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Felix placed the foul-smelling flask of slowly bubbling liquid as far away from him on the table as possible. “Are you sure it said ten drops of Essence of Wraith?” Tiny ringlets of smoke rose from the flask.
Felix began to think that maybe—just maybe—they shouldn't be doing this in their room.
The smart move would have been to descend into Stygga's dungeon that housed the alchemy laboratory. By the time he suggested this, however, Aiden had already dragged the tools and ingredients out of his trunk.
Sometimes Felix wanted to throttle the enthusiasm out of the ginger brat.
Checking through the notes in front of him, Aiden nervously chewed his lower lip. “Yes...I think.” He finally saw the sheet of parchment they needed and grabbed it from the pile. “Ha! Found it!”
Felix eyed the smoke wearily while the rust-colored liquid in the bottle rapidly turned a deep blood red. He took a step back, shielding behind Aiden. Just in case. The smoke was making his nose itch uncomfortably.
Aiden shoved the recipe in Felix’s face triumphantly. “Told you I wrote it down.” Thanks to the neat handwriting, Felix quickly determined what part of the formula had gone awry.
“Aiden! It says to use one drop of the essence. Not ten!” Felix punctuated the sentence by punching his fist into Aiden’s shoulder.
Turning towards Felix with an annoyed look on his face, Aiden rubbed the spot where Felix had struck him. “We can salvage it.”
He had a determined look on his freckled face and put on some leather gloves. It didn’t give Felix much confidence in the matter.
Aiden took a hesitant step towards the smoldering bottle at the end of the table. “Remember when Joël diluted some flasks?”
Felix raised a skeptical brow, “Joël was brewing White Gull, Aiden.” He gestured for Aiden to continue. Though part of Felix was interested in seeing how Aiden would fail spectacularly this time around, he also wanted to stay out of the blast radius and took a step towards the hallway.
Aiden was within reach of the botched recipe. “The principle is the same.” He shot Felix a dirty look, “Put Dwarven Spirit into those empty flasks.”
Felix sighed and shook his head as he picked up some flasks and the jug of spirit. He paused, “how much do we need?”
Aiden became quiet enough for Felix to believe he had gone into a meditative state. “Aiden?”
The other cat startled and spoke up, “Enough to dilute it into…ten flasks?” He said hesitantly.
Staring into the middle distance, Felix tried to run the numbers. “So, you’re going to divide that”—he gestured at the flask—into ten portions?”
Aiden’s gloved hand closed around the flask, lifting it from the bench. “I think that’s correct?” The red smoke was coming out of the flask with increased urgency, long plumes forming in the air.
“Half of it dissolved into smoke by now.” Felix looked at the dribble of viscous fluid in disgust as it ran down the bottle’s neck onto Aiden’s glove.
They heard a hissing sound just before the scent of burning leather filled the room. Their eyes shot from each other to the flask and back again. The foul liquid had started eating through Aiden’s glove.
He hurled the flask into the corner of the room, where it unceremoniously shattered against the brick wall. Flinging off the glove and dropping it where he stood, Aiden launched himself towards Felix in an attempt to put as much distance between them and the remnants of the potion.
Standing in the doorway for a full minute, the two young cats stared at each other in hushed panic. In the opposite corner of the room, the red clouds started to dissipate.
Inching towards the corner, Aiden quickly saw that the mixture had eaten through the floorboards.
Looking down at the damage their experiment had caused, Aiden closed his eyes and groaned, “Fuck.”
“What?” Felix trudged towards Aiden, pushing his friend out of the way to glance down the sticky charred hole the potion had burnt through.
Guxart looked up at them in exasperation and held up a partially burned cloak as a silent accusation.
“Oh,” Felix whispered. They had probably just doubled their required time in the alchemy lab.
“Fuck...”