I was still thinking hard when we sat down to eat. In fact, I was stewing more thoroughly than one of the meals Arandel was so fond of feeding to Grafton.

  How, exactly, does one bring up a delicate subject without provoking a negative reaction? Especially if the subject recently drove one’s wife to tears, despite her typical poise?

  For all of my training and capacity for verbal trickery, I had no idea. Nothing my family had taught me had prepared me for being gentle when it came to matters of the heart.

  In the end, as we were winding down our dinner, I simply decided to act.

  “Alys… I have a question.”

  My dragoness shot me an amused smile. Her mood had improved significantly since our chat.

  “I know.”

  “I… Wait. What?”

  “You do this adorable frown when you have something you want to say but don’t know how to say it,” my dragoness informed me, her smile widening. “I’ve seen you do it for everything from trying to tell me my soup needed more salt to bringing up your family. Still, from how serious you sounded, I’m guessing this isn’t another complaint about my cooking?”

  “That wasn’t a complaint! Just an observation,” I grumbled, then sighed. “I apologize if this upsets you. But I wanted to surprise you, and I am not sure it’s a good idea anymore. There is this potion…”

  I launched into an explanation, taking perhaps an excessive amount of time to get to my point. When I finally began describing the potion’s effects, she visibly stiffened, but showed no other reaction until I finished speaking.

  “So, bloodline purification potions, hrrrmmm?”

  I didn’t need to know her well at all to notice the displeased edge to her tone.

  “You can also call them bloodline strengthening potions,” I said hastily.

  I could understand the problem. She hadn’t spoken much on the subject, but it was easy to tell that Alys was very fond of her father. Implying that his contribution to her blood needed to be purified away would be insulting.

  Yet the name of the potion wasn’t my fault. I didn’t even know if the potion’s original maker had explicitly intended the name as an insult.

  What I did know, however, was that the type who tended to seek and use these potions did intend insult. For example, the rare fae who wanted to bother ‘helping’ their half-blooded descendants. They would definitely see the purging of all ‘contamination’ from their bloodline as a good thing.

  “And you can make this potion?” Alys asked, instead of delving deeper into the potion’s history and name.

  “Not right now, but I could start working on it. It will take me a while, most likely, but I think I can work it out. And we have those draconic materials.”

  She scoffed at the reminder of the draconic eel. Her opinion of the thing clearly hadn’t risen at all since we killed it. Then she paused, pushing the bites of meat she’d actually bothered to cut up properly around her plate.

  This was odd. Alys never played with her food, but I supposed the subject bothered her enough.

  Finally, she spoke. “I… I would want that potion, yes.”

  If the word ‘conflicted’ could be given physical form, it would be Alys in that moment. I didn’t point that out, though. I just gave her my most supportive smile.

  “Very well. I will work on it, then.”

  “Hrrrmm… Well, if you can come up with something quickly, my grandmother will definitely like you.” She had attempted a teasing tone, but then she immediately winced and pulled into herself. “I mean…”

  “It’s fine, my dear. Really, it is. I doubt I’ll have a proper potion recipe worked out quickly enough, if your grandmother’s visit comes upon us soon, but maybe I could manage a first, rough iteration? We’ll see.”

  The thought of buying a little bit of The Molten Expanse’s good regard was definitely a solid motivation.

  More importantly, I had my answer now about Alys’ preferences. My dragoness wasn’t excited about the idea, by any means, but she had accepted it. If she was brave enough to run away from home to fulfill her own desires, then I didn’t think she would force herself to say yes if she didn’t actually want the potion.

  I would still be careful, of course. If she showed signs of changing her mind, then I would happily scrap all the work I had done. If she didn’t? Then I would make her wish come true.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Things did not need to be more complicated than that.

  —

  Both of us were tired after our little talk. Even Alys’ nap didn’t give her enough energy to resist the call of our bed once we’d finished eating. We went straight upstairs and cuddled up together, just enjoying each other’s presence as we drifted off.

  The next morning came all too quickly. While I was tempted to stick to her side and make sure she didn’t slip into another manic rush to ‘improve’ her work, I had my own duties to attend to.

  “You promise you will find me immediately if you start feeling the way you did yesterday?” I whispered against her scales, refusing to release her from my hug.

  She groaned, but still nodded into my shoulder. “Fine. Now get out of here! I do have actual work to do. It’s been so long since I worked on a home for one of the townsfolk…”

  She muttered that last bit quietly, but I still caught it, feeling a flash of guilt.

  Alys loved building homes for the townsfolk. She knew most of them by name, seeing as they had traveled together to the frontier. Apparently, bonds formed on the road can be quite strong, especially when moving in such numbers.

  I resolved to get her to tell me about that period of her life sometime soon. For now, I headed for the door.

  Not the door downstairs, mind.

  We were up in Alys’ bedroom (or ‘lair’, really). I walked straight to the door that had been added to the wall between the two halves of our home. It opened smoothly, as always, admitting me into a short, enclosed ‘bridge’ that led to a hallway inside the other building. I walked down this hallway towards a staircase, passing six separate rooms along the way.

  Guest bedrooms, my dragoness had said at the time she’d suggested them. Bedrooms for any future children we might have, I translated in my mind now.

  The thought brought a smile to my lips as I ventured downstairs to the first floor and then further down into my basement laboratory. There, I looked around at my setup proudly.

  Shelves lined the walls, filled with preservation boxes. These contained mostly local ingredients, along with quite a few I had brought from my family’s estate. Three large tables dominated the space. Everything I needed for my work was sprawled on them in a mess to which only I knew the logic.

  Best of all, the room was thoroughly, blessedly isolated from the outside! I could hardly believe the relief after working so long in that blasted tent. Even if the Seasons themselves had answered my frustration about those previous working conditions, they wouldn’t have given me something as perfect as this lab.

  Mostly because at least one of them would want me tortured and then dead, but the point stood.

  Thanks to her flames and her grandmother’s material invention, Alys had produced a perfectly sealed room on par with what my family had achieved back home. The fact that I could say that made my smile stretch into a grin.

  Buoyed up by this gladness, I began the laboratory safety spells which had been ingrained in me, and which I’d ignored for far too long while working outside.

  First, a spell to protect me from both the ingredients and the final products. This resulted in a layer of mana that isolated my skin from anything I touched. Then a much more complex spell to keep the air within its limits fresh, focused in a small sphere around my head.

  It didn’t block out smells or stop the fumes of my work from affecting me. Those were important feedback elements in the brewing process. I relied on them to know how well my session was going. But the spell kept the air breathable.

  Lastly, I cast a spell that reached out and collected all the contaminants in the air, if any, and condensed them into a single, small bead. This spell, in particular, would have been a waste of time while I was working in a tent. It didn’t matter how many contaminants I collected if the wind just kept sweeping them back into my workplace.

  Honestly, I was willing to bet that all of my work for the last few months contained at least a little dirt. The idea made me shudder and grimace before I banished it to the furthest recesses of my mind. Whether I was the alchemist my family wanted me to be or the one I had actually become, that kind of negligence ate at me.

  Just to prove how much better it was to work in controlled conditions, everything I had brewed inside my new lab was at least five to seven percent more potent. Outright. Simply because I didn’t have a random gust of wind messing with the heat of my cauldron, my precisely monitored brew, or my attention, as honed as that was.

  In other words, every time I used my new lab, I fell a little more in love with the amazing dragoness who had built it.

  My incredible, silly dragoness, who was somehow worrying over not being good enough…

  I groaned and shook that thought off, too. Then I began preparing everything I needed for my daily production session.

  Immune system boosting powder. Nutritional supplements. A few batches of honey ginger candies. At least a single batch of healing potions, just in case, so we could continue growing our supplies. And, whenever the process allowed, some simple poultices which would make Vance’s work infinitely easier when it came to minor injuries.

  It was a lot. I frequently found myself wishing I had more cauldrons to work with. Now that I was out of the wilds and in a civilized laboratory, I could handle at least two more if I kept the brewing simple.

  The alchemists of my family were spoiled. In more than one way, admittedly, but the most important point was that we were never pressed to produce large quantities of anything. This mildly frustrated me now. I could have used some tips on mass production.

  The work did give me time to think, however. And I focused my thoughts on the potion I wanted to make for Alys.

  There was a bit of guilt there, since it meant neglecting the potions Nelaeryn would need to ensure a successful birth. But Nelaeryn wasn’t the woman I loved. Alys was. Besides, I still had plenty of time to cater to the elf’s needs.

  The bone marrow, bone meal, and scales we got from the draconic eel were definitely a good start for Alys’ potion, but I would need some considerably potent ingredients to balance them out. Granted, that was an admittedly easier ask for me to fulfill than it would be for a regular alchemist out on the frontier. The Flamecore Beetle I’d purchased from the visiting caravan could render down ingredients, sacrificing quantity in favor of increasing potency. Yet I needed to figure out suitable ingredients before putting them through the process.

  I paused as my mind drifted to something I’d been reminded of quite recently. The flower left behind by the stag spirit… could I use it in the potion in some way? Out of everything I owned, it was the most potent ingredient.

  I worked a little faster and more enthusiastically, eager to examine the flower again.