“You can’t be serious. You call this a potion shop, yet you don’t have any invisibility potions?”

“No, sir,” I reply. “We don’t sell those at all.”

The scruffy man who looks like he hasn’t bathed in days sneers. “Well, are you good for anything, then? Tell me you got a hypnosis potion or something. Something that’ll make a person very open to my suggestions, if you know what I mean.”

I’m pretty sure I know what he means, and we definitely don’t make or sell any potions like that. I shake my head and gesture broadly at the display cases. “What you see here is all that we have. I apologize if you can’t find what you’re looking for.”

“Tch.” The man sneers again, then starts pacing around the floor, eying every display impatiently. “What a shithole. None of the potions I need are here.” He actually starts picking his nose in front of me.

What you need is a Charisma potion, is what I really want to say. But keep the snark in check, Kip. He’s just some traveler with no manners that’s passing through Riledon. He’ll be gone soon and I won’t have to deal with him again. At least I hope so.

“Hey, brat. What’s the difference between these two? Why’s the darker one more expensive? You tryna rip people off?”

Really…? With great effort, I manage to hold my tongue. Keep it professional, Kip. “The darker one is higher purity meaning that it won’t have any aftereffects.”

“Tch. What’s the point of selling the lighter colored junk then?”

Because the trade-off is often worth it for most people. And if you don’t like it, you can go out and find the rare items needed for higher purity potions and make them yourself.

Okay, I’ll rein it in now. No more snark.

“Yet another useless shop. This damn town’s good for nothing,” the man says before stomping out.

Once the door closes behind him, I let out a relieved sigh. What an all around awful day…

Thankfully, the other customers that come after him are of the reasonable variety that we usually get, and the workday ends without me having to tear my hair out. It’s really gotta be the lack of sleep. I’m not usually this cranky.

With closing time upon us, I quickly clean the displays and shut the shop down. Mother is in the lab preparing tomorrow’s ingredients, so I announce that I’m leaving and lock the door on the way out.

The sun is just starting to dip over the horizon, so I rush to the observatory located on the edge of town, hoping to resume my seemingly cursed quest to find a master. Unlike my last three attempts, I have no idea what to expect when I ask Kamara, mostly because she’s so enigmatic.

All I know is that she came here about a year ago to do some kind of research for some ministry. She never really integrated into Riledon (not that she tried), and the town largely forgot about her. My biggest source of hope is that she seemed like an overall nice person the few times I saw her at Mother’s shop, so at least there won’t be a Hinrig situation going on with her. I wonder how this’ll go…

The observatory itself is a massive building with a dome made of triangular windows capping the top. You can see it from pretty much any point in Riledon, mostly because it sits atop a hill. Maybe that extra height grants better pictures of the sky. Unfortunately, it also takes a lot more energy to get up there.

I’m already taking deeper breaths by the time I reach the front entrance of the old and unkempt building. Its size is even more impressive up close, and I have to strain my neck just to see the dome from here.

Well, this is it. My absolute last shot.

I walk to the enormous front doors and knock three times, each knock producing an echo on the other side. No reply comes, so I try again, still to no avail. Didn’t Milo say that she was always cooped up in here? Maybe she just didn’t hear. Then again, how would he know for sure that she spends all her time inside?

After waiting a few minutes, I decide to have a look around and spot a single window within my height. I rise on my toes to get my eyes over the windowsill and peek inside, the setting sun barely granting me any vision. Nested on the other side of the pane is a mountain of papers stacks burdening an old table and preventing me from seeing anything else. I’m not quite desperate enough to break inside, so I leave the window alone and head to the rear of the building.

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There, I find a low wooden fence guarding a small garden and a few trees with purple leaves. Weird… I’ve never seen plants like these around here before. All in all, it’s quite disheveled back here, but it doesn’t compare to Hinrig’s mess.

With nothing left to explore, I return to the front door and do what I’m getting really tired of doing: waiting. If she’s inside, she’ll have to come out some time, and hopefully I’ll be right here when that happens. Not like I have anything better to do. Well, I do have to sleep, but that can wait. I don’t wanna risk another Quinn swooping in.

The sun soon dips under the horizon as the seconds bleed into minutes, and the minutes into hours. The dark brings with it a chill that quickly becomes uncomfortable, and I feel my impatience start to rise. It must be midnight when that built up tension erupts out of me, and I’ve had enough.

Screw it, I’m breaking in. If she’s actually in there, maybe she’ll recognize me and won’t kill me on the spot.

With that hopeful desperation pushing me, I return to the window and peek inside again. This time I don’t see a thing, and a brilliant question pops up in my exhausted mind: How exactly are you gonna break in, Kip?

I don’t know, maybe it’s slightly open and I can slip my fingers in?

When I try to do just that, I feel a sudden, overwhelming force push straight down on me from above. Before I know it, that heavy pressure is driving into my body, as if the entire sky is pressing down on me. My heart jumps and I try to move, frantically hoping to escape, but I can’t - my body won’t obey. I’m stuck, and my heart starts pounding through my chest.

“What are you doing?” I hear a purposeful voice call out.

I want to respond, but I can’t. Forcing words out doesn’t work, and I’m completely paralyzed, my will disconnected from my body.

Finally, the force vanished into the air just as quickly as it came, and I jolt back into my body. It must’ve been magic.

“Explain yourself.”

I turn around and see Kamara standing ahead, just over the hill. She hadn’t been inside at all.

“Oh, you’re the boy from the potion shop.”

It takes me a moment to compose myself. “Y-yes. I don’t mean any trouble, and I’m sorry for snooping. I just really wanted to see you because I have something important to ask. I swear I don’t mean-”

“Okay, that’s enough,” she says, waving her hand dismissively and heading toward the entrance. “If you want to talk, let’s go inside. It’s a chilly night and I can tell that you’re cold.”

Caught off guard and still recovering from whatever the hell just happened, I thank her and follow her inside.

Admittedly, I expected to see a gigantic telescope filling up most of the building, but on the other side of the front doors is nothing more than an expansive study room. A very messy study room that a hurricane blew through, what with all the papers and books sprawled every which way. Maybe the actual observing goes on upstairs?

“Sorry about what I did to you there,” Kamara says, dropping her oversized pack to the ground. It looks like the kind of pack you’d go hiking with, except this one is overflowing with rolled up papers. “I didn’t know who you were or what your intentions were, so I had to be cautious.”

“No, I’m the one who should be apologizing. Sometimes my impatience gets the better of me and I act recklessly.” Thinking on it now, I realize that her hospitality comes at least partly from the fact that I pose no threat to her. At any moment, she could disable me, likely with little effort.

Kamara turns to me, and I notice just how tired she looks. Her face is modestly pretty, but it has that visible weariness of someone who’s been pushing herself. Had she been working since morning until now?

“So, what is it that you wanted to ask?”

“Well…” I take a slight pause before continuing. “First, I should clarify something. You are a mage, right?”

She nods. “That’s how I did what I did back there.”

“I see… I… I’d like to be a mage, too. A spell crafter, to be specific. I’ve just Awakened and I’m looking for a master. I know that we don’t really know each other, and I may have gotten off on the wrong foot today, but I’m willing to do anything to gain your trust. Whatever conditions you set prior to teaching me, I’m willing to fulfill. I just desperately want to learn magic. So please, would you be willing to accept me as a pupil?”

She stares at me for a moment, studying my face. Finally, she responds. “Your name?”

“Huh?”

“What’s your name?”

Damn, I’m an idiot. Maybe introducing myself would’ve been appropriate before asking her to take me under her wing.

“Kip.”

“Okay, Kip. I can see that this means a lot to you. I’m sorry to say this but I won’t be in Riledon for long, so it wouldn’t make sense to accept you as a pupil. In fact, I should be out here in a month or two.”

Those words are like a dagger to my heart. I recall what Milo said about how slowly his training progressed, how his master only let him hold a real sword after 6 months.

A lump forms in my throat, but I manage to hold it together. “I don’t care how much time you have here, whether it’s one month or two. I just want to learn something. Anything. The time you’d spend teaching me I’ll repay with work, no matter how menial. I’m good at administrative tasks and I can clean the observatory or prepare food. I’ll still have to help Father and Mother with their work, but all my other waking hours I’ll dedicate to learning from and assisting you in any way I can.”

At this point, I’m so exhausted I don’t even know if I’m making sense. But with nothing left to say and nothing left to offer, I bow deeply, the gesture entirely sincere.

Kamara responds with a long sigh, then instructs me to stand upright. “You’re deadly serious about this, aren’t you? Okay, Kip. I recognize that passion because I was the same way when I Awakened. So, fine, I’ll be your master for the remaining time I’m in Riledon.”

I blink, unsure that I heard that right.

“Now get out of here. Go home and get some rest. Your training starts first thing tomorrow morning.”