Despite every instinct, it turned out that the Prince was right, and less than fifteen minutes ter, Lady Skyra joined them in the blue room, where a small feast had been prepared. Lucas wasn’t hungry but wasn’t about to let lobster go to waste. Still, his motions were mechanical and automatic, as he was lost in the fog of his mind and struggled to process everything that had just happened.

  Lucas noted almost instantly that the Prince didn’t refer to Lady Skyra or to him as a drug dealer. Here, where the servants could hear, she was just a dy, and he was just a lord or a sir. Neither Bckgate nor Heizenburgle were referred to by name either. Instead, they were just ‘the project.’

  Are you satisfied with the pace of your project? Do you have adequate resources for your project? Are the project facilities acceptable?

  Lucas offered no compints about anything. It wasn't just because he was distracted by everything that had just happened, either. Even though he felt like he was reaching the limits of what he could accomplish, he didn’t think this moment was the right time to voice that concern. Instead, he listened more than he spoke and did his utmost to engage as soon as Lady Skyra was seated.

  As hard as that was, it was still easier than avoiding staring. It wasn’t her cleavage that was drawing his eye either; it was just her. He was sitting at a table having a polite conversation with a dragon between the sad course and the finger sandwiches.

  Lady Skyra’s eyes had turned back to their original shade of green, and there was no hint that she was anything but a powerful matron or an important family. Well, almost nothing, he corrected himself. Her stiff demeanor had been loosened up quite a bit by the overdose of Blue she’d consumed, and her manner with both him and the Prince was so casual as to be almost flirtatious.

  “Where did you get your recipe,” she asked Lucas at one point after the main course had been served. “I’m dying to know. No matter how many elves I… questioned, over the years, they would never tell me how they made the stuff.”

  “Honestly, I didn’t even know it was elvish,” Lucas said, noting the concerned look in the Prince’s eyes. He obviously didn’t want Lucas to say too much, but unlike everyone else at this table, he knew how to keep his mouth fucking shut. “It was just a recipe I’ve been experimenting with for a few years, and well, as you can see, things are really coming along tely.”

  “They are,” she mused, “They really are.”

  “Tell me, do you know what the elves use their little potion for?” she asked coyly. “You don’t just think they brew Lwynthenll for getting high, do you?”

  “I didn’t even know it was elvish until today, soo…” he said, fshing back to the outburst from the snt that had almost blown up his first deal, “I’m going to say to commune with their Goddess or something?”

  “That too,” she mused, “But there’s another, more important use for it…”

  “Skyra, please, let’s not have any vulgarity while we’re eating…” the Prince sighed. His protest was respectful enough, but he was clearly doing it because she enjoyed the banter and not because he cared one way or the other what she did. Whatever it was that Heisenburgle was giving him made him one insightful motherfucker, but when it came to acting, he was still as wooden as a puppet.

  “They consider it quite the aphrodisiac,” she said, actually blushing slightly as she did. “Apparently, a race that lives for centuries doesn’t get in the mood very often, so they need a little help.”

  “I see,” Lucas said, not sure what else to say.

  From what she was saying, he would have guessed that she was describing elvish Viagra, but from the way she was acting, it was quite clear that it worked on the woman instead of the man, or at least in addition to, he couldn’t say for sure. All he knew for a fact at this point was why the elves he’d tried to sell to had been pissed. If someone was selling his sacrad baby-making sacrament, he’d be pretty pissed off too.

  “Have you tried it?” she asked, looking at him with an intensity that bordered on desire. “It can be quite… stimuting.”

  “I think if I took as much as you did just now, I’d be dead on the floor,” Lucas answered with a shake of his head. “Besides, it's against the rules.”

  Her question raised a good point. Suddenly, he had no idea how an elf would take something purer than this and hope to live. Maybe its effects on them are fundamentally different, he mused. Or maybe they just take a tiny drop of the stuff. Those thoughts raised other questions as he realized that up until now, all of his repeat customers had been human. In Lordanin, that wasn’t so unlikely, but it did beg the question, did it even get other races high?

  Before he could think about that any further, Skra asked the Prince, “Rules? You’ve got your little genius bound by rules now?”

  “They’re my rules, actually,” Lucas said before the Prince could interject. “Rule number one: never get high on your own supply. It’s an ironcd w of alchemy.”

  “Is it now?” she asked, apparently amused by all of this. She probably wasn’t the type to have many rules on what she could and couldn't do. “I suppose that is to my benefit. If you were just enjoying your blue every night, you’d have no opportunity to improve it for me. I’m very grateful for your sacrifice.”

  “And I’m happy to help,” he said, smiling coldly. “After all you do for Lordanin, it’s only fair you rex now and then.”

  This made her smile, and she turned to the Prince again. “At st, finally someone who appreciates all my hard work instead of putting a price tag on it.”

  While the two of them engaged in their verbal fencing match, Lucas tuned them out and focused on everything else. He was sitting here, in the pace, at the center of the Lordanin, having lunch with the city’s ruler and the dragon that safeguarded it. It was a surreal moment for a nobody like him. It was like he was that one dealer that was invited to all the right parties.

  Only it isn’t, he crified, forcing himself to focus. I still don't have what she needs. I have something that's pretty close, but I’m still missing an ingredient or two.

  Lunch for the three of them sted for over an hour, and when it was done, he gave Skyra the case he’d brought with him as a gift and vowed to bring her more and better soon, even though he wasn’t one hundred percent sure that he could deliver, not that it mattered. Either he’d make what she wanted and be a hero, or he’d fail to deliver, and she or the Prince would kill him. The only difference in the two outcomes was that if he stayed upbeat and told them he was getting close, he’d be able to string them along a lot longer than if he was pessimistic about his chances.

  He was fairly certain that if he told Lady Skyra about just how big the haystack was that his needle was hiding in, she would bite his head off, figuratively or literally. If he told her about Heisenburgle’s experiments with vampire blood… Well, then it would almost certainly be a literal bite, and he wasn’t in the mood for that. He still had too much to live for to go back to heaven and expin himself to those assholes.

  The dragoness departed before he did, and he did so in a carriage that was piled high with gold and Blue. It amused him that she rode in a flimsy wooden vehicle that was much the same as his own, rather than sprouting wings and soaring into the sky. If she was flying around with any regurity, though, I think I would have heard about it, he reminded himself. Everyone was pretending this was just normal, so he was too.

  When she was gone, the Prince said, “Other than the beginning there, where she almost ripped out your throat, you did well,” he said with a nod as Lucas’s carriage moved forward and approached them. “I think she likes you.”

  “I hope she does,” Lucas said with a sigh. “I just want to make her little drug and go the hell home. I don’t want to be on the menu.”

  “Well, according to Heisenburgle’s updates, no one is going to be killing you anytime soon,” the Prince nodded. “The fact that you’ve impressed that old curmudgeon is quite impressive in its own right.”

  “What do you mean?” Lucas asked. “I didn’t know the bastard was capable of saying anything nice about someone.”

  “Oh, he didn’t say anything nice,” the Prince smiled, “It’s like you said. He can’t. What he can do, though, is admit when he’s wrong, and he’s certain he can’t make Blue half as well as you can. He thinks you’re using some hidden sorcery.”

  “Give it time,” Lucas said with a shrug, “I’ve been doing it a lot longer than he has.”

  The Prince regarded Lucas for a long moment, searching for something. Lucas had no idea whether he had found it or not, but in the end, the Prince wished him good luck, and he set off once more for Bckgate to keep.

  Despite the time of day, Lucas passed the hell out on the road this time, potholes or no. The meal, the exhaustion, and the moments of stark terror he’d experienced as he tried not to think about how very easily Lady Skyra could obliterate him had left him completely tapped out.

  That same combination, combined with the poor state of the roads, also contributed to terrible nightmares, and he woke several times on the way back. By the time Lucas arrived at Bckgate, he was even more tired than he was before he left. Heisenburgle didn’t see that as an acceptable excuse, though, and instead pressed a red potion into his hand. “Sleep is not an option,” he answered, blowing Lucas off. “We need the details while they’re still fresh in your mind. I want to know every st thing that monster said. It might be important to our future.”

  Potion of Greater Wakefulness (1 dose): Poison 3, agility 1, health regeneration decreased by 20% for 8 hours, wakefulness increased by 200% for 4 hours.

  Lucas yawned and regarded the potion. He didn’t know how important any of their idle conversations over lunch might be to their future, but he really didn’t want to screw up his sleeping schedule just to have to fix it again ter. So, with a shrug, he popped the cork, downed the potion, and then followed Heisenburgle into the building.

  A brief update for everyone. Next week I will be increasing Death After Death to 3x/week. As a result, the schedule for all my stories will adjust slightly. The new schedule is as follows:

  Monday: Death After DeathTuesday: Brewing BadWednesday: Death After DeathThursday: TenebroumFriday: Death After DeathSaturday: Brewing BadSunday: Tenebroum

  Will Brewing bad or Tenebroum be getting a simir treatment? Not right now, as you can see, I am out of days in the week!

  However, when Tenebroum Ends It's possible that I might increase Brewing Bad's posting frequency as well. It all depends on reader levels of interest. I will free a couple days up when Tenebroum finishes in a few months (can You believe it?!)