The tall figure in black popped into existence just beyond the gates, staggering for a moment before regaining balance, straightening up, and walking towards the castle. Footsteps moved along the path with purpose, but neither hurried nor tarrying. Shaking fingers were safely hidden from sight within the folds of a cloak blacker than a moonless night. Equally black eyes stared ahead, darkened windows guarding the mind in which thoughts were too unsavory, too unpleasant to articulate. The deliberate steps turned towards the dungeons, down the cold and steep spiral staircase, and into the store room, where shelves from the floor reached up to the ceiling, preserving the hundreds of ingredients needed for brewing, conserved in ceramic, glass, crystal, gold, silver, hide, silk, and diamond.
A large terracotta jug of fresh spring water; one crystal carafe with stomach acid from a dragon, gloppy and viscous on the sides of the jar; five glass phials containing grapefruit juice from the first new moon of the harvest season; lavender buds, preserved to maintain natural moisture as if they had only just been plucked; dried valerian roots, whole; purple nightshade extract, a vicious purple-black in its sealed tube; eleven spoons of copper salts; belladonna leaf extract, just as vivid a blue as the copper salts; Lethifold hide, supple and soft; doxy hearts, little red-filled bladders ready to burst at the slightest poke or jostle…One wave of his wand erased the records of ingredients withdrawn from the supply room, wiping clean the evidence of recent withdrawal.
A bronze cauldron set over high heat, the blue flames licking the underside of the metal and heating it red-hot, boiling the spring water; the valerian roots ground to a powder, set on a pan to bake and release a calming and hypnotizing steam; the Lethifold hide punched into knut-sized disks and dropped one after another into the steaming water, dissolving from the rims towards the center as they sank, along with the entirety of the dragon acid, exactly twenty-three of the whole lavender buds, and the golden-brown valerian powder. The three hours of simmering and distillation seemed to pass in a blink of an eye. Meant as time for reconsideration, further calculation, a second chance… what would have been nine days reduced to time rushing past, the recipe improved and sped by the prodigious mind of the young Master. The last improvement-
The first phial of grapefruit juice wet the bottom of the clean carafe. The copper salts fizzed and hissed angrily against the acidic fruit, foam multiplying up to the lip of the glass. The nightshade extract released a choking vapor when the wax seal on the tube was broken, but this was quickly added to the liquid in the carafe, neutralizing the foam. Three more phials of juice turned the solution blue, transparent and noxious. The belladonna extract went in also, as well as the final phial of grapefruit juice. One by one the seven doxy hearts were set into the mixture, exploding upon contact with the surface of the liquid, releasing their lifeblood fluid contents, the spent and empty membranes extracted with a wooden stirring rod.
Two slashes across the wrist with a platinum knife made red flow into the liquid in the carafe, mixing with the doxy blood, and once the distilled spring water collected from the cauldron was added, the entire concoction grew warm, hot, steaming and boiling and hissing in its wire holder, beyond the maximum temperature for one to safely hold with bare hands. Within a few minutes, the aqueous solution had boiled itself down to a viscous black syrup. Staring into the bottom of the carafe, a single tear dropped into the residue, turning it transparent- the last safety removed, full potency achieved.
The slow-moving potion was only a dozen drops in volume, and dripped slowly down the inside walls of the miniature phial and out through the opening. It was bitter, and sweet, and spicy all in one…
The tiny phial was dropped from trembling hands, falling to the stone floor and rolling away out of sight.