Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t understand the question. Obviously, I’m in bed trying to go to sleep.”
“No. You’re plotting something.”
How could he know that? I barely came up with this plan five minutes ago.
“And if that plot,” he continues, “includes something along the lines of revenge against the House of Fire, or that fucking witch selling all those little lionesses, or the gods—specifically, the ones who made you—then OK. I like the plan. But no. Your plan is: ‘How can I stay here forever without pissing off Eros?’” He recites the title of my plan in a mocking, childish voice while sneering at me.
I remain calm. I refuse to let him bait me into a fight. “It’s really none of your business why I want to stay, or why I like it, or why I do anything, for that matter. We have no connection at all. I was very happy to leave through the door to the Realm of Pittsburgh. You were the one who wanted to make us a team. Well, I have news for you. It was a one-time thing.”
“A one-time thing we need to repeat. In case you’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t forgotten. And I even have a plan for that.”
“Do you?” He’s laughing at me. “I can’t wait to hear it.”
“I’m going to find a way to send you back alone.”
“Really. And how do you propose to do that?”
I hadn’t gotten that far in my plan, so I struggle for a moment. And my inability to explain myself allows Eros to chuckle at me, which pisses me off. So I blurt, “I’m magic too, you know.”
“Oh, is that right?” he drawls.
“I was bred to be an alchemist. A great one.”
“The most important word in that sentence, Callistina, is ‘was.’ Was. Your fate was interrupted—”
“By you!” I yell it. “It was you who messed up my future as a great alchemist! But I will have you know that I can do magic. I’m very good at it.”
“Are you now?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of magic do you do?”
“Bottle magic.”
“Bott—” That’s as far as he gets before he starts laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Bottle magic? That’s not even a thing.”
“Of course it’s a thing. Because I do it. And I’m very, very good at it.”
“How’s it work then? Give me an example.”
“A spell, obviously. One that involves a bottle.”
“That tells me exactly nothing.”
I huff. “You have a spell, you gather ingredients, you make your potion, and then you bottle it up for a time so it can cook. And once it’s done, it’s ten times as powerful.”
That last part is a little bit of a lie. I’m sure it could be ten times as powerful… if you’re very good at it. And I’m absolutely certain that my potions would be of that high caliber if I had been studying diligently all these years, but twice as powerful is a more realistic expectation.
“When did you learn this bottle magic skill?”
“When I was in training as a teenager.”
He laughs again, his eyes dancing and bright like he’s having a very good time at my expense. “Well, you’ll have to forgive me for not believing you, Callistina. You took a few spelling classes as a child and now, all of a sudden, and with no practice whatsoever for the last twenty years, you’re some kind of bottle-magic prodigy?”
“Why don’t you just save yourself, then?”
“Save myself from what?” he sneers.
“Loneliness, apparently.” And ohhhhhh, yes. This hits home for him. It was a throwaway insult for me, but the look on his face when I say ‘loneliness’—well, that makes everything about this argument worth it.
“Number one, I am not lonely.” I want to call him out on that denial, the way he’s been calling me out about the chains and the slave papers, but he doesn’t give me time. “Number two. My problem is I’m stuck here in this time, a time I do not want to be stuck in, and I have no power without you. You know this.”
“I said I would help you. It’s not my problem if you don’t believe me.”
I go to turn my back to him again, but he puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me. It’s not a heavy touch. In fact, it’s a very light one. So it sends a little chill up my arm. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. I think you are sincere. But we’re stuck in something, Callistina. This isn’t an accident. Someone is doing this to us.”
“That friend of yours? Tomas?”
He lets out a long exhale. “I don’t think so.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because…” But he stops. And his eyes have gone serious now.
“What?” I ask, surprising myself at my softer tone.
“Tomas would not send me here to the time of my making. It would be a mean thing to do. And Tomas is not mean. Not at all. It was… a terrible time for me.”