Andrew’s ears sang. Purple lights flickered in his eyes. He tried to get up but something was on top of him and he couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He tried yelling, but his lungs weren’t getting enough air to make sound. He opened his eyes, pried them open. He was in the lab, if the lab was transformed into Hell. Tongues of orange fire licked along the walls, chewing through the drapes and carpets. The windows and glass ceiling had shattered, their broken tips glinting in the smoke.

Andrew was on his back, being crushed to death by the smoldering bookshelf on top of him.

“Help me,” he wheezed, trying to wriggle out from under the burning wood. “Doctor Davis, Ignar!”

Only the crackling fire answered him. Andrew couldn’t see anything through all the haze and lightning. Hysteria clawed inside him. He tried to think but his mind was numb with panic.

What had happened? He remembered faintly that one of the anchor stones had broken. But how? The transmutation shouldn’t have had such a toll. And the potion Andrew threw was Life Water, not something else. He was sure of this fact because, through all the chaos, he remembered most clearly his wish for Constantia to not die.

The bookshelf sank deeper into Andrew's ribs. He gasped and groaned as the edges of his world became red, then black.

Terror surged, drowning out logic.

I’m on my own, he thinks. I'm going to die alone.

Andrew fought against the nihilistic thoughts swirling inside his head. He pushed and pulled against the bookshelf, managing to yank his right arm free. Fire was creeping. Somewhere close by, there was a crash. Andrew brought his hand to his mouth and bit hard on the pad of his index finger. Blood flowed across his tongue. Metallic, hot. He drew the bleeding finger across one side of the bookshelf. He traced a circle, then inside that, the characters needed to make a transmutation circle. He had only practiced the basic circles in secret a few times. He didn't know if he was doing it right. Didn't matter. He'd rather die trying. Up above, more of the ceiling had begun to collapse. Daggers of glass rained down on Andrew, cutting his face open. Andrew's body twisted away on reflex, and he screamed in pain and dismay. The circle he drew was ruined. He knew without looking at it that his blood had spattered through it. He needed to start again. But there was no time. Thick smoke had enveloped around the bookshelf, reaching under it to him.

Andrew’s eyes watered. When he tried to breathe he could only feel acid going into his lungs. His chest spasmed and his hands made claws.

Just when he could struggle no longer, Ignar was standing over him. The wolfman appeared so suddenly that Andrew almost convinced himself it was an illusion. But the wolfman’s eyes glowed hot with life and his grin was too wide to be made up. With a heave of his massive arms, the wolfman lifted the bookshelf off Andrew and sent it flying. Then, as he gathered Andrew into his furry arms, he whispered,

“If you just used the wrong potion again, this would not have happened."

Andrew’s breath stopped even as his lungs kept demanding air. What did he just hear Ignar say? He wanted to ask - no, demand - that the wolfman clarify, but the fire was reaching the exit. Andrew's whole body was numb. He knew that Ignar had picked him up, was carrying him out of the wrecked room at speeds no human could ever hope to match, but he couldn’t feel anything other than pain and dizziness. And as they raced through the fire and Andrew's eyes closed, even those feelings were gone.

“This is your fault.”

That was the first thing Doctor Davis said when Andrew visited the infirmary that evening. They were both taken there in the beginning, though Andrew was well enough to leave already.

“I used the right potion this time,” Andrew said. “It should have worked.”

“You messed something else up then,” Doctor Davis said. His face was wrapped almost entirely in thick bandages, so Andrew couldn’t even tell what expression the Doctor was wearing. “I do not remember exactly what happened, so you must tell me. What did you mess up?”

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Andrew tried not to let his annoyance show. The smell in the room was pungent, a mixture of alcohol and puss. “I didn't,” he started to say, but the Doctor lashed out suddenly. A bandaged arm swung out and slammed into Andrew’s chest. Andrew reeled back, shocked, then horrified as he got a good look at what exactly had hit him.

Where the arm ended, a rounded stump marked the place where the Doctor’s hand was.

“This,” Doctor Davis snarled, “is your work, Andrew.” He lifted his other arm. It too, was bound in the same way. "Your work."

Andrew felt his legs weaken. “Oh, by the gods.”

“If they really exist then we would not need science,” Doctor Davis spat as he struggled to sit up on the bed. “Now tell me what happened, Andrew. How did it come to this?”

“I…” Andrew stepped back from the bed, shaking his head. “I do not remember. I-I’m sorry, Doctor!” He turned and, with the Doctor yelling for him to stop, fled the room.

The fire had been put out, but the laboratory was already ruined. When Andrew pushed his way back into the destroyed room, he found his eyes watering from the smoke and ash. The walls were peeled, and the animal rugs were smoldering smudges across the floor. The bookshelf, the chairs and surgery tables, none of it remained.

Yet, despite it all, the marble slab remained. It sat in the center of the room, its milky white surface a stark contrast with the blackened room.

Next to it, Ignar was scraping up pailfuls of rubbery residue. He spoke without looking up, “Sinners do not often come back to the scene of their misdeed.”

Andrew stepped over a pile of debris so burnt it was impossible to tell what they were. "Wise words to live by," he said to the wolfman. "But coming from you, it sounds hypocritical."

Ignar snorted through his long nostrils. “Is the Young Master suggesting his humble servant was a part of this?” He gestured around with a heavy hand. "I cannot even light a cigarette with these claws of mine."

Evening wind blew through the empty window frames, brushing dying embers into Andrew’s face. As he stepped around the marble slab, he saw that it was empty.

“What happened to Constantia?” he asked Ignar.

“You remember her name,” the wolfman remarked, turning his head to look up at Andrew.

“I remember all their names," Andrew said.

“But this one was different,” Ignar said. "She looked at you many times. More than the ones before her."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Andrew said. He took a step away, heard stone crunching under his shoes. He stopped and lifted one foot. It was the northern sapphire, meant to safeguard the alchemy circle from taking what it shouldn’t. “They all felt that way,” he said quietly, shaking the blue flakes to the floor. “I betrayed their trust. They hate me for it. That’s how this whole thing works.”

Ignar stood to his full height. Now, it was Andrew who was looking up. The wolfman's stare was pitless, his yellow eyes shielded in the way only a predator's could be. He grinned. "That is right," he said. "You did. I could hear the betrayal in her screams."

Andrew felt sweat drag down the back of his neck. "So, is she..."

“Dead? No.”

Andrew’s throat felt tight. “Is she... alive?”

"Not quite."

"Say it clearly, Ignar!" Andrew knew that the wolf was toying with him. But he was in no mood for games. The memory of the flesh ball surfaced in his mind, bobbing in the water against the side of his sailboat. "Say it clearly or I will tell the Doctor I suspect you had something to do with what happened here!"

"The Young Master would not do that," Ignar said, showing no hints of being intimidated. Andrew couldn't remember if the wolfman ever showed any other emotion on his grinning face. "Does Young Master want to know why?"

The room started to spin. Andrew shook his head. He reminded himself to breathe.

Still grinning, Ignar reached under the Table and dragged out a piece of wood. He tossed it by Andrew's feet.

Andrew immediately recognized it as a piece taken from the bookshelf that was crushing him. But it wasn't just any ordinary piece. It was from the side that was directly on top of him.

The side that he drew on with his blood.

Andrew froze, realization and memory smashing into him.

“I... I was just...”

"Passing by," Ignar finished, "checking on your servant's progress."

Andrew slowly turned his gaze up at Ignar. He heard his own voice speaking, but didn't know what he was saying.

But Ignar did. He nodded, and picked up the piece of wood. Then, shooting Andrew a sly wink, he went over to the garbage pile in the corner of the room and stuffed the plank deep into it.

Andrew stood there dumbly, and it was only when he saw the sun setting on the horizon that he noticed what time it was, and why he was going through this part of the castle in the first place.

“Is Bartholomeu still in the kitchen?” he asked. "I lost my loaf of bread in the accident."

Ignar turned from the pile of garbage. “The Young Master should not push his luck,” he said, eyes twinkling like cut glass. "Snakes have a taste for secrets. Especially ones stained with blood."

Andrew didn't answer. He left the room without another word, leaving the wolf homunculus to clean up the mess that neither of them had anything to do with.

He thought he heard the wolf humming.