “Gods I have got to sit down with Cassia and get her to teach you about ‘phrasing’,” they muttered. “You both say things which make peoples’ heads spin without realizing it.”

  “I blame her and Edith for it, a little,” I complained in return. “They keep referring to certain subjects as ‘young lady matters’ and talk their way around it rather than just tell me things. The one time Edith actually sat down and tried to explain it to me, she mostly just told me to wait ‘til I’m older.”

  “... Yeah I forgot about that.” Visk reached up to rub the tip of their ear, but thought better of it when they looked at the dirt on their fingers. “She’s already going to chew my ears off for worming my way close to you when she wasn’t around. I’m not touching ‘adults only conversations’ with a ten foot stick.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to start treating me like a hatchling as well.”

  “Hmm?” Visk said absent mindedly. “Nah. I’m just gonna wait for a couple of decades before having that talk with you.”

  “Sorry to say Boss,” Visk continued. “-but you’re probably stuck with me for a good long while. I dunno how long dragons live exactly. But with the amount of magic you’ve got floating around inside you, it’s probably going to be a few centuries at a minimum. Twenty years will be…” Visk snapped their fingers. “- over like that.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Visk, who started to shift uncomfortably.

  “Sorry Boss,” they said softly. “I didn’t mean to uhm, upset you. I figure you’re thinking about Cassia and Edith, right?”

  “You would be correct Visk,” I replied sourly. “This is the second time someone’s mentioned… the great lengths of time involved in my life. My sister Sixth went so far as to suggest it was a ‘waste of time’ to bother with humans before… something happens in the future. We didn’t get to finish speaking about it, but it sounded like it might happen relatively soon.”

  “Yeesh. ‘A waste of time’? Your sister sounds like a bundle of joy.” Visk cringed at that turn of phrase, sarcasm dripping from their lips. “... You might not have to worry too much about it, Boss. Not to prematurely get your hopes up, but the amount of magic you just dumped into me has me feeling literal decades younger. That may not mean as much to a Dok as, say, Edith. But it’s still something…”

  “... Edith mentioned off hand that she’s… forty-something years old? I gotta tell you Boss, she looks like she’s maybe brushing twenty five. My judgment on human ages is a little-” Visk wobbled their palm face down in the air. “-eh? But I’m pretty certain about this one…”

  “... Then there’s Cassia, who can jump from a dead stop and smack you on the back of the head. She lifted a hundred pound crate at the Market yesterday without even blinking!” Visk shook their head and gave a deep sigh. “The point being: if what you said about those scales of yours being foci is true and they've been sharing your magic this whole time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they both effectively stop being human after a couple of years. Who knows how long they’ll live?”

  “You’ve… given me a lot to think about Visk,” I said carefully. “... But we still need to go find this ‘dead’ Alchemist. No more delays.” Visk nodded their head in response and walked with me as I went to head out of the hovel.

  The hill close to the Alchemist’s workshop had been cleared up to a hundred meters away from the building. Even the trash that clogged the streets of the Dusk Quarter stopped at a well defined distance. Not even a single plant grew beyond the line. Even the most durable varieties of scrub grass simply ceased to spread in that direction.

  I couldn’t detect any unusual magic surrounding the hill. The currents of Vitae flowing through the area seemed entirely unremarkable, if a bit sluggish. Certain places in the world acted as shallows where the currents of Vitae slowed down. Compared to the chaotic flows of the City or the raging rapids of the Barony, this place was eerily still in terms of magic.

  “There aren’t any traps that I can see,” I told Visk as we both stared at the hill from just behind the line of demarcation. “Nothing magical. If anything, this place is… notably ‘un-magical’. It doesn’t look like the place a Wizard would want to live.”

  “There still could be normal traps,” Visk murmured as they crouched next to me. “You’d not get such a clear ‘line in the sand’ if there wasn’t something keeping people away. Plenty of folk would rather live up on a hill than down here. I’m pretty sure this area floods when it rains.”

  The presence of at least one aqueduct sending its overflow into the Dusk Quarter suggested that Visk was probably right.

  “Is there anything we can do to check, or do we need to just hope for the best?” My tail swished back and forth behind me. “Between traveling underground, sneaking over here, and… having a talk, I’m fairly certain day time will come sooner rather than later.”

  Visk resisted the urge to touch their face as they thought my question over. The grime covering their body and clothing was bothering them greatly after I’d drawn attention to it.

  “I think we just hope for the best at this point, Boss,” they said with a sigh. “I’ll check if there’s any traps or if the door is locked as we go. Just be ready to yank me back if something goes poorly.”

  The two of us crept up the hill together. Neither of us seemed to spot any irregularities or signs of hidden danger as we ascended. The quiet chaos of the Dusk Quarter faded behind us as we drew closer to the Workshop. I could see a large number of chimneys and vents poking out of its ramshackle roof. There were no plumes of smoke or signs of activity. No lights shined in the shuttered windows.

  Visk examined the front door as we walked up to it. Their moonlit eyes darted back and forth to various points around the entrance, but they didn’t point out any oddities. A small leather roll was pulled from the satchel containing their belongings. Inside of the roll was a series of small sticks made of iron, which were bent into odd shapes.

  The elf went to pull one of them out, then stopped and slowly put it back.

  “What’s wrong?” I hissed nervously.

  “There’s no lock on the door, Boss,” Visk replied irritably. They gave a small huff and stepped up to the door.

  I peered over their shoulder. It was just as they had said. There wasn’t a lock or even a handle on the surface of the door. They put the leather roll back in their satchel and pushed the door lightly with their fingers. It swung inwards with a soft creak and exactly zero traps being triggered.

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  “... I’m going to be really mad if we could have just walked over here with no issue this whole time.” Visk slowly poked their head through the open door and looked around. When no danger presented itself, they looked back at me. “Alright, let's see if we can squeeze you through the door. I think if you tuck your wings tight and crouch, you’ll just barely make it.”

  It was difficult to fit through the door, as Visk had indicated. My size was approaching the point where entering most human homes was proving troublesome. The interior of the Alchemist’s workshop was jam packed with all manner of tables, shelves, and devices that I didn’t know the purpose of. My head and shoulders were able to get through the door, but by the time my back legs had passed through, I was taking up nearly all of the available space.

  I tucked my wings and tail up against my body and gingerly nudged the door shut behind me. Visk had to stand up against my chest under my long neck to remain inside, or they risked being squashed.

  “Who even needs all of this?” Visk complained loudly, now that we were ‘hidden’ inside of the building. “Half of this stuff in here is junk!”

  “Well that’s not very nice,” an unseen voice said in the dark.

  Visk screamed at the top of their lungs.

  “Are you quite alright young one?” the voice asked once Visk stopped screaming. They had somehow managed to climb up my body and had latched onto my head in under a second. “I’ll admit it's been a long time since one of the vaen loeg visited my shop. A dragon is also a novelty.”

  “Where are you?” I rumbled as I looked around the workshop. When I switched between my normal vision, my Vitae sight, and even my eyelids that filtered out everything but heat, I couldn’t see anyone inside of the shop except for me and Visk.

  “Ah, right. Bugger,” the voice said. “I forgot that I’m in polite company. Just a moment.” As I watched, a set of robes floated off of where they’d hung from a peg on the wall. It was followed by an apron and a pair of goggles that reminded me of what Edith wore while working on her potions.

  The clothing collectively moved through the air and settled onto something invisible. By the general shape and placement, I could approximate that it was a human, or close enough. So many strange and noxious scents were floating through the air of the alchemist shop that I couldn’t detect the invisible man’s presence. At least I thought it was a man, based on the sound of their voice.

  “Pleasure to meet you. My name is Mortimer the Alchemist.” The goggles and robe bobbed up and down, suggesting that the man had bowed to me. “The finest Alchemist on this side of the Cloudshears.”

  “A… pleasure to meet you as well,” Visk said as they slowly slid down my neck and stood back on the floor. “You’ve met my people before? Not many humans know us by our proper name… Also, why are you invisible?”

  “Oh it’s been many years since I did business with Dark Elves, but I remember the encounter vividly,” the alchemist said as his robe floated across the room to settle on a small workstool. “They needed an antidote for a poison native to our world and were… very much in a rush to acquire it. But, I learned some interesting information in exchange so all was well in the end. As for my condition… well that’s a bit of a long story.”

  “Before any long stories,” I interrupted. “We have urgent business as well. There is a powerful potion of healing that you are supposed to have. We need it.”

  “Oh that?” Mortimer asked, his goggles tilting to one side. “I’m sorry to say Mister Dragon, that I don’t have any healing potions available. My Great Work has been a bit of a wash out I’m afraid. I’ve got the mixture so close that I can almost taste it, but it fails every time.” The alchemist sighed, sounding very old in the process. “Perhaps my one time apprentice will be able to finish it in my stead. She had a remarkable talent for such things.”

  “Was her name Edith?” I resisted the urge to flick my tail back and forth in excitement. “We know a woman by that name who helped heal someone that was near death.”

  “Did she now? I always had faith in the girl, in spite of her bitter heritage. That’s excellent news!” The goggles bobbed up and down over the top of the stool. “If her name is Edith Rahal, then that is indeed my old Apprentice. Tell me, what did she use to finally complete the Great Work? I was a little skeptical that she would find what she was looking for beyond the Cloudshears, I’ll admit.”

  Visk and I looked at each other for a moment. We needed the potion. By the sound of it, Edith’s master was the one who had come up with the recipe she used to heal Magnus and Cassia months ago. After some consideration, I answered.

  “It uses dragon’s blood. But… There are side effects. The potion is too powerful. Unless the person drinking it is very near death, they can be healed too much and potentially die as a result.”

  Mortimer was silent for a bit as he pondered this information. When he spoke, his voice was stern.

  “That fool girl tested it on herself, didn’t she?” All I could do in response was nod. The alchemist gave a groan of exasperation. “Godsdamnit Edith. No matter how many times I scolded her over proper lab safety, she always made a habit of throwing it away when the only one who would get hurt was herself.”

  “I’m sorry to rush you Mister Mortimer,” Visk said uneasily. “But we really do need that potion. Someone has captured our friends and demanded that we recover it to let them go. They… uhm, told us you were dead, that no one had seen you alive.”

  “Well imagine that. You go invisible for a month and everyone says you’re dead!” Mortimer got up off of his stool. The arms of his robes planted themselves on his hips. “I’ll admit that I’ve not been doing much business while I figure out how this works.”

  “So… You’re not dead, just invisible, and you haven’t been working because of that?”

  “Got it in one Mister Dragon. It’s quite a pickle to perform precise calculations or mixing when you can’t see your hands! I’m invisible to myself as well as everyone else. It makes certain… other, activities more than a little risky as well.”

  Visk and I both stared at the floating pair of robes. I shook my head and tried not to think too deeply about what the man meant.

  “So if we helped you, would you be willing to make the potion for us?” I asked carefully. “I helped Edith a bit when she made it the last time… and Visk’s hands are quite skilled at precision movements.” I blinked. “My name is Sanguine and my elven companion is called Visk, by the way.”

  “Did no one teach him to give a pseudonym to magically inclined strangers?” Mortimer asked Visk. The elf shook their head, looking a bit put off by the way their ears flicked down. “Young drake, if no one has taught you better, it falls to me. Never give your True Name to someone who can use magic. It’s rare, but there are people out there who can use it to control you. Use a ‘stage name’ instead, or a title. That’s why people walk around calling each other ‘Alchemist’, ‘Wizard’, or something else equally daft.”

  “So Mortimer the Alchemist isn’t your real name?” I asked curiously. The goggles shook side to side. “I suppose… you can call me… Rubyscales?”

  “Eh, you’ll have to workshop it, but it's good enough for now,” Mortimer said solemnly.

  “‘Visk’ is fine for me,” the elf said as they stepped away from me to inspect one of Mortimer’s workstations. “It’s close enough to a nickname that no one should be able to use it.”

  “As to your request, young drake, I would be delighted if the two of you would help me finish my Great work.” The robes floated over to where Visk was standing and one sleeve rose to indicate a set of ingredients. “Tell me what you can remember from helping my erstwhile Apprentice and let’s get started.”

  As the morning sun filtered in through the shuttered windows of the workshop, Mortimer the Alchemist raised the latest potion into a thin beam of light to inspect the contents. He finally seemed satisfied with the subtle ruby glow of the liquid in the vial.

  “You weren’t kidding when you said there were side-effects,” Mortimer said grimly. “I feel bad for the little blighters, but some small sacrifices must be made in times of dire need.” The ‘little blighters’ he referred to were a colony of rats that the Alchemist raised in a closet of his workshop. There were more of the small vermin than I could count. Their purpose in life was apparently to serve as semi-willing test subjects for Mortimer’s concoctions.

  The man had attempted to explain something called the ‘rite of equal exchange’ to me, but it flew right over my head in spite of my height. As best as I could understand, Mortimer acted as something like a feudal lord for the surprisingly intelligent rats. In exchange for being supplied with food and protection, they somehow selected a small number of their weaker members to serve as test subjects.

  Mortimer the Alchemist struck me as an exceedingly methodical and patient man. He never got upset when Visk or I made a mistake and regularly emphasized the importance of safety over quick results. That many of the rat test subjects had suffered from testing the ‘Great Work’ was a sign of its inherent danger and difficulty of manufacture rather than carelessness.

  The fortunate rats had simply exploded on the spot after ingesting it. Those less fortunate were the reason that Visk was currently crouched out behind the Alchemist’s workshop to get some fresh air.

  Mortimer carefully slid the vial he’d been inspecting into a small case, which he slid over to me on the recently cleaned worktable. He took his time in doing this, to ensure his invisible hands didn’t shove it off the table and onto the floor. In total, we had successfully created seven vials. We would be taking six with us, while Mortimer kept a seventh for himself.

  I didn’t feel inclined to deny the old man his prize, considering that he’d worked on the recipe for a number of years. If anything, I suspected that Edith would be pleased to hear that her former master had benefited from the work she’d done since parting from him.

  “Mister Mortimer,” I said to the invisible man. “Thank you for what you have done. We wouldn’t have been able to make this without you… But I did have a couple of questions for you before we parted ways.”

  “What is on your mind, Mister ‘Rubyscales’?”

  “Two things,” I answered slowly. “First, is there any relation between you and a Wizard who is also named Mortimer, and have you seen a young human boy named Magnus that might be with him?”

  “Well that is an interesting set of queries, young drake.” The goggles slid off of where they’d sat on Mortimer’s see-through head and were put down on a table. “It’s all a bit complicated, but it would be accurate to say that Mortimer the Wizard and Mortimer the Alchemist are the same person.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the invisible man. After we’d helped clean up the workshop, I’d finally been able to distinguish his scent from the environment. He did smell like Mortimer the Wizard, but there were some distinct differences that couldn’t be easily hidden or changed. Rather than attack on the spot, I patiently waited for his explanation.

  “I’m guessing my other self has done something to upset you greatly?” the alchemist asked me calmly. He huffed when my expression answered for me. “Well that’s just swell.” He folded the sleeves of his robes across each other over the protective apron he wore. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to make an enemy out of a dragon…”

  “... The short version is that the person standing in front of you, Mortimer the Alchemist, was once a part of the same body as Mortimer the Wizard. I was once a highly accomplished scholar that travelled around the Continent to research magic found in hard to reach places. The Barony of Reimse that you come from, would be a good example. It’s always had a rather wild and untamed nature, which is why Wizards avoid the place. Too easy to mess a spell up and get disproportionate Consequences in return. “

  Mortimer the Alchemist sat down on his stool and crossed his legs, the shapes showing beneath his robes. “Anyhow, the ‘me’ back then was a little unwise with how I investigated novel kinds of magic. A spell that I didn’t fully understand went out of my control and split ‘me’ several times. Rather than a pile of offal steaming on the ground, I became several separate but connected ‘reflections’ of myself. There’s around five ‘Mortimers’ floating around the Continent, each pursuing their own studies individually.”

  “Ironically, we don’t get along that well,” Mortimer concluded. “The Wizard ‘me’ and this ‘me’ aren’t on speaking terms at the moment. We both just happen to be working in Osteriath.”

  “Could you tell us where to find him?” I asked once he was done explaining. “He stole a child, Magnus, from us during a… deadly battle. In the process he murdered someone those dear to me care for.” I rumbled angrily. “I will not lie. If I have the option, he will pay for what he has done. But rescuing the boy is my main priority.”

  “Heh,” the Alchemist snorted. “I always told that idiot that he’d piss someone off enough that it would come back to bite us collectively in the ass. I didn’t think it would turn out to be so literal.” Mortimer shrugged. “If you can somehow stop him from weasling his way out of it, feel free. The rest of me will cry no tears if he’s no longer around to steal our silverware when we’re not looking. You can find him at the Tower of Baedain.”

  The current Mortimer took up a piece of charcoal and scrawled a sigil on a scrap piece of parchment, which he slid across to me. It was in the shape of several stars orbiting what I thought was the ‘Sun’. “This is the Tower Sigil that you need to look for,” he explained. “But beware of the Mistress of that Tower. She’s said to be a powerful Enchantress who can warp the mind and the heart.”

  Visk came back in, still looking a little green around the gills. They caught the tail end of what Mortimer was saying and walked over to inspect the sigil. Their slender fingers picked up the parchment and tucked it into their pocket after a quick examination.

  “I guess we have everything then,” Visk said with a sigh of relief. “Begging your pardon, Mister Mortimer, but do you know the nearest place we can sneak back into the underground? It’s fully daytime now and I don’t want to risk getting caught out in the light.”

  “Hmm… Well there is my cellar. I think it connects down to the Undercity,” Mortimer mused out loud. “It’ll take some work to fit Mister ‘Rubyscales’ down there, but it should be possible.”