The following week was a blur. People came and went, things got done, and most importantly, money was spent. A lot of money was spent.

It actually shocked Lucas how quickly golden dragons were going out the door. Until now, the figure in Kar’Gandin’s logs had only ever gone up, but now that trend was reversing, and after paying deposits and haggling for bulk orders, they were back down below fifty golden dragons in the strong box that they kept in the partially finished root cellar that would become his new lab in another week or two.

This was despite the fact that he’d made another thirty dragons by selling Blue to nobles at smaller get-togethers, and another shipment had been sent to the Knights of Brass. It wasn’t so long ago that he’d thought even a single dragon was a lot of money, but that was before he’d had to deal with guild envoys about anything formal.

“It takes money to make money,” he told himself, but as true as it was, that still didn’t make him feel any better. Day by day he could feel his future tavern slipping away.

Still, everything was going full speed, and except for the occasional invitation to dine with some of his new friends, there had been no problems. Piles of wrought iron posts were being delivered, new men with experience had been hired to help whip some of their earnest young farmers into shape, the manor was being painted, and most importantly, Blue was getting made.

At this point, Lucas was the limiting factor more than anything. It wasn’t like he could trust someone else to make his drug, and he couldn’t make it while he was off hobnobbing with the various ne'er-do-wells of the most important local families, either.

Lucas had let Adin try to make healing potions twice more before giving up on him as a lost cause. Instead, he’d recruited a local apothecary to handle some of the mundane potions that needed to be made and free up some time. She spent more time midwifing and scolding the village boys than brewing potions, but he had only needed to take a look around the prepared herbs in her shop to see that she knew her business better than Adin ever could.

Casarra had no magical gifts, but she was just fine at following directions. If she put the right ingredients in the right proportions, then she got a pretty decent result every time. She was also a pretty redhead who wasn’t too much older than him, though he did his best to ignore those gifts and keep his eyes on the work at hand.

“Are you sure you want to mix sagethorn root and silver leaf together?” she’d asked after he met with her the first time to see if she had what it took to be his understudy.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Lucas asked, confused.

“Well, they aren’t compatible, elementally speaking,” she said, pointing the little chart on her wall. “sagethorn is earth aligned, but its roots have a bit of water in them, and silverleaf has an air element. Typically, you would…what?”

She stopped talking and looked at Lucas as he rolled his eyes. Lucas sighed and explained, “Listen, I know that’s what all of you say about this stuff. That elemental alignment is key to making a good potion, but—”

“It’s true,” she said, getting up in his face. It took him a second to realize she was actually getting angry about it. “It's the lack of elemental alignment in various ingredients that generates the toxins in potions. That’s why usually you would use pharra root or the ground pits of an alcot fruit or… What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

It turned out that she was one of those women that got hotter when they got angry, and he was close enough now that he tempted to kiss her, but he resisted. He needed her help, and there wasn’t exactly another apothecary in a one horse town like Meadowin that he could ask.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head to push the urge further back. “I don’t disagree that those things matter, but we can bypass that problem with the alcohol step like I told you. It leaches out the umm… incompatible elements and the potions work just fine.”

She looked at him skeptically for a moment. Then she nodded and leaned back, mollified while she continued to mix the potion as his instructions specified.

The truth was, elements were rarely mentioned on his little alchemy pop-ups, so he didn’t give a shit about them. To the other alchemists of the world, their adherence to that bit of wisdom bordered on obsession, but he ignored it. If something had compatible stats, he mixed them together. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. In either case, he wrote it down.

As far as he was concerned, the main consequence of the elemental obsession was that some ingredients were incredibly expensive because they were “required,” and others were super cheap or seen as nothing more than weeds because they were incompatible with the most popular recipes.

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Lucas didn’t need to rewrite the book or introduce the world to the scientific method, though. It was just one more edge he had over everyone else as far as he was concerned. He didn’t just have secret recipes to make, he had the mind set to go out and create more.

Besides, they weren’t selling the stuff she was going to be making at this point. Healing potions were now either used to recruit new members, or stock piled to take care of the injured. After all, more gang wars were coming, he was sure of it.

According to Hura’gh, the fighting in the warehouse districts that sat squarely between meatpackers row and the marketplaces and alleys that the Blind held sway over were becoming a bloodbath, with each retribution and warning inspiring another from the other side.

The Butchers seemed to be winning now, but how long that could last was anyone’s guess. Lucas was just glad that the two gangs had never figured out who the real culprit had been. The Blind hadn’t even bothered to open new contracts for goblins that anyone had heard about, both because they were so scared in the Greenwood and because they had their hands full. However, without the steady income that dusk and midnight had been providing, they had almost certainly fallen completely on their old habits of petty theft, and that would only further aggravate the guards.

The whole situation was enough to make him start researching more combat-related potions. Well, enough to order the stuff to do that, at least. He’d been too busy with everything else to put what had already arrived to use, and half of what he needed hadn’t come in yet.

Potions of strength, speed, and toughness were all well and good and would give his crew an advantage, but there was no reason that Lucas needed to settle for just that. With enough effort, he was sure he could put together some real superhero shit.

He also needed some better answer for mages that might eventually cross their path. Especially if the Whisperers decided to make a move. Those were probably things he couldn’t solve with potions, though. They would probably need to shell out serious coins for magic items and scrolls.

Which was, of course, one more expense that would have to be paid. In addition to all the things they were doing to improve their base and make it more defensible, Lucas had put together orders for bigger and more specialized alchemy equipment. By the time the lab beneath the cider house was fit for purpose, he should have a new, larger cauldron and an even bigger copper still. He’d need it too. They were using dozens of gallons of pure grain alcohol every week now. That was enough to get a small army drunk every night.

Today, he couldn’t worry about any of those things, though. Today he had to get dressed, because instead of cooking up a storm he’d been invited to lunch at the Corrin estate on the far side of Lordanin. This was hardly the first little outing he’d been invited to since the VanDavin’s garden party. They’d been coming so frequently that even Danaria had stopped asking to come with him, and she loved excuses to go out.

Though they weren’t much more prestigious than the Parrin family, Adin insisted that Lucas do all he could to strengthen this relationship on account of their association with the tax collection franchise.

“They aren’t popular because they’re too dangerous,” Adin told him as Lucas studied himself in the mirror. “And because they’re so close to the cash flowing through the royal coffers, getting too rich would look bad, don’t you see? They might never be king, but for as long as they appoint tax collectors, they will always be kingmakers.”

Lucas nodded, but he wasn’t paying too much attention. Really, he was trying to decide how much product to bring. The little lordling that was inviting him, had seemed pretty desperate, so he could bring quite the haul.

How much could I sell the little bastard at once before he ODs? Lucas wondered to himself.

When he heard Adin go on at length about the family he was visiting and all the ways they were connected to the powers that be, though, he had a different question on his mind. How many vials can I hide discretely, in case this is a trap?

“If these guys are so loyal to the crown, then are you certain I should be doing business with them at all,” Lucas asked. “I’m more interested in low lives and debauched old names that can—”

“No, don’t you see?” Adin asked. “It’s perfect. These are exactly the sorts with the connections we need, and you’re getting leverage on them in the only way one can, with something I… I mean, that they need.”

“Alright then,” Lucas said. “If you’re right, the Blue’s on me when I get home, and if you’re wrong, well, maybe you wait a couple more days.”

Adin flinched at the threat but didn’t complain. He knew better than to do that. Especially when he was only rewarded with the drugs he craved when he proved to be useful.

“I’m sure,” Adin said, finally. “Everything will be just fine. Wallace has always been a creature of luxury. He’s nothing like his father.”

“We’ll see,” Lucas said, taking a handful of vials before he walked out to his carriage.

Something about this all felt wrong to him, so instead of going stuffed to the gills like he’d planned, he hid them in the small compartment that remained when they’d installed the new strongbox under the rear bench of the carriage just in case. Theoretically, someone could steal them if he left them unattended this way, but he very much doubted that anyone would rip out the cushions and dig around underneath the heavy-ass, iron-bound box to find them.

He sighed heavily as the carriage got underway. “God damn, I can’t wait until we clear Adin’s name,” Lucas muttered to himself. “Then he can be the dealer, and I can go back to being the fucking cook.”