A minute later, he’d talked her into helping him move a desk into the basement.

“Remind me why we’re doing this again?” Adelia asked.

“Because I need a table. Watch your end,” Connor said.

They squeezed it through the doorway and brought it into the basement. He shifted it into the position he wanted and stood back. His basement was nothing compared to Victor’s workshop, but it’d have to do…

In the meantime… he couldn’t make potions, keep his alchemy a secret and work closely with Adelia on getting Victor back all at the same time. Not if they were going to have a chance of succeeding.

“Adelia, I have something I need to tell you. I need your word that you’ll never speak of this to anyone,” he said.

“This sounds interesting… you know you can trust me. I promise,” Adelia said.

He explained to her that he was an alchemist and that he needed the basement to create potions to help them find Victor.

For her part, she took it in stride.

“So that’s how you suddenly started improving so quickly…” Adelia said when he’d finished explaining.

“Can I watch you make one of these potions?” she asked.

“I guess so… just make sure not to tell anyone about this. Not even Victor. He’ll skin me alive if he finds out I told you.” Connor said.

“Don’t worry. I know how to keep a secret,” she said.

“A little too well, perhaps,” Connor said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“It’s just… in all the time I’ve known you… I’ve never even seen your face,” he said.

She turned away. An awkward silence stretched between them.

“Look, I was just kidding. Everyone has their secrets, I didn’t mean to—“ he started.

“Once we get Victor back safely,” Adelia said.

“What?” Connor said.

She turned back to him. “I’ll show you my face after we get Victor back safely,” she said.

“Really?” Connor asked.

“Yes,” Adelia said, “so let’s get him back.”

Another silence followed, and Adelia stared at the stone walls of the basement like she was looking through a portal to another world.

Connor set up everything he needed for his alchemy. He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, but there was too much to do.

Drawing the focusing circle proved significantly more difficult on the rough stone floor of his basement than the smooth surface of Victor’s workshop.

But, at least he had his basement… if he didn’t, he’d have to draw on his lovely wooden floors.

He shook his head. His only family was missing. The Chamberlain, and an unknown group were out to get him, and he was thinking about keeping his floorboards unmarked?

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He’d been living with Victor for too long.

He immediately got to work on making sense-heightening potions. There was no telling when he’d next get a chance to make any, and they were far too useful to risk running out.

Thankfully, he’d grabbed plenty of the ingredients needed before leaving the workshop, so he should be able to make potions for quite some time.

Adelia’s brilliant violet eyes stared at him intently while he worked.

It was unsettling, especially since she shouldn’t know about any of this, but he tried not to think about it. She knew now, so letting her watch shouldn’t do any harm. She couldn’t even use the recipes. They were useless for anyone but an alchemist.

Eventually, she went upstairs and had a bath, leaving him alone with his alchemy.

***

A few hours later, Adelia came back down while Connor was inspecting vials of fresh potions.

“Do alchemists not need sleep?” she asked.

“I don’t know about other alchemists, but I definitely do. Believe me, I’m tired, but there’s too much to do. Once we get Victor back, I’ll have a nice nap,” he said.

Adelia held up a vial of turquoise liquid. “So what does this do?” she asked.

“These are just a basic sense-heightening potion,” Connor said, “you can have one if you want.”

“But I’m not an alchemist, will it still work?” she asked.

“It takes an alchemist to make the potions, but anyone can drink them and get the effects,” Connor said, “I imagine that some physiologies will react differently, but mainly it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Adelia drank the potion and licked her lips. “Tastes better than I thought it would, but I don’t feel anything,” she said.

“Give it a moment,” Connor said. He fought back a smirk.

He couldn’t wait to see her freak out when the potion kicked in. Victor had done that to him. It was only fair he get to watch someone else suffer too.

Any moment now…

Adelia blinked and looked around the room. “Hmm…” she said.

That’s all? Where was the falling over? The panic? The flailing around?

“Didn’t it do anything?” Connor asked.

“Uh… I think it enhanced my senses a bit,” she said.

“A bit?” Connor said, “what do you mean a bit? Just how high is your baseline?”

“Maybe I’ll tell you that too… once we get Victor back,” she said.

“Tease,” Connor said. He shook his head. He should’ve known better. Just what in the hells was she?

“Yup, but you love me anyway,” she said, “so what’s the plan?”

“I’ve replenished my stock of sense-heightening potions, so I should be good on those for a while,” Connor said, “I already met with Illyian.

“I guess I need to talk to Korvac next and see if he can get The Stars of Night to help us out. Then I want to start our own search.

“And at some stage, I want to get myself another sword. I don’t want to be stuck with just a paralyzing rod, and some knives if we run into another fight.”

“Knives work just fine for me,” Adelia said, twirling her twin daggers.

“Not all of us are so absurdly quick,” Connor said.

“Aww, are you jealous?” Adelia said.

Connor harrumphed. “I still want a sword,” he said.

Adelia giggled. “Men and their swords,” she said.

Connor rolled his eyes. “We’ll head out after sunset. I don’t like waiting, but we can’t afford to be seen right now, and the thieves’ guild is most active at night anyway,” Connor said.

“I say let them see us,” Adelia said, “maybe the bastards will come out to play. A girl needs to keep busy.”

“They’ve already shown they have wizards and necromancers. We have no idea what else they might have behind them, and we don’t know if they even expected me to bring you…” Connor said.

“What do you mean?” Adelia asked.

“I mean Victor gave me the mission and I decided to invite you. The only ones who knew about me bringing you were you, Victor, and myself. I don’t know how they found out about the contact we were going to meet, but nobody would know that I was going to be bringing along you, with your skills.

“Which means that group was designed to capture me, and maybe a few normal humans. Can you imagine what they might send if they knew I had the top assassin in the city watching my back?”

“Good point,” Adelia said, “I still say bring it on though.”

It was only noon, so Connor headed upstairs for his own bath.

He sank into the warm water and sighed. He leaned back, closed his eyes and just let the warm water soothe his muscles. The effects of his potion had faded, and it left him feeling numb by comparison, but even so, the warm water caressed away aches he didn’t even know he’d had.

He hadn’t slept since the night before the mission, and between that and everything that had happened… he felt drained.

Thoughts of Victor enduring horrifying torture filled his mind.

It was all too familiar… but he wasn’t a helpless child anymore. He’d get Victor back. He had to.

But who in the hells was he up against? Who was The Syndicate? Where were they getting all these resources from? Was it another country planning an invasion? Was he at war with an empire?

That didn’t make sense though, nothing did.

How was a group this large keeping everything so secret that even Victor didn’t know anything about them except a few hints here and there? Where were they putting all the slaves?

He had lots of questions, but no answers.