Chapter 63 – Blueprints in Steam and Fire
The cellar breathed like a sleeping beast.
Glassware caught the furnace glow in thin, trembling lines; copper coils sweated; three rune-circles pulsed beneath the flagstones like buried hearts. Heat pressed against the skin, not cruelly—expectantly. It was the sound a promise makes before it keeps itself.
John stood with sleeves rolled, burned knuckles steady over the flame. Across from him, Vulgrat hunched over an open-necked retort, lips moving as he counted under his breath.
"Focus on the fire and keep it a perfect temperature ," John said, calm as a metronome. "Let the liquid take form. Don't force it."
Vulgrat's pipette clicked. The drops fell. The solution shifted—amber tilting toward sunrise.
"Good," John murmured. "Now stop looking at it and feel it."
Vulgrat almost laughed, and didn't. He closed his eyes, held the glass by the neck, and let the heat thread his fingers. The brew answered: a tight, high hum that softened as the Light folded into the base.
"That's it," John said. "Aetherforge is a technique that requires control."
The smell changed first. Bitter mint dulled into clean rain; a faint sweetness—the sharp edge of distilled poppy—stopped biting and started breathing. The meniscus thinned. A thread of pale gold rose through the body of the draught like dawn through fog.
Vulgrat's shoulders eased. "I feel it."
"Don't chase the feeling," John said. "Hold the temperature.
Sweat ran along Vulgrat's temple. He let it fall. The ring of chalk around his burner trapped a neat column of heat; the rune stones under the bench hummed without interfering. Every moving part settled into the same rhythm. For once, the lab felt like a choir.
Vulgrat grinned, wild and young. "I—"
"Stop," John said, and lifted the spoon out of his hand. "If you talk, you'll jinx it."
Vulgrat pressed his lips together. The potion held its glow for the count of five, then twelve. When it dimmed, it did so slowly, the color settling into a lucid honey.
"Close," John said. His mouth tipped. "Very close."
Vulgrat sagged against the bench and scrubbed his hair back. "That was it, wasn't it?"
"You have touched the boundary," John said.
Vulgrat looked down at the vial like it might start telling him secrets.
The heat gathered in the room without a task to gnaw on, then loosened its jaw. The furnaces ticked as they rested. Ember, who had fallen asleep on a low shelf like an offended cat, lifted his head, yawned, and blinked.
John wiped the bench with a wet cloth. "Come on."
"We're done?" Vulgrat asked, surprised.
"For now." John hooked a thumb toward the stairs. "It's dinner time."
Lampglass spread warm circles across the halls; baked stone exhaled day's heat in long, tired breaths. The house carried a sound John had once thought he'd never trust again—the clatter of bowls, too many voices in the same room, laughter coming from more than one direction at once.
Sera was steam and focus at the hearth, sleeves rolled, hair pulled back in a clean knot. A great cauldron breathed soup into the air. Not thin broth—her soup had gravity. Thick stock, snake bones boiled until they gave up their memory, pepper and scallion crackling in oil, dumplings bobbing around the pot.
"Saint Sera," Blake said, drifting past with a bowl he hadn't been handed yet. "If you ever leave us, I'll die of Starvation."
"Wait until it's done," Sera said mildly, and smacked his knuckles.
Mara leaned a hip against the table, adjusting the leather of her shield strap until it stopped complaining. A corner of her mouth lifted at Blake's theatrics. Lysa sat near the lattice, knife idly notching a piece of bread as her eyes rested on the street beyond. Tamara was already at the table, cloak unfastened, hair catching the lamplight in pale threads; Her eyes lit up when she caught sight of John.
Ember made for Sera with intent. She huffed a laugh and set a dumpling on the edge of the table. He gulped it whole and looked deeply dignified about it.
Vulgrat and John stepped through the arch, heat still clinging to them like work. The noise bent around John's silhouette for half a breath, then accepted him back into it.
"Welcome back." Blake said, already chewing.
They settled in their familiar seats. Lysa ate quietly, listening more than talking. Mara accepted seconds only after everyone got some food. Tamara's bowl steamed under her hands. She blew at the surface without drinking, watching John over the rim. He pretended he was not aware of it.
He set his spoon down.
"The Alchemy Tournament is in two days," he said, as if it were part of the weather report. "Ill be entering it."
Silence washed in and back out. Blake made a small celebratory noise that might have been a choke.
Tamara tilted her head. "I thought that was obvious." As everyone laughed at the joke.
"I'm also joining," Vulgrat blurted, then sat up a little too straight.
Sera's smile warmed. "Your definitely gonna win," she told John, as if telling a truth the room had already agreed to.
"I got all of you tickets," John said. He reached into his coat and set a thin lacquer box on the table. The lid opened with a small, pleased click. Inside, a fan of stiff paper cut with shimmering threads. "We have a box. Seats enough for the crew."
"This is going to be fun!" Lysa said.
"We get to have a break for the day but," John repeated. "Tomorrow we do drills. Morning and evening. Midday—cultivation. I brewed Tier 2 core potions for Tamara, Blake, and Lysa. Five each." He gestured toward the sideboard. Three neat satchels waited there, seals unbroken. "Stagger the doses, half a vial at a time. If you do it right, Step Three should become a reality before the tournament."
Blake looked like someone had just proposed to him. "Have I ever told im in love with you?"
"Drink the potion," John said.
Mara's gaze softened despite herself. "You're sure you can spare them?"
"I brewed them for you," John said. "You're are all apart of my team."
Tamara didn't touch her satchel. She didn't need to. She was watching him with her hands around a bowl that had stopped steaming. He let the room go on around them and found her eyes and stayed there a heartbeat too long.
"To J-Crew, then," Blake declared, lifting his bowl like a saint lifting a relic. "May we never wear matching uniforms."
"Light forbid," Mara muttered.
Sera clinked her ladle against the pot because someone had to make the sound. Ember barked once, as if adding the city's approval, and received another dumpling for civic engagement.
When the bowls were mostly empty and the talking thinned into small pockets.
John stood up and looked at vulgrat. "Back to the lab," he said
Vulgrat nearly knocked his chair over standing up. "Yes master."
Sera touched John's arm as he turned and set a single wrapped bun in his hand. "For later," she said.
He nodded once. "Thank you."
Tamara was waiting by the arch. As John walked by he brushed against her arm and stopped next to her. The house's noise ran soft behind them.
"Don't Push yourself too hard," she said finally, quiet but not cautious. "You don't have to do it all alone."
"I know but," he said, and without meaning to, let the truth sit bare a second: "I want to become strong enough to see the top of the world."
Her mouth softened. Not pity—kinship. "Then I'll support you.
He didnt look back as he walked down the stairs. He didn't need to he could picture the look on her face.
The lab had cooled, and Vulgrat was already there. He had a slate open and two quills out going over notes.
"Master—" he started, then flushed at the title. "The tournament. There's… news."
John set the bun on the corner of the bench and relit the furnace. The flame climbed to its place like a well-trained dog to its mark.
"Talk," he said.
Vulgrat didn't need second chances. "Judges first," he said. "Elder Seraphine Vel. Tier Three Alchemist. E-Rank Step Nine. I don't have to tell you what that means here."
John didn't answer.
"From the Kingdom of Rina," Vulgrat continued, "an older Tier Four from the main branch. He came quiet. Respected through his alchemy alone. He's one of the oldest alchemists in this region. His name is Calvin Sparks.
John fed a shard of essence stone to the flame. It took it without smoke.
"He brought competitors," Vulgrat said. "One of them… close to Tier Three alchemist. Everyone keeps calling him the arrogant prince." He huffed. "His name is Jackson Green."
"The third judge?" John asked.
"Alex Burrow," Vulgrat said. "Tier Four from Valin's Academy. Reputation like a razor—clean and sharp enough to make people stand up straighter. He brought a student. He's the Quiet type." Vulgrat glanced up. "Frank Gottem he's close to teir 3. The Academy's letting the rumors do all the work."
John adjusted the dampener ring on the burner until the flame stopped pretending to flicker. "Who else is watching?"
"Most of the city that matters," Vulgrat said dryly. "Kyle Skiddard will be there." Hes the branch leader of the mercenary association. "Kevin too—the Brutalists' commander. And Dokabas." Respect entered his voice without permission. "The Merchant Association's branch leader, of course. They say there'll be two more boxes with people whose names are hidden."
"Good," John said.
Vulgrat blinked. "Good?"
"If the city's going to look," John said, "let's give them something worth seeing."
Vulgrat's grin flashed, quick and fierce. "Then we should make sure we dont lose face."
"Preferably," John said. He slid the lid off the earlier draught and checked the meniscus.
"I felt it," Vulgrat said, reverent but not naive. "Like the room stopped arguing with me."
"It did," John said. "The trick is making it happen again tomorrow."
Vulgrat squared his shoulders. "Yes."
John broke the bun in half and tossed him a piece. "Eat," he said. "Then light the burner."
They ate standing, because sitting would make the night slacken. Ember jumped to his bench and arranged himself like a foreman forgiving his crew for being mortal.
Vulgrat swallowed the last of his share. "Two days," he said, almost to himself.
John fed three measured drops of Light to a clean base and watched the surface tremble, then smooth. The flame's reflection drew a thin line through his eyes.
"Two days," he agreed. "It's going to be an interesting time."
He set the spoon into the spiral. Vulgrat mirrored him at the next bench, movements smaller, careful, hungry.
Below the house, the lab found the rhythm it liked best: glass speaking to breath, fire to bone, patience to heat. Above, in a city already sharpening its gaze for spectacle, a private box collected dust it would not keep for long.
The night went on. They worked. And somewhere between the tenth stir and the eleventh, the room stopped arguing with them again.