Oz lit the fuel beneath the pill cauldron, the motions familiar by now. Lifting Professor Keane’s pill, he chopped it in two with a nearby knife, then dropped half into the cauldron.

“What’s the plan?” Linnea asked, settling beside him.

“Well, according to the books I’ve read, the classic way to investigate pills is to taste them, but I don’t have the years of experience necessary to determine the composition of pills by the taste of the processed herbs. So I plan to heat it up, loosen the cohesion of the ingredients, and hopefully you or I can recognize the split-apart herbs.” He paused, looking at Linnea. “I… er, I certainly don’t suppose you could determine a pill’s contents by taste?”

Linnea snorted. She shook her head. “I’m a dabbler in pills and poisons, not the kind of pill or poison master who can taste a scrap of pill and know its composition.”

“Oh. Good. Well, I mean, not good, but it’s good that I’m not doing this for no reason,” Oz muttered, half to himself.

“Indeed,” Linnea agreed. She nodded at the abandoned half, rolling gently atop the countertop, chopped half exposed to air. “Why’d you cut it in half?”

“In case I fail,” Oz said, lifting his hands to the pot’s sides.

“Reasonable.” She nudged the half-pill with her fingernail, tipping it to the side to get a look at its center.

Leaving Linnea to her investigation, Oz immersed himself in his. Within the pot, the pill sat solidly, refusing to shift at all. He circulated his qi through the furnace and pulled the pill with it, sending it into a controlled spin to evenly heat the entire surface. Oz reached out to a nearby sink and pulled himself a bowl of water. He poured it in, catching it with his qi and swirling it around the pill. I want the pill to melt, not burn. Whether or not the water will help it melt, it will at least help prevent it from burning.

Floating in the water, the pill slowly heated up. As it heated, it began to soften. Oz molded at it, pressing at the pill with his qi. I don’t want it to burn inside, either. From outside, the best I can do is try to stir it like this.

At last, the pill became fully malleable. It deformed like putty under his qi. Lifting his hand, Oz made a sharp left-right gesture. Inside the furnace, the pill smeared flat. He inspected it with his qi. Different colors of qi gleamed in the depths of the pill, purple, blue, orange, yellow, all mixed together. He spread his fingers, and the different colors separated out. Blue formed the largest pile, then orange, with purple and yellow making the smallest piles.

He quickly consulted the books in his head, then frowned. Huh? There’s no information on qi colors in here. Why not? After all that knowledge I absorbed, I ought to see something about this.

“Er, Linnea?”

“Yes?”

“What do the different colors of qi mean?”

“Pardon?”

Oz cleared his throat. “I can see purple, blue, orange, and yellow in this pill. Aisling’s qi is orange, so I’m guessing that’s fire-elemental. That, and fire is a common element in antidotes, due to fire’s purifying traits. The rest of them, though, I’m not too sure about. Is blue… wood, maybe?” Blue is the color of the books, so it makes sense to me. There’s a lot of it here, and most plants have wood-elemental qi in them, because… well, they’re plants.

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Linnea stared at him. “You can see that?”

“Yeah…? Can’t everyone?” Oz asked. It seems like the basic requirement to be able to manipulate qi.

“Everyone can see qi. But it’s one color for most of us. Some demons and fey can see different colors of qi, but it’s pretty much limited to high fey and powerful demons, with a few exceptions.”

“Oh,” Oz muttered. He lifted his hand over his eye. That eye Madame Saoirse gave me… was it an ordinary human eye? Or could it be…?

Linnea squinted at him. “What are you? You aren’t a fey or a demon, since the silverleaf powder didn’t reveal you… or are you just so powerful that such a simple powder didn’t…” Her frown deepened. “That couldn’t be. You’re so incredibly weak. There’s no way.”

“Wow, thanks,” Oz muttered. He lowered his hand. Probably a good thing if I keep Linnea guessing. Glancing at her, he continued aloud, “If blue is wood, and orange is fire, then purple and yellow…”

“Yellow… that’s probably gold. Metal-elemental. Purple…” She laughed. “It could be poison. It’s not one of the basic elements, in any case. Water, wood, fire, and gold.”

“Could be lightning, too, though,” Oz commented, thinking back on his video-game-playing days. Purple was often used to represent lightning-elemental attacks. “And if yellow means metal… plenty of heavy metals also qualify as poison.”

“Perhaps. Gold is known for its incorruptible properties, so gold-elemental plants are commonly used in antidotes. Of the elements present here, purple-colored qi is the most suspect,” Linnea declared.

“That’s true,” Oz allowed. Plenty of books state that. I’m a bit skeptical, since mercury killed plenty of people back when it was being used as a ‘miracle cure’ in the medieval era in my world, but who knows? Maybe it works differently here. I mean, hell, magic is real. Why wouldn’t mercury be a real miracle cure?

Putting the blue and orange piles aside for a moment, he turned his attention to the purple and yellow. He put his hand on his chin, thinking, then sat upright. He snapped his fingers. “Linnea! You have poison, right? Venom, whatever. Can you show it to me?”

“Huh? Oh! So you can see what color poison qi is. Good idea,” Linnea said. She closed her eyes and focused. Grabbing a bowl, she reared her head back and spat.

Oz flinched. Yeah… I don’t know what I expected. She’s a spider. Her venom is stored in her fangs. No matter what, she has to spit to get the venom out.

Linnea looked at him. “What?”

“No, no. It’s my bad.” Oz held out his hand for the bowl, and Linnea handed it over. He swirled the translucent, pearly fluid, inspecting it with his qi. The qi shimmered, sublimated within the poison, tiny little flecks of qi swimming in the toxic fluid. He spun his finger over the venom, stirring it into circulation. The qi separated from the poison, rising to the surface. Oz flicked his finger upward, calling the blob of qi into his palm.

Linnea leaned in, then looked at Oz. “So? What color is it?”

Oz snorted. He shook his head. “Purple.”

“He was attempting to poison you worse with the second pill. But why? Why not use just one poison? Creeping Darkness is already a lingering poison. He could poison you worse, yes, but why do it so immediately?” Linnea asked.

“Poison isn’t poison isn’t poison,” Oz replied cryptically. He pinched, pulling the purple qi-colored substance out of the pot. Glancing around, he pushed Linnea’s venom-bowl away and dropped the purple substance into the bowl he’d used for water. He pushed it in front of Linnea. “Recognize this?”

Linnea leaned in. She sniffed. Her brows furrowed for a moment, and then her eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Oz asked.

“Befuddling Herb. It’s a simple mind-effecting poison. Dulls the mind and senses, makes the victim easier to manipulate, more open to suggestion. But… it isn’t a lingering poison. The effects wear off within a day.”

Oz grinned. “There we have it. Creeping Darkness ensures I need to take an antidote regularly. Professor Keane has the answer, but he slips a little Befuddling Herb in the mix, then makes a few easy suggestions. Simple. And because of the Creeping Darkness’ antidote requirement, he can ensure I’m always under the influence of Befuddling Herb whenever he wants to manipulate me.”

“It’s a smart plan,” Linnea admitted.

“In any case, it confirms that I can’t rely on Professor Keane for antidotes.” Oz waved his hand, ejecting the rest of Professor Keane’s pill from the furnace. He turned to the new materials Linnea had brought and took a deep breath. “Alright. Time to brew a few antidotes.”