Chapter 11: Chapter Eleven

I woke abruptly in the pre-dawn darkness.

It was synth day. Again.

I’d made a small first batch—just over a week’s supply of my alterant—and I’d taken the last of it yesterday. I hadn’t named it yet, even in my own thoughts. Alterant was just a technical name for this class of substances.

I got up, moving gingerly to avoidwaking Alexi by creaking, and made my way to the washroom, bringing my day clothes with me. I sat down to relieve myself and—oh, wow. A lopsided smile curved my lips.Everyday, my junk seemed smaller, softer, more like a clitoris. My scrotum and testes seemed to berapidly melting away, reabsorbing into my body.

I got up and splashed water on my face, still smiling. My face...was it even smoother, and plumper? I stared at my reflection in relief and something like awe. I’d never liked my face. But seeing the hard edges soften and the heavy overlay of my boy-shaped puberty melting away…I felt a twinge of bubbly relief start in my sternum and spread upwards, suffusing like warm light. My shoulders slowly dropped from their gathered in, hunched position and moved down my back. I took a marvelously deep, free breath.

It was working, oh it was working! It almost didn’t seem possible. It was happening so fast...would anyone else notice? The worry scudded through me likea cloud-shadow on a fast wind, and did not linger. It seemed too incredible to believe—arrogant even—that anyone was paying enough attention to me to ever notice. Who even looked at my face?

My face—it seemed like almost half the usual stubble was already gone, and the remainder was finer and thinner. The same seemed to be true on my torso. I ran hot water and shaved anyway. I ran a hand inside my baggy sleeping shirt and squeezed the budding breasts that had started to develop, gasping a little at how sensitive they were. In fact, my skin seemed so much more sensitive all over, lately.

I marveled over my changing body for a good while, brushing my hands over my soft, developing curves over and over, humming to myself softly, feeling the warm, leaping lightness of euphoria each time. It was working! Through all the fear, and all the loneliness, I had clung to this tiny opening of possibility, this barely-there pinhole of dark light, and it was working!

A low, muted tolling signaled fifth bell, yanking me from my reverie, andI dressed hurriedly. When I got back to the room, I saw lamplight shining around the edges of the door. I knocked softly and creaked it open. Alexi was stretching, and—oh, he was naked. Or rather, almost naked. He turned his head and saw me and I pulled my eyes away from his body long enough to mumble a reply to his greeting. And I noticed something odd. He was smiling at me, a real, warm smile.

“How did you sleep?”

He’d never asked me that.

“Oh, um, pretty good. How about you?” Was my voice a little lighter?

He laughed, a bright sound. “I dreamed of home. A good dream. It will be a good day, I know.”

I smiled shyly at him. “Thanks for the good news, then.”

I gathered my things and paused at the door to make a small wave at Alexi, the awkwardness of which made my face hot, then made my way to the labs. I’d made a habit of working on my personal project in these small hours, when so few people were about. Being alone helped me focus, even if I stuck out more as a result.

I assembled everything I would need at one station. I was wearing a baggy pullover with the hood up over my head, hair tucked under it. I pulled my arms in from the sleeves, close to my body and found the hidden pocket I had sewn in. And inside was the slim heft of my notebook, my real notebook.

I set out the instruments first, then weighed out the various organic powders and alchemical precursors, checking my notes for the figures I had written out. I had tweaked them a little bit from last week, based on how the first batch had...felt. I winced a little, internally, at that thought. I knew what Gresha would say to that in her hoarse rumble:

‘I’ve seen what happens to the sort that do things by feel, and don’t double, triple check their factoring. Eventually, they slip. Burn out their lungs, go blind for a week, forget their own name, turn all the salt in their body to cyanide by accident. It happens. Unless you check twice, then measure again.’

Gresha would shake her head at what I was doing. But I was finding the path by walking here, and I didn’t have the luxury of carefulness. I only had myself to try this on, only the data of my own body.

I began to reduce the menestrym, stirring it carefully every thirty seconds with a little gold whisk. A sharp smell not unlike wild mustard blossomed around me as the principles began to unbind. My attention narrowed to the little world of my vision, the table in front of me. Next was the distillation…

~ ~ ~

I emerged from my trance a bell or so later, neck-sore and hungry. A little pile of sticky, grainy crystals reminiscent of brown sugar sat proudly in the metal dish of the scale before me. I weighed out doses of a half-dram each and scooped all but one of them up carefully into little wax paper envelope squares, and stuffed them into my hidden pocket, along with my secret notebook. The one remaining dose I pinched carefully and tucked into the inside of my cheek to dissolve. It tasted crisp and peppery, and made my mouth tingle pleasantly.

The tension in my shoulders began to unknot and lighten. This synth, too, had worked. I was safe. Done. I packed away the rest of my precursors and began to clean glassware.

I was almost half-done when there were rushed footsteps in the corridor, and the door flew open. It was Phineas, the lab assistant on duty, and he was tight-lipped and trembling. He was also tightly holding his ass and standing like someone who was about to shit in the next few seconds, whether or not they wanted to.

“Thank fates, I thought I was the only one here—please, cover the stockroom for me for just a few minutes—please!”

“Oh! Um, sure—”

The words had barely left my mouth before he waddle-ran away. Sympathy for his plight fought with hilarity inside me, and hilarity won.

I felt a pang as I thought of Kisma, and I knew she would be bent over laughing, unable to speak. Picturing her like that made me laughharder, and I grabbed my bag, pushed open the door and headed down the corridor to the stockroom with gigglesstill bubbling up. How long since I’d laughed like this? How longsince I’d thought of Kisma?

I fumbled with the stockroom door, shoved it open, went over to the desk, dropped my bag and collapsed bonelessly into the chair, glad to be off my feet. I was lost in thought about Kisma and about what she would think if she could see me now—until I realized there was someone approaching the desk.

She hadn’t come down the corridor, but suddenly there she was. Tall, freckled and fox-faced, with the confident look of a noble, she leaned against the desk and looked at me with such clear green eyes that they caught me and held me fast. There was something familiar about her but I had no idea where I could have seen her before. How would I even know someone like this? Surely I would remember if I’d seen her? I realized after a moment that her shirt was unbuttoned. Drastically unbuttoned. My face heated and I tried to look anywhere but at her.

“If you’re willing, I’d like to ask a little favor of you.” She said it slow and sweet, with a hint of something throaty.

I gaped silently at her, only blushing harder. She must have seen my mounting panic because she changed tack.

“How much to buy two minutes of your silence?”

She slid a whole silver lire onto the desk between us and cocked an eyebrow at me. Oh. This was starting to make sense. I gave her a slight nod to show I understood and was amenable. She smiled.

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“Excellent. In here are nine more just like it.”

She dropped a purse down next to the coin with a thunk. I stared at it, wide-eyed. I’d never had that much money before. It was easily half a year’s wages for me, probably more. She leaned over the desk towards me.

“You didn’t see anyone, including me. Is that clear?”

I nodded quickly.

She reached out and seized me by the front of my clothing. The sharp tug on my neck caused a wave of goosebumps rippling out and sweepingthe whole way down my spine. Icouldn’t contain a full body shudder asI looked up at her with startled eyes.

“Is. That. Clear?” she snarled.

“Y-yes, Miss.”

She plucked a hair from my head. “There. If you even think about reporting this, I will dowse you out so quick your head will spin.”

She yanked me forward by the neck, growling.

“And I will make you regret it. Understand?”

“Yes, Miss,” I gasped.

“Good. Now, close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears, so I can get what I paid for.”

I complied hurriedly. A split second later, I smelled the ozone stink of sorcery and all my senses seemed to recede and go fuzzy. Oh, hell, she was—

Gradually, I realized that I was staring at a whorl in the wood. The wood of the desk. My face was rather close to the desk. Or rather, my face was pressing into the desk. I sat up. I seemed to be alone. Something weighty slid down the front of my shirt—a purse? Slowly, my thoughts cohered. I had a slight headache. That noble. She must have stuffed the purse down the front of myneckline—oh, no, what if she’dnoticed my breasts?I groaned.

Typical bloody noble, acting so entitled to the use of other people. What must be going on in her brain, to presume that someone’s body was available for her benefit? To take for granted that she could handle me so…

I bit my lip and squirmed a little at the memory. Oh, no, how was I turned on? This was so humiliating. The thought made the heat between my legs pulse. I squeezed them together and blushed at how good it felt. I closed my eyes and shook my head. Was her spell affecting me somehow? That must be it, right?

Then another thought struck me. What if my hornyness was dueto the alchemical substance I’d just synthesized—the one I’d been taking for a week, and just dosed myself with? Now that I thought about it, my libido had been...changing over the last week or so. I blushed again, thinking of how much time I’d spent stealing glimpses at Alexi’s body, even when he was clothed (which wasn’t very often).

Before I’d started dosing myself, my libido had felt like something I’d had to constantly fight against, a surging chemical animal that I couldn’t trust and didn’t even like. But this heat felt different in my body—softer, more natural, no less powerful but somehow more a part of me, rising and receding in me like the moon with her different phases. And, oh, it felt good.

But...was it normal to go weak in the knees when a pretty girl grabbed you by the neck?

A thought hit me andI panic-fumbled in my loose clothing and managed to put away the purse and to bring out my secret notebook. I re-checked my factoring, but couldn’t find anything that would explain my horniness problem. But I was far out in unknown waters, alchemically speaking. Unknown to me, at least. Not being able to find a mistake didn’t mean it was absent.

A gnawing suspicion was growing in me. Had I unintentionally lopped off something important related to sexual arousal? Some kind of regulatory function? Had I missed something crucial in one of Aralia’s lectures? Forgotten something? Was this a feature of my schema, or was it a bug?

After staring at the numbers for another minute, I gave up and put the notebook away.I was still fairly groggy.How long had Ibeen here for? At least half a bell, surely.

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind when I heard footsteps and then saw Phineas coming down the corridor, looking much more relaxed than the last time I’d seen him.

I shuffled out of the stockroom, trying not to clink too loudly, and waved away his thankful offer to switch shifts with me anytime. I hurried back along the corridor. It must be nearing seventh bell and more students might start to filter in soon. I needed to finish cleaning my workstation and get back to my room to hide this heavy, bulging purse full of illicit bribery.

I was about halfway back to the lab when another door opened just ahead of me in the corridor and a figure came out, talking in low tones, followed by another. I froze for an instant, then forced myself to keep walking, my heart instantly hammering.

I thought I recognized the first—towering, severe in dark robes—as a professor of sorcery—Renfar? Renfew? Ren- something. I couldn’t consider him for longer than a moment because the other figure turned and—

Piercing, golden eyes searched me. She paused and said something short to the professor, who nodded and swept past me without a glance. And then I was alone in the corridor with Aralia Cordivar.

I was suddenly painfully self-aware of every step I took. Right as I came abreast of her, she fell in beside me. The weight of her gaze was like a physical force on my skin. I could feel her attention dissecting me. The silence was awful. I dared not look at her.

“You’re in my class, aren’t you?”

I gulped. So, Alexi, this is your very good day?

 

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