Jaise's alchemy labs were sequestered on an islet, tethered to the castle by a wooden bridge barely two man's breadth wide.
A wise decision, thought Arinel as she hurried across the bridge, struggling to keep up with Bishop Riddell's brisk stride, and maintain sufficient distance from Sir Bayne so he wouldn't bump into her.
Two masked figures stood waiting at the other end, the tall, thin, gray-bearded one poised, and the shorter, plump one fidgety. Stirred by the late morning breeze, the hems of their black alchemist garbs rippled to life, brushing the tips of young green grass at their ankles.
"Sameri!"
Bishop Riddell cried as he scampered down the steps. Sameri hurried forth, reaching out to cradle Riddell's hands in his own.
"Riddell! What an honor!" The old alchemist's vocal chords sounded strained to their limits. Arinel imagined him beaming behind his mask as he shook Riddell's hands heartily, "I've been raring to get my hands on a copy of your treatise! And here you are in person!"
Sameri indicated Riddell's towering physique with pale, lined and scarred palms. Riddell deflected the praise with a wave of his equally marred hand.
"Diamat, my dear man, the honor is mine. Meriton couldn't thank you enough for sharing your knowledge."
Diamat Sameri shook his head with a tired smile.
"Troubled times, troubled times." He mused, his gravelly voice trailing away into a deep sigh, "Elements would have to wait, then?"
He turned to Arinel and Jerald, a smile of polite interest on his lopsided lips. Riddell flourished his hand towards Arinel,
"This is...Haselle. My, ah...apprentice."
Sameri cocked his head. Arinel gouged at the fabric of her dress. The bishop still wasn't quite at home with Lady Crosset being his lab maid. Hoping to deflect suspicion, Riddell hurried on,
"Sir Bayne, head of Lady Hadrian's guards, insisted on accompanying us. I've instructed them to behave. I hope you wouldn't mind."
Riddell bowed. Sameri cackled.
"Ah, my master, bless his soul. He used to say there's no sin in curiosity. Keeps your brain young." Sameri smiled wistfully as he studied Arinel, envious of her youth. He heaved a mournful sigh, "True for Tyberne, in a way. Why, poor fellow's brain hadn't the chance to age!"
Arinel jolted. Tyberne? Mother's master? She glanced at Jerald, forgetting she couldn't see his face. Sameri rested his hand on the shoulder of the short alchemist next to him.
"Dineira set off for home that same day. Kept the wife and I on tenterhooks for a fortnight. Not a single letter! We thought you'd died along with Tyberne, you thoughtless lass!"
Sameri jabbed his mostly intact finger at his daughter's thick shoulder. Dineira flinched away with a yowl of pain,
"For the umpteenth time, I'm sorry, Dad! I was on the road. Hadn't heard of the fire. It's been seventeen years! Can you forgive me already?"
"No."
Sameri thrust up his nose. Riddell chortled as Dineira hung her head,
"You apprenticed with Tyberne, Dineira?" He asked. Dineira nodded eagerly,
"Yes, sir. I meant to come home just for a visit, but after such a close call, my father thought it best to never let me out of his sight."
She threw her overprotective father a pout, but Sameri had become intrigued by the peeling skin under his nails. Riddell shook his head.
"Your only daughter tinkering in a room full of explosives. I wouldn't have my son within a feather's flight of my lab, you know." He said. Sameri sighed heavily.
"Best let them play under your watch lest they sneak behind your back." He gestured at Arinel, returning to business,
"I'm glad you brought your apprentice. Dineira's studying Greeneye anatomy. Lady Jaise summoned me last night, said you have a student who might be interested. I take it this is the one?"
Riddell whipped around to Arinel, mouth ajar, then quickly gathered himself.
"Ah, how generous of your Lady! What say you, Haselle?" He smiled at Arinel, who realized she couldn't possibly do anything but smile and bow in these circumstances.
Meya was a dear friend. Arinel would do whatever it took to further her cause, but it was impossible to focus on dragons when a friend of the mother she barely knew was standing not a stone's throw away. But how would she bring up Mother with Dineira as the nonexistent Haselle?
"Very well, then. I shall be discussing the drought with old Diamat. Dineira, if you don't mind, would you show my bumbling apprentice and Sir Bayne around your lab?" Riddell turned to Dineira.
"Not at all, Master Riddell! A pleasure."
The two senior alchemists departed with smiles, chatting animatedly all the way. Dineira craned her neck and stared after them. She waited until her father and Riddell had disappeared into the former's lab, then rounded on Arinel,
"So, you know the secret about Greeneyes, too?" She wrung Arinel's hands in excitement. Arinel wasn't sure if she had nodded, or her head had simply bobbed to the force of Dineira's fleshy hands. Dineira bustled off on the lush grass, Arinel and Jerald not two steps behind,
"I've been dying to talk to anyone at all about my experiments. But the Lady made me swear never to tell a soul. Not even my parents! Can you imagine? Yes, I understand the danger to Greeneyes, but my father's an alchemist, too—"
Dineira prattled on without the merest pause for breath or thought, even as she approached the padlocked door of her lab, shutting the floodgates only to fish the key out of her pocket. Unlike Muldor's disused lab, this lock turned smoothly, and the door fell back without protest.
"Here we are. My humble lab."
Dineira ushered Arinel and Jerald inside. Arinel glanced around, conjuring memories of the few labs she'd seen before. Dineira's lab had the appearance of belonging to a fledgling alchemist. Compared to Muldor and Riddell's labs, the apparatuses were less varied and rudimentary, the shelves less populated with bottles bearing eye-catching labels signaling danger.
Dineira was also much more haphazard. Piles of papers weighed down by bottles or salt-crusted beakers teetered over the edge of chairs. On her worktable, books closed and open gathered in a pell-mell hill, peppered with soot, dust motes and pie crumbs. Broken quills and ink spatters littered the tabletop around the centerpiece distilling set. Her writing desk was adorned in similar fashion.
Dineira bustled about freeing up chairs.
"Sorry for the mess. My father's always chiding me about my lack of organization." She relocated the papers to the table, holding up a firm hand when Jerald made to lend aid, "We don't welcome guests that often. Wish my father hadn't sprung this on me right on the spot, so I'd have time to tidy up."
With one hand and a clatter, she set a freed chair before Jerald. As he drew it back for Arinel, Jerald turned to Dineira with a small smile.
"You haven't changed, Dineira." Dineira jumped as if startled by a scuttling cockcroach, scattering papers, "It's been seventeen years. Do you remember me?"
Dineira let out a bout of breathy, forced giggles, stooping to retrieve her fallen papers.
"Of course, Sir Bayne. You came to retrieve Erina every evening." She spared Jerald a glance, then steered away, "Wouldn't be surprised if the whole manor's buzzing about last night's spectacle. Lady Hadrian, a Greeneye! Wherever is the real Lady Arinel, I wonder? Does she resemble her mother?"
Arinel froze, half-sitting in her chair. Jerald's rough hand clamped around her shoulder and pushed her down the rest of the way.
"I would've loved to tell an old friend, but the Lady's safety is foremost." Jerald answered Arinel's glare with another squeeze. Dineira, fumbling with her slippery papers, didn't notice.
"Ah, shame." Her reply sounded more out of courtesy than actual disappointment. Having gained control of her unruly notes, she flashed a wide grin at Jerald, "Still, it's not as if we won't have other things to talk about! I say we share our tales over lunch, shall we?"
"My pleasure."
Beaming, Dineira set her jumbled theses on the table, then turned to Arinel with a clap.
"Now, dragons! Where to start? You choose, dear. Ask me anything."
Dineira sat down on the nearest chair, buttocks slopping over the skimpy seat. Arinel took a deep breath, swallowing pique down her burning, parched throat. Focus, she commanded herself. Dragons now, Mother later.
The mere thought wrenched bile into her gullet.
"What exactly are you studying about dragon anatomy?"
Dineira touched a finger to her chin.
"Well, to be exact, I must say everything, since there's still so much ground to cover. But, recently, I've been focusing on their blood. Components, reactions, practical uses..."
"Fireproof paint, for instance?" Jerald cut in, his level voice undercut with a rare hint of ice. Dineira tensed, her smile sagging, then nodded heavily,
"I'm involved, but not in the manner you'd think. One of Jaise's exports is the Borax crystal. We load them onto boats. Sail them to Amplevale and all the far west. They must fortify their towns against a possible dragon attack. Rutgarth was two centuries ago, true, but like earthquakes and lightning, they could strike whenever and wherever."
Dineira shrugged, tapping a nervous hand on the tabletop and jiggling her leg to the rhythm.
"Before this, the main component in fireproofing was Amiant. We have plenty across Hythe and Easthaven. But ten years ago, my father published a treatise uncovering the dangers of Amiant to the lungs. So we replaced Amiant with Borax. Picked from the dried lake in the Sands of Caesonai. But the demand was more than we could supply. The lake's been dug so deep it will soon be classified as mining and banned."
"Greeneye blood contains Borax?" Arinel guessed. Dineira had picked up a quill to twiddle. She tipped it towards Arinel with a smile.
"Naturally, considering their body heat." Dineira slid to a lazy slouch in her chair, spinning her quill between her pudgy thumbs, "Their organs would've to be shielded with Borax to withstand fire (Should they ever need to shoot some!). And their blood transports it around the body."
Awed as she was by the science, Arinel knew the price of this groundbreaking discovery. Dineira heaved a long sigh,
"The peers are pressuring Lady Jaise to legalize the Greeneye blood trade. She's been stalling the best she could, of course. Those bastards must have grown restless, took the underground road instead. Yesterday's news shook her. That was her worst fear."
Dineira set her quill on its stand she'd just spotted amidst the clutter on her table, then hoisted herself upright,
"Actually, I've been gauging the effects of Lattis on Greeneyes, but Lady Jaise asked me to shelve that and find a substitute for Borax. Or at least decide a protocol for Greeneyes to sell their blood sustainably."
Lattis? Arinel leaned in. Now, this could be directly beneficial to Meya.
"Do you still have them, though? Your studies on Lattis?"
Dineira sprang up, edging her voluminous curves around shelf corners and table edges to reach her study desk,
"Yes, lowered priority but still progressing." She bent down and rummaged through the chaos, "I have trouble focusing on one project at a time. Got a bookshelf's worth of half-baked treatises on paper and in my brain."
"What have you discovered so far? Anything of note?" Arinel steered Dineira back with mounting impatience. Dineira tipped her head back, rifling through her memories. If her lab was any hint, they were probably just as jumbled.
"Actually, there is something. I can't locate my writings at the moment, but I can show you. If you'd just move around here—"
Dineira gestured vaguely as she hurried out from behind her desk. Arinel and Jerald obligingly gathered at the end of the worktable. With a grunt, Dineira shunted away the pile of books and papers.
Dineira flitted about her shelves, bumping chairs and sending papers cascading to the floor. She plucked a stoppered bottle filled with Greeneye blood, an ornate padlocked wooden casket, a spare beaker, and a pair of thick cowhide gloves, plopping them down on the workspace.
"Not to worry. This blood was taken willingly from a curator in the Library of Eyes. Towards a better understanding of, and a better life for Greeneyes."
She selected a tiny key from her overloaded keyring, slotted it into the padlock, and popped open the chest. On a bed of waxed paper, rested a pile of silvery powder which shimmered rainbow in the sunlight.
"Lattis. It's in powder form, I'm afraid. I've had to reclaim it dozens of times. Budget cuts."
Grumbling darkly to herself, Dineira pulled on her gloves, poured dragon blood into the beaker, then tore a strip of parchment from a nearby stray note. She scooped up a smidge of Lattis powder and brought it to the beaker, hovering the chest underneath to catch loose specks.
"Keep a close eye on the blood. I'm pouring this in." She whispered out the corner of her mouth, so as not to blow away the fine dust. Holding her breath, Arinel steadied herself with her hands on the grimy tabletop and leaned in.
Dineira tipped the paper. Lattis motes streamed down and vanished under the surface like salt in water. The once Hadrian Red blood darkened to the purple black of Jaise.
⏳
Blinking, Arinel turned to Dineira.
"What is this?" She whispered.
Dineira crossed her arms, a smile of triumph peeking from behind her grille.
"This," She tapped her finger on the beaker, "is what has kept the truth about Greeneyes a secret for all this time."
Dineira gestured for Arinel and Jerald to resume their seats then cleared away the experiment, leaving only the beaker.
"With Lattis from Rutgarth trickling into every smithy in Latakia throughout two centuries, you'd think there's bound to be incidents of Greeneyes transforming that would expose their true nature. But there were none."
Clunk went the phial of dragon glood as Dineira set it on the shelf. Having stashed the remaining items in the nearest gaps she could find, Dineira plonked back into her chair,
"By painstakingly ′reading' every eye that had fallen into our hands, the Library curators discovered that some of their owners had transformed by accident while they were alive. Yet, when this happens, more often than not the Greeneye's memory did not survive intact."
Arinel's heart quickened. Both Meya and Coris had been, and still were, suffering from lapses in memory. This could very well be the answer.
"So, we studied the eyes of Greeneyes who were held captive in Rutgarth before the Fall." Dineira rifled through half-unfurled rolls of parchment,
"We found that those Greeneyes saw the blacksmiths religiously avoiding all skin contact with the mixture of their blood and Lattis. They must have discovered some danger in it—is our hypothesis. As alchemist, my job is to prove it."
Dineira gave a small gasp of triumph. She tugged out a piece of parchment and handed it to Arinel.
Apart from its corners, the parchment was almost flat, both faces crammed to the margins with slanted text, interspersed with diagrams and formulas, written in black ink which had yet to lose its luster. At the header was the title in large print:
On the Effects of Lattis on Greeneye Blood
Arinel trawled impatiently through the rolling paragraphs. Dineira saved her the trouble with a summary,
"I propose that when dragons or Greeneyes are attacked with Lattis, as an instinctive reaction, their blood synthesizes a potent amnesiac, which targets memories of dragons in the human brain."
Dineira touched a finger to the beaker, nervous even as she was wearing thick gloves,
"This amnesiac is absorbed through the skin, and can linger in the brain for years. Even decades. Greeneyes, being mostly human, are also affected by this substance."
Arinel stared at the tepid, seemingly innocuous mixture before her, then pressed a fingertip to the glass. It was lukewarm, proof of the rigorous reaction frothing underneath the beguilingly calm surface.
How had Dineira arrived at her conclusion? Was it drawn from observation of ancient Greeneye memories? Did she prove it using living humans and Greeneyes? It was too early to pin Dineira for anything, but Lady Jaise would never allow that, would she?
"Of course, it isn't foolproof. I reckon there were more than a few folks who took the secret to their graves. For fear of being thought a lunatic! Even now, there definitely are people walking around knowing Greeneyes are dragons! But I'm sure it does help thin the herd. Just enough for survivors to be too few and far between to be believed."
Arinel nodded. Dineira's take was similar to hers.
"What will you do with these findings?"
Dineira churned her lips, laced fingers wiggling absently as her eyes traversed her mediocre lab.
"The decision isn't mine." Her voluminous frame deflated as she sighed and smiled bitterly, "We alchemists are funded by the manor. But I'm commissioned by Lady Jaise to conduct my Greeneye experiments. I'm sworn to secrecy, obliged to hand over my findings. My involvement ends when the Lady is satisfied."
"And what do you think Lady Jaise would do with it?" Arinel pressed her. Dineira heaved another sigh then shrugged,
"I suppose she could use it to cleanse the heads of people who have witnessed Greeneyes transforming. For the good of both sides, you know?"
Arinel narrowed her eyes. Dineira didn't seem interested about what would become of her discoveries, more bothered that her achievements could never come to light as her own. Had she known beforehand it was to be thankless work, Arinel doubted Dineira would've accepted.
A series of knocks came from the open door. Arinel whipped around to find a masked young man around her age, garbed in a simple woolen tunic and patched trousers. He seemed startled to stone by her and Jerald's audience, his loose fist held aloft, his mouth ajar. Dineira sprang up.
"Ah, Ethren! You're early." She called heartily as if to spook away the dead air. She gathered the boy's bony shoulders in one wobbling arm and swept him inside, shining Arinel and Jerald an apologetic smile, "He's one of my volunteer test subjects. We're deciding how often he should sell blood."
Dineira guided Ethren towards the side-door, calling over her shoulder,
"We'll be a while. Feel free to have a look around. Biscuits and tea on the shelf somewhere. Help yourself!"
Dineira paused to grab a quill and spare parchment then hurried in after Ethren. The moment the door closed behind them, Arinel rounded on Jerald, her long pent-up temper exploding,
"You've never told me about Dineira, Sir Bayne! Nor has Grandmother!" She slammed her fists on the cluttered table. She leaned on her jittery arms, her voice choked with angry tears,
"I could've had Bishop Riddell introduce me as myself. We could've talked about Mother!" She slammed her fist again, sending Dineira's papers tumbling from the table.
Silence fell but for Arinel's ragged breathing. Jerald reached out, then withdrew his hand without so much as a rustle of his cloak. His eyes fixed at his little Lady's feet, he bowed deeply.
"My Lady, I'm terribly sorry." His voice trembled as he fought the whirlpool of resurrected grief, "I didn't mention Dineira because she isn't fond of your mother. Even as they worked side by side, they were never close. I reckoned it would only bring you unnecessary pain."
Arinel perked up, her delicate figure which often belied her fiery temper taut with apprehension.
"Why? What had Mother done wrong?" She demanded, ready to defend her mother's memory. Jerald shook his head with a sigh. However much he longed to shield her, he had no choice.
"She existed, that was all. Erina was a mere peasant maid, but Tyberne was more generous to her than Dineira, his apprentice. He saw potential in her, impressed by her eagerness to learn. He took pity on her circumstances."
Jerald raised his eyes. What little he saw of the Lady behind the grille over her mouth remained pale. However, learning her mother wasn't fully to blame, she relaxed somewhat.
"You've seen Dineira with Diamat. She's his only daughter. The jewel of her father's eyes. Descended from a long line of distinguished alchemists. She didn't take well to being seconded by a lowly servant girl."
Arinel glanced at the closed door. Astonishing, the resentment and envy such a bubbly, chatty personality tempered within. Though Mother couldn't have helped it, it pained her to learn Mother wasn't liked by all. Jerald was wise to keep it secret, she grudgingly admitted.
Jerald sat down with a labored sigh.
"It was no fault of Erina's, of course. Nor Dineira's. They were young." He slid up his mask to allow his cheeks a feel of the late morning air, his eyes lost far in the past, "Tyberne was supposed to be the wisest one. He should've foreseen it."
Her knees numb, Arinel slumped down on her chair. Pale sunlight from the window behind Dineira's study desk scored a blinding white glint on the beaker. She stared morosely at its black depths.
"This could've been Mother." She muttered, hands trembling as she turned the beaker slowly, "Telling me all this. Wearing alchemist robes. Working in her lab. Writing treatises."
She looked around the chaotic lab. She saw a faceless woman gliding about the shelves. The longer she looked, the more vivid the mirage became. There she was, bent over the distilling set, an eye on the flowing hourglass. Then, she sat behind the desk, fighting her rolling parchment as she scribbled away under the watchful light of the midnight oil.
So much she had been. So much she would never be. So much Arinel would never know. If only Tyberne had chosen Dineira instead of Mother to help him that night, all this would've been the present.
Arinel's heart writhed with shame at the thought. Yet, it was impossible to rid. Like a wall besieged by vines, she crumbled in her chair. She rested her forehead on the table, staring at the wooden floorboards. A sharp-edged patch of yellow poked out from the polished brown.
Arinel pushed aside her chair, falling to all fours. By the time Jerald knelt down beside her, she was wrist-deep in the loose floorboard.
Without a word, he pulled on the floorboard, and Arinel tugged the papers free. She brushed away the smattering of dirt and dust, revealing words one by one:
Enhanced Synthesis of Sweet Oil of Vitriol, and its Application in Medicine: A Treatise.
Below the title, lines of text and intricate drawings rolled on. Faint bells rang in her head as she saw but didn't read. Jerald coaxed the papers from her frozen fingers. She didn't resist, yet the papers crackled. His hands were shaking.
"Erina's handwriting." He whispered, his voice trembling, "This is the thesis they were working on when they died. Spirits and vitriol. To create a sleeping draught for surgery."
"And they succeeded."
Jerald whipped around. Arinel faced him, forcing her voice through her constricted, powder-dry throat,
"Mother looked as if she were asleep, all the while they were cutting me out of her."
Arinel rose to her feet and turned to the side-door. Dineira's giggling voice slithered through the wood, like the hiss of a viper. Her insides burned as if doused in its venom.
"What if she actually was asleep?"
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