I let the notifications hovering at the edge of my vision marinate in silence. They could wait. I'd opted for a little scenic detour before heading back to Lysska's place, and believe me, there were solid reasons for the pit stop. First off, I wasn't sure waltzing back into the Alchemy Tower was the brightest idea. Why? Well, if Lysska had started connecting the dots, odds were someone else had too—and I wasn't in the mood to walk into a welcome party hosted by suspicion.

I needed the lay of the land before I risked showing my face. Not that I was entirely sure what that face even was anymore.

My current 'public face' was a knock-off version of my half-dragon self—features dampened down to pass for a drakkari façade. And that illusion? It ran on one thing: my enchanted bracer. Which, as luck would have it, was sitting pretty right back in the Tower. Irony's a fickle bitch.

With these shiny new features of mine, I'd definitely need to dampen them again. Problem is, even if the bracer still worked, I had no idea how well it would camouflage what I'd become. Last time, I came out looking pale-skinned, silver-haired, crimson-eyed—a look that echoed my silvery scales. This time? Golden scales. Violet eyes. Slight glow of divine overkill. Yeah. Not exactly inconspicuous.

So yeah, top of the to-do list: break into the place I was avoiding. While I was at it, I figured I could snag my research notes, a few potions, some useful ingredients—the standard "while-I'm-here" haul.

And maybe, just maybe, I'd catch a little gossip on the wind.

That plan went out the window the moment I sensed two monster-tier auras thrumming inside the Tower. No mistaking it—those were gold cores. Ever since my evolution, I'd been a walking antenna for power signatures. It's like the world turned up the contrast, and suddenly I could feel who stood above, who lay below, and who I definitely shouldn't mess with.

Gold cores? In Varkaigrad, those were reserved for house heads. So the question was—why the actual abyss were they lounging around alchemy tower? Wait they were probably here for those elves I captured. Made sense.

Clearly, there was something juicy going on inside, but I wasn't about to find out firsthand. I wasn't suicidal—yet.

I slid into the shadow realm and oozed into my chamber. Hilarious. The room now felt like a child's dollhouse. One careless twitch and I'd redecorate the walls with splintered oak and alchemical confetti. Grumbling, I spat the elf onto the floor (still soggy, regrettably) and willed myself into half-dragon form. The transformation gouged my mana reserves—150 points vaporized as bones cracked, scales hissed, and eleven feet of gilded monstrosity unfolded. Subtlety? Dead.

My silver plating had morphed to burnished gold, eyes blazing violet instead of crimson. Horns gleamed like molten ingots; claws curved into scythes eager to carve. Behind me, barbed tentacles lashed the air, each tip now studded with sharp golden dagger like spikes.

That's when it hit me.

Wait. Wait a damn minute.

Wasn't I carrying an anti-divination charm when I left? I distinctly remember having it. I took it out before snacking on those wraiths. Felt it itching my cheek during that scrap with the spectral eel. So where the hell was it now?

Did I swallow it mid-evolution? Did it get dissolved in the arcane blender that was my metamorphosis?

And just like that—alarm bells started ringing in my skull. Big, blaring, "you dun goofed" bells.

Shit.

Never underestimate a divinator. Those bastards can pry secrets from shadows and read answers in the bones of the earth.

I should've checked the moment I changed, but—well—I was slightly busy becoming something else. Only now did I get a second to breathe. Only now did I realize the blunder.

And oh, it was a doozy.

I shook my head. Whatever. Not like I could conjure another charm from thin air—especially not when I was, quite literally, in the air. Good thing I'd come here first. I lunged for my table like a dragon hoarding overdue paperwork, yanked open a drawer, and snatched out another anti-divination charm. No hesitation—I shoved it back into my maw. It nestled in a bit more snugly this time, though to be fair, everything fit better when your jaw was twice the size it used to be.

Not that I was planning to store anyone in there just yet, though I was definitely going full dragon to transport one knife-eared bastard out of here. As roomy as my mouth was in half-dragon form, it still wasn't quite "elf-sized."

But till then, did I stop there? Of course not. I scrambled through drawers like a maniacal magpie until I had a dozen charms stuffed in my mouth. I could always make more, sure—but stockpiling shiny magical trinkets was something of a personality trait by now.

Then came the real scramble.

I began sweeping my workspace clean, grabbing every vial and concoction I'd brewed during my research. I was on the cusp of something—so close to a breakthrough—but life, as always, decided to throw flaming debris at me instead. Chaos didn't wait for genius, apparently.

Potion after potion, glass tube after glass tube, into the maw they went. It was almost artistic, the way they piled up. A shame I'd have to leave the brewing apparatus behind, but hey—Lysska was well-connected. I could grovel with dignity if needed.

Maybe it'd work. Or I'd revert to caveman alchemy: mortar, pestle, and spite—pain in the tail, but something about it scratched the itch of craftsmanship. Aesthetic rigor could suck it.

But meh. I'd overthink that later.

For now, I raided my closet. Favorite dress? In it went. Favorite heels? Why not—they were ridiculously expensive, and I wasn't about to strut around naked post-transformation without my power outfit ready to go.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Final mental checklist, then.

Anti-divination charms? Check. Research potions? My tongue flicked across the vials like a grotesque inventory scanner—check. Research notes? Obviously. Check. Transformation bracer? Left side of the maw, snug and secure. Check. Dress and heels? Check and check.

Was I forgetting anything?

Belle's biscuits? Maybe. But I could guilt-trip Lysska or Quickpaw into fetching some for me. Alice didn't have any belongings, so no concern there.

If I'd forgotten something? Well… Odds were low I'd return to a smoldering crater. Or a sentient Parda breach. Or—

Wait. Did I just dare the universe?

…

Shit.

No use lingering. Nostalgia's for poets and fools. I spared the room one glance—fine, half a glance—before inflating to full draconic bulk. Ugh. I was so not a fan of this size. And I was only going to get bigger from here. Not sure how I felt about that.

One tentacle snagged the glitter prince, while another snatched a vial from the still-open drawer.

He was unconscious, sure, but I wasn't about to gamble on him waking up mid-flight in my mouth. I didn't trust coma etiquette. That potion? A potent little sedative I'd brewed… for fun. Side effect: it forced the drinker into a miserable little nightmare spiral. The basic stuff was boring. I like my sedation with a splash of psychological torment.

The vial met his lips—forced a swallow. His throat convulsed. Good. The potion's kick was instantaneous. His face twisted like a man realizing he's signed a fey contract. Delightful.

A courtesy claw-flick to his temple. He groaned. Music to my ears. Into the gullet he went.

I took one last breath—amber embers glittering from my fire gland—and tapped my dimensional lamina.

And just like that, I slipped into the shadow dimension, vanished from the world like a particularly elegant glitch—and shot straight toward Lysska's 'office', wings spreading wide behind me.

***

[POV Switch: Vyra/Quickpaw]

Vyra stood atop a ruined building, a massive frost-covered axe in her hands, cold radiating from it in shimmering waves. It might've been the tallest structure around—once—but its base was fractured, the whole thing creaking like it remembered how to fall. One hard stomp and it might just give out.

Her long ears twitched. Strangely, that idea thrilled her.

She almost wanted to jump, just to see if it'd collapse.

She might've, too—if she were alone.

But she wasn't.

Viper stood beside her, his massive salamander-beast crouched behind him. He was communing with it in that strange, sinuous way of his—soft hissing breaths and subtle twitches. The creature rumbled back, its wide, molten eyes following his every move.

Vyra didn't get it. Probably a bloodline thing—serpent-kin always had that creepy rapport with scaly monsters. Still, the way the salamander balanced so delicately on a broken rooftop was impressive. Couldn't it shift a bit, though? Just enough so she wouldn't be blamed when the building inevitably gave out?

She really did want to collapse it. For some reason.

Maybe it was the silence. Too much silence.

She hated silence. It pressed in on her, clawing at her nerves, feeding the pit of dread already churning in her gut.

She looked up again.

"The back-and-forth spellfire stopped after that weird lightning bolt... I don't even know what that was," she muttered. "I know you're still watching, but—any hint you're safe?"

Her eyes flicked to the crow perched nearby on a half-sunken brick. It cocked its head—up, down, then to the right.

Vyra sighed. That was the signal. She was safe. For now.

"You still airborne?" she asked.

Another tilt of the head—affirmative.

"How long you staying up there?"

This time, the crow gave a shrug. Neutral.

"Right. What about Venam? She okay?"

A nod.

"Thank fucking ancestors."

"I told you to stop worrying about Lysska," Viper drawled, not looking up from his beast. "It's her. Every time she's left alone, she fucks shit up. It's the poor bastards in her way we should be worrying about."

Vyra scowled. "Still. Whatever happened up there—it caught the Flameclaw Matriarch's eye. We saw that fire-streak tear across the sky minutes ago. And when something like her gets involved, the aftermath's never clean."

She knew Lysska would survive. She always did—impossibly, inexplicably, whether cornered or outnumbered or outclassed. It was just... part of her. And if you knew her pathway, it made a strange kind of sense. Vyra didn't understand exactly how Lysska bent luck around herself, only that she did. And in their crew, you didn't ask. Even Vyra, who called her sister—not by blood, but by the kind of bond born in back-alley battles and shared survival—never pried.

Not that she needed to. The results spoke loud enough. Wherever Lysska went, chaos bloomed like wildfire—and Vyra had always admired that.

But still.

"I just don't get why she took this big of a risk for that nobody."

"SHE'S NOT A NOBODY, YOU SLITHERY TWIG—"

The building creaked. Vyra paused. "...Wanna bet this thing collapses before Lyss does?"

Viper's salamander hacked up a fireball-sneeze. A brick yeeted itself into the abyss. The building wheezed but held. Boring.

Viper just shrugged. "Alchemists are a dime a dozen these days. I've got a decent one on call myself. Even if she was a 'star student' at the Alchemy Tower, like you said, she's still just a student. I don't see some pampered kid like her lasting five minutes down here. No offense."

Vyra blinked. Seriously? Lysska hadn't filled him in before dragging him into this?

Venam wasn't fragile. Sure, she wasn't exactly a survivalist either—not in the normal sense. She was unhinged. A walking wildfire in a glass bottle. And Vyra adored it. Hell, sometimes she was even jealous. The chaos Venam carried around like a spare dagger was... glorious.

Not pampered. Not sheltered.

More like a demolition spell with an apprenticeship in Bad Ideas.

The kind of feral genius that made Vyra want to take notes. Or hug her. Or both. It was hard to tell sometimes.

Then again, information in their crew flowed like poisoned honey. Lysska controlled it—always had. Everyone got exactly what they needed to know. No more. No less.

Was there a reason?

Probably.

Or maybe Lysska just liked screwing with people. Wouldn't be the first time. And honestly, if Vyra did tell Viper what Venam pulled off after getting kidnapped... he might shit himself on the spot.

Tempting.

She shrugged.

"I don't like that look on your face," Viper said, narrowing his eyes. "Didn't you hate boring people? First time we met her, we had to pull her ass out of that mess with Iron. Idiot tried to play vigilante in this part of the city. Privileged kids always think rules bend for them. Down here? We're vultures. She's meat."

Oof. Salty.

Vyra didn't respond immediately. She knew Viper had a hate-boner for noble brats—and Venam being from the Tower while he'd gotten rejected? That was salt on a very old wound. Whether he realized it or not, it tinted every word he spoke about her.

But that wasn't Vyra's fight.

She just rolled a shoulder, casual. "I like her spark. Lysska likes her sparkle. Wanna interrogate the boss? Be my guest. Bring a fireproof ego."

She spun her ice axe in one hand, letting the cold hum ripple through the air.

"I plan to," he muttered. "Just never figured Lysska for reckless."

Vyra was halfway to a retort when it hit her—a sharp, invisible twang behind her eyes, like a taut wire snapping. A high, metallic ring echoed through her skull like a bell struck from inside.

Her expression must've shifted, because Viper straightened instantly, eyes narrowing.

"What happened?"

"Someone just entered the office," she said, already scanning the skyline.

"Probably some street rat looking for a fast score."

Vyra's jaw tightened. "Yeah? Since when do street rats break past enchanted locks?"

His scales greyed. "...Shit."

"Shit's right." She leapt onto the salamander's back and smacked its rump. "Giddyup, Lizard Lasagna! We're crashin' a party!"

The beast roared to life as Viper vaulted up behind her—and right then, the ruined building gave up the ghost, collapsing into a cloud of dust below them.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.