MYSTIA

"DOWN THAT HALL, all the way to the end, and make a right."

As they rounded into the Sanctum's main corridor, Mystia noticed the curiosity in Bobbi's stare.

"Where are we going?" asked Bobbi. "I know you mentioned an arsenal, but you need to rest."

"There's no time. If the Corrupted find us before we're ready, it's all over."

"But your wounds—"

"That's what we're taking care of. I have a few... experimental treatments."

While Bobbi's expression told Mystia she wasn't satisfied with the vague response, she didn't prod.

They trudged forward, making a right at Thana's door to find themselves in a thinner, shorter hall. A single door resided at the end, plain and wooden and not at all notable, aside from the ornate "M" carved into its face by one of Mystia's most trusted daggers. The sight was welcoming. Safe.

With the wave of her hand, the door opened itself in silent greeting, as if it had been waiting for its master to return.

The small bedroom had a design similar to the others, with the exception of a larger, king-sized mattress and Mystia's personal touches—pink satin sheets, photos adorning the walls, bottles of her favorite Nectar sitting upon the shelf above her bed... all things that made it her home.

"And I thought my apartment was cramped."

Mystia jabbed Bobbi with her elbow. "If you expect this to be all, you don't know me well."

"I don't know you at all."

Mystia chuckled, but it was short lived once the brightly-colored sparks overtook her vision again. She grunted, raising her fingers to touch the skin around her eye, only to be met with the sensation of raw meat against her fingertips.

Lovely. It couldn't have been an easy cleanup.

Once the colors passed and the ringing in her ears ceased, Mystia pointed to a bookshelf on the far wall. "There."

She shuffled toward the object, pulling her companion along. The shelf appeared normal to the naked eye, with dusted shelves and volumes of books from romance to self-help—all except for the green stone embedded in the top shelf. When Mystia raised her hand and muttered an incantation in goblin-tongue, radiance spread across the gem.

Mystia grabbed Bobbi's arm and guided her back a step before the bookcase swung away from the wall to reveal the archway concealed behind.

Bobbi stared straight ahead with wide eyes. Mystia couldn't help but smile.

"Impressed?"

Bobbi looked down at her. "I really should've read those books closer."

Mystia resisted the urge to point out just how much Eva's tales were farsed. Instead, she nudged her companion through the archway.

The spacious room inside swelled her chest with pride. Metal shelves lined the perimeter, displaying well-organized jars with dried herbs, while fresh ones grew beyond the sliding glass doors at the opposite end of the room. Radiant light streamed from the atrium within, where it provided magical sunlight for them to grow. While not as nutritious as natural light, it had done the trick—and been quite the challenge to pull off—once the Darkness stunted growth in most parts of the continent.

Underneath the mounted shelves, bottle racks butted against the wall, filled with glowing decanters of tried and true potions... all except the one she headed toward.

The final rack was wedged between her candle-making station and a small table littered with books, ingredients, and a rose gold cauldron atop a hellfire-charged hotplate. Bottles on the rack had been labeled by number with a corresponding entry in the potion-making tome that lay open on the table.

Though the space would have been hell for any other creature to navigate, Mystia had already lasered in on her target.

Just above the table hung a wooden shelf littered with her latest experiments. Vials were clustered in haphazard rows, glowing bright enough to hurt one's eyes—minus a tiny bottle wedged near the back, filled with a dull red liquid.

The cure for hellfire's scorch.

It had been a potion of mishaps and adverse reactions so strong that Mystia hadn't dared test it on anyone of import. While its success would be a crucial asset, and she was certain she had finally perfected the recipe, it had remained on the shelf for far too long—and even longer once she assumed Emrys had withered away on Earth. It hadn't seemed pertinent to continue crafting a tonic for the effects of a dead man.

As Mystia reached toward the shelf, she caught Bobbi's eyes wandering the room.

Of course. Humans couldn't see well in dim light.

Mystia snapped her fingers, and small flames flickered to the tips of candles scattered throughout the room, including the fresh batch waiting on the station not far away. Instantly, their aromas filled the space, each crafted to compliment one another in perfect harmony.

Bobbi turned to Mystia with wonder. "Did you make all of this?"

"I've had a lot of time on my hands."

Mystia slipped from Bobbi's hold, giving a reassuring smile as she steadied herself against the potion-crafting table. "I've been at this for a while, love." Mystia snatched the vial and popped its cork to release a plume of crimson steam. "When you're single-handedly keeping a gaggle of necromancers alive, creativity is of the utmost importance."

Resisting the urge to plug her nose at her concoction's sulfuric stench, she grabbed a discarded shot glass from beside her grimoire. The silver vessel had long been her favorite, with intricate etchings of vines and lotus blossoms. It pained her to use drinkware for a substance so foul, especially a glass she saved for liquid encouragement on long nights of experimentation—but, if she were to subject herself to death by boiling blood, rectal combustion, or any of the other side effects her test subjects had fared, at least she would perish in style.

Shuffling footsteps made her pause to glance at her curious companion, who stood over the candle making station.

Bobbi picked up one of the glass jars. "Candles keep them alive?"

As Mystia caught a glimpse of the candle's lavender and charcoal marbling, she resisted a wince. It was the only candle unlit by her command, and one that would have released a subtle, musky smell that Faeran had always been fond of. Recalling his adoration for his favorite scent brought a heaviness to her chest.

"Just a side business." She swirled the dull liquid in her vial before pouring an ounce into her glass. "The candles are infused with herbs and other substances that aid in rituals. Quite popular among the local Visionaries, and it's important to keep in good ties with that lot. Helping the Guild's servants keeps suspicion low."

Bobbi sniffed the candle. "Other substances, huh?"

"What the Guild doesn't know doesn't harm them. Or anyone... not much, at least."

Bobbi lowered the jar, brows twitching slightly.

"Our necromancers try to stay in shape, being on the run and all," said Mystia, trying to ignore the potion's sulfurous stench. "Sometimes they stay in one place too long, get a bit too comfortable... a little body fat never hurt anyone, but you know how vanity is."

Bobbi's eyes dropped to the candle's smooth sheen. "You use human fat?"

"We have more than humans in this realm. The one you're holding used to be a rather plump wood elf." Mystia stared at her tonic once more, but the urge to stall a potential rectal explosion proved too strong. "Got herself smashed in the tavern and tried slithering into my pants. If she had been remotely attractive, or at least not so handsy, I'd have scampered off, but..."

Thinking about the elf's yellowish-brown teeth and greasy hair made her shudder. Even the phantom odor of stale cheese that the woman exuded haunted Mystia's nostrils until she shook the memory away.

"When I shot her down," she continued, "the gal went strolling over to Emrys. Her trip to a private room with me afterward was less than pleasant."

"And here I was about to apologize for calling you psychotic."

"No one accosts my fire child without retribution. Besides, the others don't die. It's a mostly painless procedure."

"Mostly?"

With a dismissive wave, Mystia brought the shot glass closer to her lips and braced for the horrid taste that would follow.

Before the first drop left the glass, however, Bobbi interrupted. "Emrys seems like he can take care of himself."

Mystia lowered her tonic once more. At her current rate, she'd likely never down the drink, but she felt no rush despite the constant colors threatening to conceal the world from view. Her mind drifted across the rest of the symptoms her test subjects had undergone.

Pelvic collapse, hair loss, disintegration of the scapula...

"He can," Mystia said in an attempt to push the warnings away. "Never hurts to have a bit of help. You'd do the same for your friend, correct?"

"Without the murder."

"Details, details."

Mystia was unable to look Bobbi in the eye. Emrys was quite proficient in defending himself, but she had always stepped in without question. There was something about his subtle innocence and the guilt he felt over harming another being that made her quicker to take action than if he had been any other Sanctum dweller.

"You could say I'm protective. Emrys may hold his own well, but he also holds a good deal of darkness inside."

The concerned widening of Bobbi's eyes was telling. Even without a telepathic tonic, Mystia knew she must have been flashing back to her gloppy mess of a cabin.

"Not that kind of Darkness. One almost worse, I'm afraid." Mystia swirled the shot glass between her fingers. "The weight of the world is too much for anyone to bear upon their shoulders, but somehow, he does it. Blames himself for everything. For Thana, for what happened to your home, for dragging you innocent girls into this clusterfuck, and now..." She gestured to her wounded eye. "I'm afraid to see what this guilt may do to him."

"Emrys isn't a bad guy."

"No, he's not. After all the man's been through, he's still the most tender-hearted creature I've met. I've never seen anything like it."

Her throat constricted as his eyes flashed across her mind. No matter how bright his flames made them glow, they had become dull and lifeless. Even the flecks of silver that marred his hair diminished his youthfulness, as if his true age finally attempted to peek through. The spark that had always danced across his smile, full of spunk and wonder, had diminished just as the light had run from their world.

In her mind, it had been Astraela's greatest loss.

"I keep telling him not to give into his thoughts. I just hope that, someday, it won't be too late."

While plagued with the reminder that his inner turmoil was no help to his worsening physical condition, Mystia threw back the dreaded shot. She braced herself as sulfur hit her tongue, but the sensation that followed was the opposite of any expectation.

Bitter cold snaked across her throat. She choked for air, suffocating on the ice forming within her body. What was left of her sight blurred in a thrash of wild colors, leaving only Bobbi's screams and the feeling of slamming against the hard floor. She lost touch with the sensation of Bobbi's hands clinging to her arm, replaced by nothing but the bitter nip of ice crystalizing in her veins. A field of darkness crept across her vision.

Before the weight of nothingness could pull her under, the paralyzing freeze dissipated, allowing warmth to wash over her skin once more. She gasped, gulping down the sweet-smelling air.

She blinked rapidly to clear her swimming vision. Though a colorful firestorm made it difficult to discern details, she could see Bobbi knelt in front of her.

"What just happened?" Bobbi brushed the hair from Mystia's clammy face. "Are you all right?"

Mystia rubbed her once-frozen throat. "Fucking potion..."

"You're fine."

Once propped into a sitting position, Mystia felt her eyes with trembling hands. What had once been raw meat was replaced by the same smooth texture as the rest of her skin. While her vision no longer swam with dramatic sparks when she pressed the area, her fingers found nothing but an empty socket.

"It's gone, isn't it?"

The way Bobbi bit her lip told Mystia more than words could say. "The wounds healed, but your eye..."

"Can't fix what's beyond repair."

Removing her fingers from where her eye had once been, she swallowed her defeat and rose to her knees. Bobbi grabbed her arm to help her up, but Mystia found herself feeling steady, if not entirely back to normal.

Mystia gave her a curt nod to release her grip. Once free, she stepped to the other side of the candle-making station, where a chest of drawers had been wedged into the corner. Its surface was neat and free of clutter, but the thought of each drawer's interior made her cringe. It was her most used station, filled with body parts and remedies for the creatures she brought back to life, but organizing the mismatched items had never been a priority. She was grateful to have committed each compartment's contents to memory, no matter how much disorganized chaos rested within.

She pulled open a drawer filled with milky shards of all sizes—remnants of Faeran's discarded crystal balls. She had always found it wasteful how often he bought new ones for their aesthetic when the former had been in perfect shape, but his envy for shiny objects had provided her with a collection of resources. With the proper enchantments, they would make lovely glass eyes, suitable for seeing beyond the material realm.

Mystia plucked an opalescent shard that reflected an array of colors in the light. It would need polishing and a decent mold from her socket to ensure a proper fit, but it would do the job in time, regardless of the vision that had been lost.

"Always knew these would come in handy," she said. "Just didn't expect to be the guinea pig myself."

She held the shard in front of her, but instead of peering with her good eye, her demolished socket caught the faint swirl of... color. Shutting her working eye, she focused on the sudden visage.

Instead of blinding fireworks, violet and emerald focused within the shard. Their translucent wisps swirled in the bleak void, but she knew they represented the aura of her own magic and nerves. Reading auras was one of her specialties, but they had never come so clearly.

"You okay?" Bobbi's voice pulled her from attempting to piece together what the hell was happening to her vision.

Shaking off the confusion, Mystia turned to give her companion a smile... and stopped.

A solid black aura emanated from Bobbi's being. It spiraled through the shard unlike any aura she had ever picked up from another creature, though she felt nothing off in the air itself.

Bobbi scrunched up her nose, but when her eyebrow shot up in question, Mystia cleared her throat.

"Fine. Perfectly fine."

__________