While Charlie was lazing around the fields, Lucas was hard at work…

  Altandai didn’t look like a city that had nearly torn itself apart.

  Lucas stood just inside the Royal House, squinting into the sun, and let the contradiction hit him full in the face. Rosy stone buildings caught the light like polished gems, their surfaces warm and almost smugly intact. Banners, Rimebreak ones, fluttered lazily from balconies, and the streets buzzed with a confidence that felt… rude, honestly.

  Merchants had reclaimed every inch of space. Stalls overflowed with fruit, fabrics, trinkets, charms, and things that absolutely did not look combat-rated. Somewhere nearby, a kettle whistled, followed by a bite of spiced tea. Alcohol too mixed with the scent of baked bread and sun-warmed stone.

  Life had resumed as if it had never paused for betrayal, demons, or screaming.

  Lucas adjusted the strap of his bag and started walking. Each step echoed faintly in his bones, boots clicking against cobblestones scrubbed clean of blood that definitely hadn’t belonged to the city alone.

  He half-expected to see scorch marks, cracks, something… but Altandai had the audacity to look perfect.

  People passed him without a second glance; a pair of students argued over notes. A courier sprinted past, nearly clipping him, shouting an apology that was already fading into the crowd as someone laughed.

  Lucas exhaled slowly.

  Right. Of course the city moved on.

  He kept walking, weaving through the crowds, eyes scanning instinctively despite himself. Lola’s description replayed in his head, unhelpfully vague in the way only she could manage.

  A strange-looking cart, she’d said. You’ll know it when you see it. Cats in front. Don’t ask.

  He frowned, ducking past a spice stall. “That narrows it down,” he muttered under his breath.

  He circled markets, cut through side streets, crossed plazas that smelled like citrus and old stone. He checked carts with colorful awnings, carts stacked with barrels, carts pulled by beasts that looked like they could bench-press him. No cats. Plenty of dogs. One extremely judgmental goose.

  Nothing.

  By the time he reached Queen’s Square—Charlie’s Square, technically—his patience was thinning. The open expanse glowed under the scorching sun, the stone almost white with heat, fountains glittering as people lounged at their edges like the world had never tried to end.

  And then he saw it.

  Tucked into the corner of the square, half-hidden behind a pair of decorative trees, squatted a cart that looked less built and more assembled by someone who hated carts.

  It was massive. Blocky. Almost aggressively rectangular, like a chunk of wood had given up on becoming anything else. Three chimneys jutted from its top at mismatched angles, puffing faint, multicolored smoke that smelled faintly of herbs, alcohol, and something that made his mana itch.

  The sides weren’t planked so much as layered, covered in painted symbols—potions, flasks, runes, diagrams that made his eyes slide off if he stared too long. It didn’t have windows. Or, if it did, they were pretending very hard not to be.

  And in front of it, sprawled in the shade like they owned the place, were three cats.

  One black. One orange. One gray with a torn ear. All of them watching the square with the serene confidence of creatures who knew exactly where they were and why.

  Lucas stopped.

  “…You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  The cats didn’t move.

  The cart hummed softly, chimneys ticking in the heat, and for the first time since he’d stepped back into Altandai, Lucas felt that familiar prickle crawl up his spine.

  Found you, he thought, and stepped closer, before he stopped in front of the cart and, after a second of hesitation, pulled a folded note from his pocket.

  Lola’s handwriting stared back at him: tight and mercilessly organized. Lists, sublists, quantities circled twice, small annotations in the margins that suggested she’d already anticipated Scamantha’s… interpretive approach to logistics.

  Health potions (standard). Mana restoratives (approved batches only, royal stamp). Anti-venom. Emergency salves. Three stimulant draughts, royal stamp GOLD with no side effects. No side effects. NO SIDE EFFECTS.

  Lucas sighed and folded the paper again. “This is going to be a problem,” he murmured.

  Up close, the cart was even worse than he’d thought. The three chimneys puffed lazily, each smoke plume a different color—one lavender, one pale gold, one faintly green. The painted potion symbols crawled slightly when he wasn’t looking directly at them, like they resented being noticed.

  He stepped toward the door.

  The space inside immediately betrayed reality.

  Lucas had expected cramped, but he hadn’t expected offensive. The moment he crossed the threshold, the world compressed around him into a narrow, meter-wide corridor lined with shelves stacked so densely they looked structural. Bottles, jars, boxes, bones, feathers, metal spirals, glowing stones, scrolls stuffed into mugs, mugs stuffed into crates… everything leaned, sagged, or vibrated faintly, as if the entire interior was held together by mutual agreement rather than physics.

  The ceiling was low enough that he instinctively ducked, and the floor creaked under his boots as if it resented weight. Somewhere deeper inside, liquid bubbled, metal clinked, and something hissed with quiet enthusiasm.

  It smelled of herbs, alcohol, ozone, sugar, smoke, and that metallic tang of unstable mana. Behind a counter, also completely buried under layers of clutter, stood Scamantha.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  She looked exactly as he remembered her. Grinning with a radiant smile and mid-transaction.

  “Oh, darling, you’re going to love it,” she was saying, leaning over the counter toward a young woman who was clutching a tiny glass vial like it contained her future. “Just imagine—your hair catching the dawn itself. Not blonde. Not pink. That perfect in-between shade. Morning sun, bottled.”

  The girl gasped, eyes shining. “You mean… really?”

  “Oh, absolutely!” Scamantha chirped. “Temporary, of course. Two to three days. Unless you mix it with milk. Or blood. Or wear iron jewelry. Then it gets… expressive.”

  Lucas winced.

  The girl didn’t. “That’s amazing! I’ve always wanted something unique.”

  “Of course you have!” Scamantha said warmly, already sliding the vial across the counter. “And for only two silver, it’s a steal.” The girl happily handed over the coins, still staring at the potion like it had validated her existence. “And,” Scamantha added casually, not missing a beat, “since you’re doing a color change, you’ll definitely want this.”

  She produced a second bottle from seemingly nowhere; opaque, faintly humming. “Stabilizer oil. Keeps the shade vibrant twice as long. Also prevents spontaneous eyebrow migration.”

  The girl blinked. “…Eyebrow what?”

  “Migration,” Scamantha repeated cheerfully. “Only happens sometimes. Thirty percent chance. But this drops it to, oh… five.”

  “How much?” the girl asked immediately.

  “One silver.”

  “Sold!”

  Lucas stared.

  The girl beamed, clutching both bottles to her chest, thanked Scamantha profusely, and squeezed past Lucas to leave, humming to herself like she’d just won something important.

  Lucas waited until the door shut behind her before speaking.

  “…She just paid three silver to dye her hair.”

  Scamantha finally noticed him. Her grin widened. “Lucas! Sweet spark-boy! Welcome to my humble establishment-slash-palace-of-profit.”

  He gestured weakly at the shelves. “This place violates several laws. I think of reality.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” she said proudly. “Come in, come in. Don’t touch anything that hums.”

  He edged closer to the counter, careful not to brush against anything. “I’m here on Lola’s orders.” He unfolded the note, sliding it toward her like a legal document. “Approved supplies only.”

  Scamantha glanced at the list, lips pursing. “Mmm. Boring. Sensible. Profitable in bulk.” She brightened. “Excellent!”

  She vanished downward, reappearing a second later already pulling items from the chaos with impossible precision, neatly labeled vials, wrapped bundles, sealed satchels. Each landed on the counter with a solid, reassuring thunk.

  Lucas blinked. “You… actually have all this.”

  “Royal alchemist,” she reminded him smugly. “Charlie appreciated me and gave me a position of power! I prepare for everything.”

  He hesitated, eyeing a faintly glowing jar she’d set aside. “What’s that one?”

  Scamantha smiled slowly. “Not on the list.”

  “…Right,” Lucas said, forcing himself to look away. “Let’s stick to the list.”

  She laughed, already counting bottles. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll still tempt you later.”

  Lucas swallowed, glancing around the impossible interior, the chaos humming softly around him. Altandai really went back to normal, he thought, and somehow, that was the most dangerous part.

  Scamantha hauled a crate onto the counter with a grunt that suggested the laws of mass had briefly reconsidered their commitment. The wood was reinforced, rune-branded, and humming faintly like it was offended to be stationary.

  “Right,” she said cheerfully. “That’s the last of the boring-but-necessary.”

  Lucas eyed it, then tapped his inventory. The crate vanished in a soft shimmer; the weight disappearing from the room, and from his arms, with a relief he hadn’t realized he was holding onto.

  “I don’t know why they sent me,” he grumbled, mostly to himself. “Lola could’ve sent a runner. Or a courier. Or literally anyone who enjoys this sort of thing.”

  Scamantha’s grin sharpened. “Oh no,” she said, wagging a finger. “They sent you on purpose.”

  He frowned. “That’s… worse.”

  She leaned forward as a hustler on a mission, eyes glittering. “Because there’s a potion just for you. Special order.” She paused, savoring it. “Queen herself ordered it.”

  Lucas stopped breathing for half a second.

  The noise of the cart, the bubbling, hissing, clinking chaos, fell away, replaced by a sudden, uncomfortable tightness in his chest. His first instinct was disbelief, followed immediately by something dangerously close to warmth.

  “She… did?” he asked stupidly.

  Scamantha nodded, clearly pleased with the effect. “Empowerment brew. Custom. Very finicky. Very expensive.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Worth it, though. She was quite firm.”

  His throat worked. Charlie thinking of him, after everything hit harder than any system message ever had. He swallowed. “I—okay. I guess… thanks.”

  “Oh, don’t thank me yet,” Scamantha said brightly. “Come. You should see where it’s being made.”

  She slipped past him and ducked behind the counter.

  Lucas followed.

  The moment he crossed that invisible boundary, reality folded itself into a pretzel.

  The space behind the counter was not a back room. It was not even a room. It was an area, a cavernous, layered impossibility that made his eyes ache as they tried to track depth, distance, and orientation. The ceiling stretched upward into shadow, then downward, then sideways, intersected by platforms, catwalks, and hanging structures that absolutely should not have been sharing the same coordinates.

  Lucas stopped dead, one hand braced against the counter as his head throbbed. “That’s…” he started, then stopped, because his brain had politely requested a moment to reboot.

  “Ah, yes,” Scamantha said fondly. “The expansion.”

  “You had a meter out there,” he said weakly, pointing behind him. “This is—this is—”

  “Twenty by twenty,” she supplied. “Give or take a fold.”

  His eye twitched. “I hate that you said ‘give.’”

  She laughed. “Liam helped. Grandmaster’s quite good with space runes when he’s not pretending to be inscrutable.” She gestured vaguely upward, where a cauldron the size of a bathtub was hanging upside down, suspended by glowing sigils. “Moved in day before yesterday. Still settling.”

  Lucas stared.

  The place looked like it had been lived in for decades. Layers of residue stained surfaces. Chalk diagrams overlapped older diagrams. Tools were half-buried under newer tools. Cauldrons of every size simmered on shelves, on platforms, on what looked suspiciously like floating slabs of stone. Some were upright. Some were tilted. Several were upside down, liquid clinging to their rims as if gravity had gotten confused and given up.

  “Is this… safe?” he asked.

  Scamantha shrugged. “Define safe.”

  He watched her approach one of the inverted cauldrons. It was attached to the ceiling, runes glowing faintly, its contents shimmering like liquid sunrise. She reached up, grabbed a vial that was also inverted… standing on nothing, and she uncorked it upside down.

  The liquid inside didn’t fall, but rose. A ribbon of glowing fluid flowed upward into the cauldron, merging seamlessly with the brew. The cauldron burbled in approval.

  Lucas stared, mouth ajar. “That’s cheating.”

  “Mirrored processes,” Scamantha said breezily. “Some potions only work when you insult causality.” She recorked the vial. “Needs a few hours.”

  His head hurt more now.

  They walked deeper into the space, stepping over glowing chalk lines and under hanging bundles of feathers, bones, and things he very deliberately did not identify. The air shifted as they moved, cooler here, warmer there, tingling with mana so dense it felt like static crawling over his skin.

  At the far end of the space, a large magic circle was etched into the floor, layered with symbols so complex his eyes slid off them if he tried to focus too hard. Inside it sat a cauldron.

  Tiny.

  No bigger than a soup pot. It looked almost absurd, sitting there in the center of something so elaborate.

  Scamantha stopped beside it, her tone dropping. “This one’s yours.”

  Lucas leaned closer, careful not to cross the circle. The contents glowed faintly, pale and iridescent, feathers dissolving into liquid light.

  “Divine feathers,” Scamantha said, wrinkling her nose. “Absolute nightmare to work with. Fussy, judgmental, refuses to dissolve unless you flatter it.”

  He snorted despite himself. “Figures.”

  She smiled, softer this time. “But this potion?” She glanced at him sideways. “This one will change your destiny.”

  Lucas straightened, suddenly very aware of his heartbeat, of the way the mana hummed just beneath his skin, of all the moments he’d barely survived by improvising and luck.

  “Right,” he said quietly. “No pressure, then.”

  Scamantha’s grin returned in full force. “Oh, loads of pressure. But don’t worry.”