Lucas reached for his cup of tea. Despite the fact that it was still scalding, he took a sip to give him a moment to think. The idea that it might be poisoned meant nothing compared to everything else that was going on. Honestly, coughing up blood and choking to death here in this dim, over-decorated room might be the best thing that could happen to him because he felt like everything was spinning out of his control.

Was the Prince about to strong-arm him and take over his business exactly the way he’d prevented the Whispers from doing so recently?

That has to be it, he thought to himself.

What else was left? Geopolitics? War between kingdoms? It beggared belief that a man that was this on the ball would need a street rat like Lucas for any of that. Still, even after all this reflection, he knew nothing, so he decided to deflect as much as he could to learn more.

“Better, huh?” Lucas said, setting the saucer and cup back down. “I’m not sure what the word on the street is, but if my stuff gets any purer, people will start dying.”

“That’s true,” the prince agreed, not seemingly particularly disturbed by the idea. “Though most of the deaths seem to be from the low-grade stuff, according to the guard. By all accounts, the upper crust is quite happy with your product. Indeed, they’re eager for more.”

“You want me to… poison the nobles I’m supplying to?” Lucas asked, trying not to sound as confused as he felt. “Is there just like… one family in particular, or are you looking for more of a clean sweep here?”

The Prince’s response to that was to laugh long and hard. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said finally, pretending to wipe away a nonexistent tear from his eye. “When you wipe out enemies, new ones only appear to take their place, and I have all mine categorized and monitored quite nicely at this point. I don’t need to replace them with anyone new.”

Lucas opened up his mouth to ask a follow-up question, but the Prince continued. “Though, you seem to have gotten your claws into even the stodgy old lord Torvin. I can’t say I saw that coming. Sometimes, people really do surprise you. Take you, for instance. I’ve seen you at what, three, four parties now?”

“Three,” Lucas answered, surprised that the man remembered his face in a crowd at all.

“Just so,” the Prince agreed. “You never struck me as an alchemist or really a man with any learning. I thought you were a card sharp, or perhaps you were there looking for a rich widow. I’m not one to judge, so you can imagine my surprise when Mister Blue was hiding in plain sight this whole time!”

Lucas was even more creeped out now. The man wasn’t just being fed information by some kind of Whisperer-like spy network. He was clearly smart and remembered even minor exchanges at random parties. Lucas was definitely out of his league here. This was not someone to be fucked with.

“So then, what’s it for, your highness?” Lucas asked finally, deciding there was no way to play the information out of the man. “I mean, I need some idea of what you want if I’m going to be able to—”

“Let’s say… we’re after bigger game than any Duke or Count in the land, and leave it at that, for now, shall we?” the Prince answered dismissively.

“I mean, you were hunting me for so long I kinda figured this was personal for you,” Lucas said, trying to see what might slip out if he tried to agitate the man.

“Me? No, I never touch the stuff.” the Prince said. “I prefer other drugs. Yours cloud the mind, though in this case that’s exactly what we want.“Heizenburgle will fill you in on what you need to know when the time comes.”

“Heizenburgle?” Lucas asked. “Who’s—”

“Let’s make one thing perfectly clear,” the Prince said finally. “I’m asking because it's easier than telling, but your only real play here is Yes? Are we clear? There’s no other way out of this for you. My purser has paid an entire sack of dragons to that conniving bitch that brought you in, which will make this year’s tithe that much harder to put together, so I am going to get my money’s worth out of you. Are we understood?”

“Yes, Your Highness, I would be happy to help you if that’s what’s required of me,” Lucas said, trying not to grit his teeth, “But I have some questions if I uhhh... If it's not too rude.”

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“Please,” the man said dismissively. He seemed perfectly happy to toy with Lucas as long as Lucas knew his place.

“I help you with this,” Lucas said, “and when it’s done, what happens to me?”

“Well, I imagine that you’ve racked up quite a sum in profits during your time in Lordanin,” The Prince answered, “So if you’re still palling around with Kar’gandin, he can open his books… the real ones, mind you, not the fake ones I know he keeps too, and if not, well then I’ll have one of my loyal tax collectors conduct an audit, and issue a fine. As long as you pay that and you ensure your fair share ends up in the treasury going forward… well, I’d consider you a valuable asset to the city. If not, well… the gallows don’t take long to put up.”

“I see,” Lucas said, not sure that he believed him. “So you want me to make you a special batch of blue for a specific customer, then you’re just going to let me pay my taxes and continue on my way?”

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?” The Prince asked. “No doubt the Alchemists' guild will throw a fit if you become any more prominent, but perhaps we can buy you a guild license as well. Training or no, you surely make enough to afford one.”

Lucas must have still had some trace of a skeptical look on his face because the Prince continued. “You really don’t get it, do you? You think I’m out to cut off your head because of some imagined slight. I appreciate people like you, Mister Blue. My nobles are so stuck in a rut that they spend half their day scheming and the other half relaxing. The family I always see you with… the Parins, right? Adin is a perfect example of what I mean. The man is a leach. Did you know he once tried to sell his sister’s virtue to me for a tax debt that was almost sixty dragons?”

“No shit?” Lucas asked. Forcing himself to laugh at that so that his anger wouldn’t show on his face.

Inside, he was raging. It wasn't because of the accusation or even the terrible things it implied. He was pissed because it was almost certainly true.

For a very long time, Lucas tried to square the man who went to the dungeons for his sister with the man he worked with every day. He’d never been able to. However, if you reversed that one little detail, suddenly, everything snapped into place.

“She’s a pretty thing, I grant you,” the Prince said, “But there’s not a woman in the kingdom worth that much.”

Lucas nodded along as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, but he believed just the opposite. He wouldn’t trade Danaria for every perfectly painted whore in the Red Lantern District.

“The point is, Lordanin needs people like you,” the Prince continued. “You have no idea what our peace and prosperity costs, but it's a bill that has to be paid. If anything, you’re thinking too small. We should be brewing and exporting your potions to other cities. Think of the returns. We could…”

“But that’s for later,” The Prince said, reigning himself in. “After you’ve had a chance to recover from your ordeal, I’ll send you, along with some men. You can stop by wherever it is you lay your head to collect some clean clothes, and then you can spend some time with my own pet alchemist for the next week or month, or however long it takes to put together something truly special.”

Weeks?! Lucas thought to himself, letting the impossibility of that word weigh in. Yeah, maybe if we can just, you know, distill it down for another couple of points of euphoria. If he wants more than that, though… well, it might well take a lifetime.

Lucas couldn’t imagine how hard it was going to be to find a new ingredient that he could add to the mix that wouldn’t have a negative interaction with one of the existing ones. He didn’t bother the Prince with any of that, though.

It was clear the man didn’t want to talk details. He was a big-picture guy. He sat there talking with Lucas about his vision for the city and, more than anything, struck him as an amoral, Machiavellian type. He literally didn’t seem to care if something was right or wrong as long as it worked, and the castle got its cut, and honestly, Lucas could work with that.

If any of it was true. Even by the time the Prince had lost interest in Lucas and left him to munch on cookies while he awaited whatever was going to happen next, Liam had very little certainty about exactly what was and wasn’t true in what the man had said. The dude was a high-functioning sociopath, which meant that lying and maybe even murdering wasn’t going to be enough to make him twitch.

Unfortunately, the Prince’s keen eye made escape impossible. Oh, Lucas could run. He would probably be able to get away, but the man had seen him with Danaria on more than one occasion.

If Lucas were to split now, the man would come down on everyone associated with the Parin manor like a ton of bricks. While he could try to escape with Danaria, and there was a chance he wouldn’t find the lab, it would hurt everyone else, including all the good people of Meadowin.

“Nope,” he sighed to himself. “You’re going soft. That’s where you fucked up. You coulda taken the money and run, but you had to go and make friends instead.”

It was okay. Well, it was going to be okay, probably. He wasn’t in a dungeon, the Prince was a piece of work, and the man wanted him to do what he was best at. When the guards came for him a little while after that, he didn’t put up a fight or try any tricks. Instead, he was escorted to a carriage, and then they departed the castle on their way through Lordanin toward the east gate.

It was night now, but something told him that a carriage bearing the royal crest would have no trouble going through a gate no matter what time it was. Now, he just needed to figure out how to explain this to everyone else in whatever window he was going to have to do that.