Lily tilted her head as she looked at Camilla's surprise.

"I can explain in more detail, but I think it would be simpler if I just redrew this," Lily said as she pointed to more and more uneven lines and erroneous shapes.

Camilla was truly taken aback. When she eventually recovered, she simply pushed the bottle containing the blackish-blue liquid and slapped a blank piece of parchment on the table.

"Be my guest!" Camilla scoffed. While she had asked Lily not to hold back, she would never have guessed that her work would be the point of ridicule.

With unwavering determination, Lily rushed to her basket to fetch her pen. It was technically her spare pen, relegated to merely writing labels or bookkeeping, as she kept a much nicer one safely in her room.

Despite her lingering resentment over Camilla's weeks of secrecy and her disgust over the shoddy penmanship, Lily couldn't contain her bubbling excitement.

I'm finally going to draw a glyph!

After ensuring her pen was up to the task, she finally opened the bottle and dipped it in. Then, she began recreating the glyph she had seen before her.

Starting with the Fire crest, she ensured no single line went awry. It looked vaguely like three intersecting triangles of increasing sizes, as if they were a visual demonstration of a flame growing. Lily was really grateful that she had become very proficient with triangles, and Arakil routinely praised her for that.

Once the crest was out of the way, she moved on to the sigils, the order of which was not important. The first thing she did was correct the shaping sigil for a sphere. A cone or diamond shape would work splendidly, but Lily kept it to a simple, tall, triangular pyramid.

The longer Lily worked, the more bug-eyed Camilla became. She couldn't believe what she was witnessing. Her education on glyphs was rather subpar, and she'd never seen someone modify one; she always stuck to the textbook examples.

Next, Lily moved on to the size and distance sigils. She had no complaints about their configuration; they simply had imperfections in the original design that she fixed up. When she was done, only one sigil was left from the original, the only one she didn't recognize.

I bet this one controls the temperature. Arakil probably hasn't taught it to me yet for safety reasons. I don't want to mess with it and burn myself or the shop down, so I'll just neaten and clean it up.

Once she was done, Lily looked at the design. She nodded in satisfaction, and the only thing she could do was complete the final circle.

"This should work," Lily said to Camilla, who blinked out of her stupor. "We could make it more efficient by adding a time limit sigil. I'm a little surprised it doesn't have one. If it's meant to help with alchemy, you could have had strict control over the time without needing to monitor it. Or worry about turning it off when done."

"You can do that?" Camilla asked in astonishment, feeling a tinge of regret for disregarding glyphs in the past.

"Yes, it's pretty simple," Lily answered confidently.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Lily?" Camilla asked.

Lily tilted her head in confusion.

"Sorry... I'm joking. Partially, anyway," Camilla corrected with a slight chuckle. "Don't add anything like that now; I want to see your claim of getting this to work as is."

Lily nodded and began the final step. She held her breath as she drew the enclosing circle. She smiled at the result. It was near-perfect, probably barely even 1% of a deficiency.

I've really come a long way with my circles; I'm glad all that practice paid off.

"It's done!" Lily said proudly and gently pushed the piece of parchment forward to Camilla.

Camilla looked at the completed product, feeling quite baffled. It looked more like a work of art than a magical tool.

"Aren't you going to activate it?" Camilla asked.

Lily gave a soft smile before she shook her head. "I don't have any Mana to activate it."

Camilla frowned. "Girl, if you need Mana to even activate it, then what was the point of all this?"

"I haven't learned activation sigils yet," Lily defended herself. "I could probably draw one right now from a reference, but I'd rather not risk it. The only one I've ever seen activates the glyph by breaking it, usually by tearing the page in half. But I'm unsure how that would affect a glyph designed for an ongoing effect, not an instant one."

Plus, I don't want to get Arakil mad... He might not teach me if he finds out I skipped ahead and something bad happened.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Oh. Yes..." Camilla responded, looking a little lost. "Activation sigils? Gods, I must have really slacked on my classes to not even know half of what is coming out of your mouth. I'd almost be tempted to say you're making it all up, but after how perfectly and well-practiced you drew everything, I'd just be lying to save my ego."

Camilla reached toward the completed glyph. Lily held her breath.

Please work. Please work. Please work... She chanted in her head as if it was a magic spell.

The glyph shone briefly. Lily dared not blink. A tiny, flaming pyramid materialized in the center of the page, floating motionlessly. Camilla was left speechless, her eyes widening with disbelief at the successful manifestation of the flame.

"Yes!" Lily screamed, likely the loudest in her entire life.

"Well, I'll be damned..." Camilla replied in astonishment; she picked up her failed example and chuckled in a self-deprecating manner. "So the problem was the user, not the tool... I feel mighty foolish."

Lily wanted to cry tears of joy but managed to hold them back and instead gave a confident grin full of bravado.

With a newfound confidence, Lily declared heartily, "I told you I could do it!"

"Yes, you did..." Camilla replied and then smiled gently. "Congratulations, Lily."

It was entirely earnest and said with genuine kindness. Camilla had been trying everything and anything to convince Lily to seek out becoming an apothecary instead.

While Camilla was, in all likelihood, doing it from a position of care and wishing a good outcome for a bright young girl, from Lily's point of view, she had seen it as antagonism. Seeing her biggest naysayer now congratulating her broke the dam for Lily.

Camilla let Lily cry her heart out. Merely offering a handkerchief for the snot and a soft pat on the back for reassurance.

***

When Lily finally recovered from her emotional outburst, Camilla handed her a warm cup of tea with plenty of sugar.

"So, are you going to leave my shop now?" Camilla asked.

"I'm not sure..." Lily admitted. "I'm probably not good enough to make the glyph ink myself yet."

Camilla nodded. "Truth be told, I'm actually very interested in what you mentioned earlier."

Lily tilted her head in question, her ears flopping to the side.

"About the glyphs with timings and more precise controls," Camilla answered. "If that really is possible, it would simplify a lot of my work. I struggle to make several potions nowadays because I get the timing or temperature wrong. With your help, that could change."

Lily nodded. "I know the timing glyph for minutes, but I can also look into others."

"That precise?" Camilla responded in genuine shock.

"I believe there's even one for seconds," Lily answered.

Camilla was genuinely flabbergasted. "Why didn't I pay more attention in school..." She grumbled.

"I don't mind drawing glyphs; it would help my practice. But..." Lily drifted off, staring at the bottle of blackish-blue ink.

Camilla was perplexed as to why the girl was suddenly so apprehensive. She had practically forced her way into drawing the glyph before, but now she was showing cold feet? It took Camilla a moment for the puzzle pieces to fit together.

"You're worried about using up all your ink, right?" Camilla asked with a knowing smile.

"Yes..." Lily admitted, a small blush of embarrassment crossing her cheeks. "It took so long to get this little bit... I want it for my own practice."

Camilla laughed. "I wouldn't dare take away something so valuable from a child. People would call me a witch."

"But..." Lily mumbled.

"I'm the one who needs to use the glyphs; therefore, you can draw them using some blood ink," Camilla answered.

Lily frowned. She really didn't like the idea of using blood. "But..."

"Girl, I can't possibly see what you're being so uneasy about now," Camilla interrupted. "Do you not want my blood contaminating your pen? I'll give you one of mine or buy you a new one specifically for this."

Lily nodded. That was one of the reasons she refused to use Rose's blood when offered it. If even a trace amount was left behind, it might have contaminated any ink she had used in the future and locked the glyph to Rose.

The other reason was that Lily didn't want her first magic experience to be through someone else's power. Even if she knew she'd been the one to draw it, it still felt like it was from someone else, not her. It was a strange hiccup, but Lily believed she needed to earn it herself.

Although I guess I've done that now... I drew that glyph without a drop of someone's blood. Lily thought proudly to herself.

The final reason was that she couldn't help but feel it was especially creepy. Maybe that was childish since everyone used it commonly, but she disliked the idea.

Perhaps sensing Lily's hesitation, Camilla decided to try to sweeten the deal. "Look, until you get good enough to manufacture it yourself, you'll need me to make the glyph ink, which means buying it. I'll sell it to you at cost."

Lily tilted her head. That definitely sounded like a good deal to her. "I don't want to agree until I can confirm it can be done."

"Sure, you can think about it," Camilla agreed and then, to further tempt Lily, threw in a little extra. "I'll also bring you my old alchemy glyph book tomorrow. You can borrow or keep it; maybe you'll get more use from it than me."

Lily wasn't sure how useful that would be; she couldn't imagine it being even nearly as good as Arakil's teachings.

Maybe he will find it interesting? He's always talking about being unsure of how things have changed since his time. I guess that's useful?

Lily decided to nod; being able to buy the glyph ink for cheaper was probably good enough already.

Camilla was thrilled to get even a partial agreement; some of those potions sold for a pretty penny, and she'd been perturbed by her inability to refine them correctly.

"I'm still stunned at how much you know about glyphs; where did you even find out all of this?" Camilla asked.

"I found it in a book," Lily replied.

"Really? All of this in a book..." Camilla shook her head.

"It's a really old book," Lily giggled to herself.

After that, they ended up closing for the day and cleaning up. Lily made extra sure to carefully put away the glyph ink in her basket. Camilla was going to throw away the failed glyph, but Lily instead asked to take it. She claimed she wanted to see if there was anything similar in her book to better answer Camilla's request.

In reality, Lily wanted it to show Arakil, as she doubted she would have been able to easily replicate it after only copying it once. If it did indeed control heat, as she presumed, then it could be vital in learning to create the glyphs Camilla wanted.

There was a knock at the shop door; Rose had come to fetch her, which was the other change to their routine. Rather than Margit or someone from the orphanage dropping her off, Rose would do it most days; likewise, she would often fetch her, relieving Margit of the duty.

Lily said farewell to Camilla, who had disappeared into the atelier, and then opened up to her big sister.

Rose was initially extremely happy to see Lily, but then she noticed her puffy eyes. Lily had clearly been crying. A growl started forming in Rose's throat before she knew it.

"What did that hag do!?" She snarled.