Klare had, to her credit, avoided getting lost. There was a role reversal on arrival, by which Azia was scolded about her recklessness in a sandstorm for fifteen minutes. She had a strong feeling it was secondary to jealousy.

  The Dissemination that followed was hers to command. She’d figured it would be, someday. It wasn’t so much a victory as it was a burden, and Azia didn’t enjoy the spotlight that came with excessive understanding of an anomaly. Spilling the details of a brutal storm and a second tier less violent took well over two hours, accounting for the questions that followed. It was to say nothing of Ginger, and yet less of glistening blood. She bit her tongue about the sparring match. If Azia had her way, she wouldn’t have to think about it at all.

  Klare was awkward enough to handle as it was. Both of them were, really. It could’ve gone worse, granted. Their associations with an anomaly provided enough to get by, and their connections to her in turn were helpful. Foreign reds on foreign clothes weren’t as much of a hindrance as Azia had expected them to be, although she wasn’t ignorant to the handful of judgmental eyes that stung two researchers well out of place. Surprisingly, Yvette hadn’t contributed to that part much.

  A meteorologist was of immense interest. Azia had had a feeling that would happen. The title probably helped, as did the model. Cailin was a decent public speaker, actually, and the soft smile he wore all the way through was admirable. Given his credentials, Azia wasn’t sure why she’d been worried about him, in particular, in the first place.

  She got her shower, eventually. It was heavenly. Esua, both steaming and chilled, wasn’t stinging her face as much as it had days before. Azia kicked herself for not seeking Ginger’s medical aid while she'd had the chance, concealed as the lingering wound had been. To be fair, it was healing better than she’d expected it to, and she could barely see the blisters anymore. Mikhail never said a word.

  As to how she was to proceed, she had options. She had accomplices for that much, and she’d dragged them clear across the desert herself. Azia had what amounted to roughly one-third of a blank journal left. She was procrastinating on procuring a fresh one, although it would grow stuffed with spilling knowledge of an anomaly so shortly after.

  She’d run through the majority of her initial ideas, in terms of the burning questions she’d meant to pelt Seleth with. There were those that remained, and flames fanned by researchers. Of the incomplete experiments she had left on her to-do list, Azia made a mental note of what overlapped with an astronomer’s interests.

  Some of them had been eating at her for a while, anyway. Cailin was a spark, and he’d probably appreciate whatever she could garner. The effort would be more of a formal confirmation of his hypothesis than anything. If nothing else, she owed him tangible thanks for all he’d offered her.

  Engaging Seleth wasn’t hard. That part never was, and he was always much more elated to spend time in her room than he had any right to be. “I didn’t think you’d be back to all of this so fast. Aren’t you tired?”

  Her attention was on glass, mostly, clustered in Azia’s arms and balanced with care. “Absolutely not. You’re not free.”

  She heard him chuckle. Given the faint thump of fabrics that followed, Azia had a strong feeling he’d stolen her bed. If Seleth embraced fatigue instead, she was going to kill him--twice over, should he fall asleep in her room again. “You know, none of the other alchemists I’ve met are this demanding. Why is that? Or do I just get special treatment?”

  Azia snagged what vials from the shelf she could still fit into her cradled pile. Balancing was getting difficult, and what she had would ideally suffice. “Hush. Remember, you asked for this. It’s too late to pick someone else to handle you.”

  Her choice of words was poor. Seleth would’ve found a way to twist whatever she gave him, at this point. It wasn’t worth treading carefully around, and the look on his face was more or less scheduled. “There’s not a single other person I want handling me.”

  She did what she could to lay the little clump of glassware on the desk with grace, every clink louder than she would’ve preferred. For how haphazardly she’d freed them, Azia hoped she hadn’t cracked any. “I need your help with something,” she said.

  Even now, she forewent his gaze in favor of stilling every flask and vial upright atop patient wood. The perversion melted from his voice, long before she’d attempted to melt anything else. It was an early victory. “What are you doing?”

  Azia’s eyes flickered to the same shelf, drifting along every colorful row. Kassy had chided her about keeping chemicals in her room no less than thrice this month. At the moment, it was more convenient than hazardous. She handled those one at a time, at least, contemplative fingers closing around a clear bottle. “A while back, I told you I wanted to test a few things with your water. Chemically, I mean. I never got around to it.”

  “Ah,” she heard plainly. “We’re doing science experiments, today?”

  The moniker was annoying. Azia ignored it, claiming a vessel far murkier in its place. She’d sealed the lid well enough this time, and polluted browns hadn’t deteriorated yet. With certainty, she was still overdue to gather more. “There’s something I want to check for Cailin, too. I won’t keep you for long. I just want to see how your water reacts with a few different things.”

  “You can keep me,” Seleth teased, mattress springs creaking as he spoke. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen you do alchemy before. That’s what this is, right?”

  Azia didn’t have to call him over as she settled down at her desk, nor did she have to focus on anything besides tapping her nails against stained glassware. What toxins had coagulated relaxed easily enough beneath her care. “Barely. I’m not actually making anything. If you really squint, I guess you could call it that.”

  His eyes were on the same, grotesque as the sludge was. Seleth leaned in beside her, tilting his head as he watched it crawl down glass walls. “What is that?”

  Azia did what she could to give him space. He moved in closer, and she regretted not having an extra chair to offer him. Given that she was stealing his aid, she felt worse. “Residue.”

  When she didn’t elaborate, Seleth only tilted his head yet further. Azia had half a mind to wonder if he’d hurt his neck, transfixed by toxins as he was. “Of?”

  She slid the polluted glass to the side, ushering in cleaner containers in its place. “Rain.”

  Out of the corner of her vision, Azia caught the way that he recoiled. “Eww, seriously? You keep that?”

  “I was gathering some the night we met, actually,” she said, spacing out each little vial one by one. “Never got to take it back with me. I got distracted.”

  The way she side-eyed him was only half-aggressive, and Seleth collapsed into a grin much too smug. Her attention fell back to organization, and she strained to reach the drawer nearest to her knees. “It’s easiest to collect it when it’s Drizzling,” she went on. “It’s only really good for experimenting with, but it can be useful.”

  “I see,” Seleth murmured, his gaze still drowning in sludge. “And you need it…why?”

  Gentle rummaging left her three droppers richer. That was enough, probably. Azia slid the drawer shut with care, straightening up in her seat. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to try for a while. It’s been bothering me even more since you fought the Rain by yourself.”

  “Can I help?”

  Each dropper came to rest beside glass both full and not. Slowly yet surely, Azia’s alchemical chaos grew cohesive, and the smallest of laboratories took shape atop humble wood. It was passable, if not crude. “You’re gonna help, like I said. I need your water for this.”

  “No, I mean…can I help with the other stuff?” Seleth asked quietly. “Whatever it is you’re doing.”

  Azia raised her head. He swept one gesturing hand across her array of materials, patiently awaiting curious hands. When he stopped, her eyes drifted between the same assortment and an anomaly. “I’m just setting everything up. I’m basically done.”

  “After that,” Seleth clarified, crossing his arms comfortably. “The rest of it. Like, mixing things, or…whatever you’re gonna do.”

  She raised an eyebrow, and the corners of her lips came with it. “You want to do alchemy?”

  Where Azia expected a grin, the smile Seleth gave her was soft. “So it is alchemy,” he joked.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “It sounds fun,” he admitted. “I’ve…kinda been wondering about it since I got here. I don’t want to mess anything up, though. I know you’ve got your methods, and all that. You’d have to show me what I’m doing. If you’re…good with that.”

  Among the many, many quirks of his that Azia had documented at length, his emotions had hardly registered. The perversion was commonplace, whether or not she hated it. The sparkling grin had grown natural, burned into his nature by default. There was bravado, confidence, and a zest for life that she couldn’t cage--try as she might. There were new ones, recently.

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  The shyness was fresh, and Azia had never seen it cross his face until now. The way Seleth averted his eyes was subtle, the same gentle smile still glued to his lips. Somehow, it was almost cute. It was so out of place on his face that she just barely stifled a laugh.

  Azia beckoned him closer with a tiny wave and a smile of her own. “Come here. I’ll take the help.”

  The smallest spark in Seleth’s eyes was of a different flavor than she was used to. Azia enjoyed it for what it was, and she enjoyed the way the same smile brightened. She still lamented her lack of a second chair, by which he really was left to squeeze in at her side. Given the same innocent fixation on work hardly started, he might’ve just stood back up anyway.

  She bunched up her sleeves as best as she could. “Can you pass me one of those little glasses? The flat kind, sort of round.”

  “This?”

  “Yes.”

  Seleth navigated her controlled chaos well enough, and Azia got the circular shimmer she’d asked for. “Thank you.”

  The way he followed even simpler actions with unshakable intrigue was, too, endearing. Azia did what she could to entertain it, whether or not her motions were as quick as ever. One hand claimed false clarity, and one hand claimed sky-born venom. She just barely raised the former aloft for him alone, shaking the little flask demonstratively. “This one’s just esua. You’ve seen plain esua before, right?”

  “Fish,” Seleth reminded.

  She nodded in approval, returning her attention to glass alone. “Right. And the other one’s residue, like I said. It usually dissipates on its own after Downfall, but you can store it, if you’re careful.”

  Azia didn’t bother letting murky toxins slosh around, lest the glass grow ever more clouded. “It’s hazardous, though. Don’t forget.”

  “I remember.”

  That part was probably excessive, given how many times she’d fought to make it stick. If Seleth found the repetition annoying, he said nothing. Even now, he was far more engrossed than she’d anticipated he’d be. For all of his time at the Institute, what she’d taken had drastically outmatched what she’d shown. It was the first time she’d stopped to notice. “Pass me that thing,” she requested, pointing to a not-so-distant dropper.

  Seleth did so without issue, and Azia steadied both flasks atop the desk. She did what she could to steady her hands, just the same. “So, the thing about esua is that it’s a substitute. I told you that already, but I meant it literally. It's extremely versatile, yes. It still doesn’t come close to the same composition as the real thing. Your water reacts differently to Rain than esua does, from what I understand. It…sort of made me realize that they’re not as similar as I thought they were, functionally.”

  Seleth tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

  “Here,” she said instead, claiming the residue-plagued glass once more. With immense care, Azia tipped the flask above the smallest of circles below, thick droplets of poison incarnate slowly dribbling onto the surface. The way it spread and crawled was as disgusting as ever, and she had half a mind to fear that it would come to splash against the tabletop. She was wrong, thankfully. “That’s not the part I was interested in, anyway.”

  Seleth was interested in all of it, by comparison. Radiant curiosity alone was enough for her to pass him the dropper, unnecessary as the offer probably was. He accepted with far too much happiness relative to the plainest of tasks. It was still amusing, and Azia still smiled. “Put that in the esua, siphon out a little bit of it, and place a few drops onto the residue. I want to show you something before I do this.”

  He didn’t hesitate for a moment. Azia had no reason to fear for his caution, ultimately, and his hands were far steadier than she’d expected. Granted, Seleth’s hands were shockingly skilled in ways far more inexplicable. She should’ve seen it coming. He withdrew the little dropper from the flask, and his gentle pinching left tiny beads plopping down into the puddle of disgust.

  They didn’t last. That was nothing new. A clear substitute, tiny or not, submitted to sludge almost instantly. What miniscule bubbles had survived the landing hardly tolerated the surface, sinking into the brackish toxins beneath with ease.

  When Seleth’s eyes drifted between faltering esua and an alchemist, Azia gestured to the display. “Raw esua doesn’t hold up well against Rain. Getting it out of our clothes or off of our skin is incredibly annoying. What little it can clean takes added chemicals, and it’s not pleasant. It isn't a viable option for dealing with Rain in the long-term.”

  He nodded once in understanding. Azia pushed the tainted glass away from her, motioning to yet more on the opposite side of the desk. “Could you pass me another?”

  Seleth slid her another unblemished circle. “Sure thing.”

  Her fingers curled around the neck of the same esua vessel. They never made it to the glass, and she stilled. Slowly, Azia turned her head, her hand aloft all the while. “What’s the smallest amount of water you can make at a time? In terms of…volume.”

  It was a vague question. He got the idea, regardless. Seleth aimed one pointed finger at a newly-emptied dropper, languishing atop the desk. “Are you gonna ask me to do that?”

  “If you’re able to.”

  He raised one palm, unfurling five fingers in turn. “I’ve never tried. I’m…honestly not sure if I can pull off something that small. A bunch of them, yes. One or two at a time, I don’t know. If you really want me to take a shot at it, no promises that I won’t mess up your desk.”

  It was the first time his smile had evolved into something smug in some time. Azia’s own blossomed into a smirk she loathed, and she swiped a barren flask from her left. She set it down before him with more force than was necessary, and she prayed it didn’t crack in the process. “Please don’t risk it. Give me what you’ve got in here, please.”

  Seleth chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Granted, the radius he had to work with wasn’t phenomenal. It was still enough for newborn bubbles at his fingertips to make a home, frothing purity spilling into the glass with ease. Azia never bothered telling him when to stop. That might’ve been for the best, given the sample she’d have for the foreseeable future. The glistening blue he left her with, in stark contrast to filthy browns that had found a home on her shelf, would be refreshing decor. Preserving it would be a future problem.

  Where he focused on blues, she focused on a different kind of clarity. Esua was preferable to the poison she’d eventually stain fresh glass with once more. With two unhurried fingers, she rolled a dropper just as dry across the desk. “I might need more than a few drops this time. This one is more of something I’m curious about than anything.”

  When she cautiously tipped the flask above the little circle below once more, the dripping esua she earned was satisfactory. Clear and neutral versus substances far more perplexing, she almost appreciated the break. She wouldn’t have it for long, given what aquamarine it would meet. Azia lowered the vessel, and she raised her eyes to a different one.

  “Same thing as before,” she instructed, gesturing to restrained waters resting peacefully. “Just more of it. Put your water on top.”

  Seleth’s eyes flickered back and forth between a placid alternative and his own purity. Eventually, he did as he was told in silence, stealing blues with the little dropper and steadying his hand above yet more liquid. It was the first time he offered up his prowess in peace, devoid of flashy displays and swift motions. Azia refused to admit that she almost missed it, captivating as it usually was. Managing his ego in the midst of research would’ve been abysmal.

  Bubbles unlike those she’d grown used to plopped onto the surface of the esua awaiting below. For once, Azia was just as engrossed as he was. It wasn’t as though the reaction would’ve been world-shattering, nor had she expected anything worthy of more than several quick scribbles into her journal. She was correct about that much.

  What came of the collision was still interesting enough in its own right, gorgeous waters resting calmly atop clarity equally tranquil. Neither merged, nor did they mingle. Gentle layers did little more than ripple, individual and contrasting. Part of Azia wondered what would’ve happened if she prodded at them herself.

  She leaned back in her seat. “I…huh.”

  In her place, Seleth only leaned in closer. The sight of him so invested in his own water was, too, amusing. “What?”

  Azia motioned with lazy fingers towards the stacked colors before her. “They don’t mix. They don’t…bond, or melt, or interact. It almost looks like your water doesn’t affect esua at all. I already knew their chemical makeups were different, but I didn’t think they were that different.”

  “Didn’t you say there was, like, blood in it, at some point? I kind of figured,” Seleth argued.

  He wasn’t wrong. Biting her lip did nothing to suppress a smile. Again, she shirked the soaked circle, sliding the glass away from her. “The point is, your water can do things that esua can’t. I was aware of that, to an extent. I guess it’s not really much of a substitute, then.”

  She flicked the same fingers towards yet another clean glass in the corner. “I need that one. There’s one more thing I want to check.”

  As always, Seleth didn’t hesitate. She wondered at what point the novelty of mundane assistance would wear off--if ever. Azia hadn’t decided how poor of a decision it would be to entrust him with chemicals in full. The thought of him engaging in true alchemy, in passing or otherwise, was almost enough to make her laugh.

  Rain wasn’t, and never would be. The way her heart skipped a beat was uncomfortable, although she doubted she’d be wrong. Azia had borne witness to the interaction already. She had faith in Cailin. In conjunction, both sufficed to still her hand around poisoned glass.

  “What are you doing now?” Seleth asked.

  She paused. “This is for Cailin, mostly, but…I want to know, too. I think both of us have the answer already.”

  His voice grew just as soft as hers. “The answer to what?”

  Azia responded in action alone, and she handed him the last untarnished dropper herself. “Get your water again.”

  Confused or not, he did. She reached across the desk, claiming another flattened dish on her own. Where Seleth earned clarity, climbing and fresh, she let filth speckle glass. In the most perfect world, she wouldn’t have it for long. With two hands full of curiosity, she had no leeway to cross her fingers.

  She’d seen it before. Her own eyes had captured it twice, ethereal and undeniable. He’d been resplendent, the tides born of his touch angelic and destructive in equal measure. Seleth had torn a storm to shreds, rending toxins asunder. Were it a coincidence, fueled by luck and executed by accident, Azia may as well have been dreaming. Now, even with eyes far more dim, the tiniest droplets he gave her offered up the same grace.

  They weren’t devastating. They were slow about it, hesitant in the slightest as they crashed into brackish browns. It was the force of his blows, maybe, and Azia made a mental note to dissect that part later. For now, she was infinitely more preoccupied with the purity that ate through disgust. Rain gave way with ease, succumbing to waters that dug deep and left sparkling blues in their wake. Azia could’ve mistaken it for acid, if she hadn’t known better. Part of her almost awaited what sizzling should’ve followed.

  Venom was flimsy. It bent under bubbles and surrendered. Seleth’s waters swallowed the sickening substance whole, and there came a point when the reaction was no longer slow. What replaced Rain with clarity of another kind crawled to kiss the walls of the little glass. In reality, it couldn’t have been more than several seconds.

  Azia stared. Brown became blue, all-consuming and dominating. She may as well have poured only purity so precious into the glass to begin with. Not a fleck of toxin remained.

  She stared for long enough that Seleth pressed, his gaze floating from the caged spectacle to a speechless alchemist. “What just happened?”

  She’d already known. She’d known that she’d already known. Azia had her final confirmation, etched into stone and immortalized forever. Where she’d assumed her thoughts would race, they were as clear as what waters she was left with.

  “Azia?” he tried again.

  Azia took a deep breath. “Before I met you, there was only one thing in the world that was capable of destroying the Rain. Enathium took a very, very long time to figure out. It’s still difficult to synthesize to this day. It was…all we had.”

  Tentatively, she met his eyes. Leveling her voice was harder than it should’ve been. “Now, there are two things that can stop it.”