Chapter Five: Eva

The potions book was incredible. Some of the recipes in there were twisted, vile, black as they came, and incredible. Others were somewhat innocent or practical in nature. Thankfully, the potions Morgryn had requested didn't require her to make a Potion of Chill, which stopped a person from ever feeling warm again, and yet it wouldn't kill them. Or a Potion of Pestilence, which infected a living being with a new kind of viral or bacterial horror.

Some of the potions were just plain evil. And yet she couldn't help but page through some of those loathsome descriptions, very, very glad these sorts of things weren't common knowledge. The book itself clearly came from some prominent fae library, hopefully, the locked kind since otherwise, there'd be a lot more stuff happening in their world right now.

She studied the current potion Morgryn wanted her to mix. He'd already gotten the Kiss of Truth potion from her, which used some eccentric ingredients that were of fae origin. It'd be difficult to replicate those ingredients in the human world, but perhaps in time and with much experimentation, she might be able to come up with a variant.

Now, he wished her to make a Potion of Avarice. This one dipped more into the darker edges of the book, but not quite in a way that made her squirm with discomfort. This one seemed like a stronger, more focused version of her Animal Sense potion. It unlocked greed in the individual who drank it. It could drive a soul to give in to addictions, such as gambling, lust, thrill-seeking – whatever it was they enjoyed the most, but to excess. The idea, as Morgryn had put it to her, was to clear the path ahead, but not in a way that seemed suspicious.

After all, the fae were indulging their passions. No one would fault them if they pursued them with a little more passion, even if that meant the complete abandonment of their duties and awareness of the situation.

I bet a potion like this has wormed its way through our history, too, driving people to excess.

She noted Morgryn watching her with his unblinking eyes just as she gently stirred together two ingredients into the water.

Add four of the twelve ingredients needed before infusing one-fourth of the total magic the concoction needs, the book instructed. You must always extract the same amount of magic each time. If this is not balanced, it will kill the individual rather than simply drive them to extreme debauchery and greed. The idea is not to kill them, at least not straight away. Whether their choices will lead them to death is an entirely different matter.

She hummed to herself. What a helluva potion. She felt like a dark witch, one of those malevolent ones who people liked to burn at the stake, and it gave her a heady little thrill to imagine.

How ironic that this darkness would be the kind that helped save the region.

Under the watchful glare of Morgryn's creepy eyes, Eva brushed the vial and let her magic seep through with all its wonder. She could do this. She could –

"Fuck," she said as she saw the potion blacken, then hiss rather ominously. "I messed that up. Morgryn. Do you mind not staring at me like that while I work?"

Without blinking, he smirked. "My apologies. It is most interesting to watch a mortal work. You made the first potion so well. This one is trickier and darker. It does require you to dig into something of your avarice to succeed. I wonder if you can manage that or if you are as pure as you seem."

She grinned. Morgryn had just given her a useful hint. "There are those who are pure-hearted, rare, and beautiful, and then there are those who try to do their best, but that doesn't mean there aren't things simmering beneath the surface…"

His smirk widened. "I see. Well, I do have someplace to be. I trust you will not destroy everything while I am gone?"

"I'll try my best," she said before adding, "I really want to complete this potion. It's a challenge."

"Alright then. Be careful, as I'm low on some of the ingredients, especially the blood willow. Those are not fun to harvest."

An ingredient called blood willowdid sound ominous. Without too much ceremony, Morgryn conjured up one of his silent, glimmering portals and stepped through it, leaving it open and blurry on this side. She examined it, a part of her curiosity about venturing into the fae realm herself, but she was smart enough to know that the fae realm would not be good for her in the long run.

Once more, she prepared the potion, mixing the ingredients in the precise order mentioned before pouring in a part of her essence. This time, she tapped into some darker feelings – ones that followed the dance of attraction and lust that she felt with Nathan and let it worm its way into the mixture. This time, the potion turned a shade of light red, almost pink, the color the book said it should be.

It took her forty more painstaking minutes, each time being precise, extracting a perfect measurement of her magic, until the fourth and final time, she infused the tincture and sealed the vial with a cork.

The liquid glowed on and off like a storm brewing in the vial before it took on a shimmering, golden hue, gold being evocative of human greed.

It was just what the doctor ordered. She grinned. Maybe her gold wasn't quite the same shade shown in the book, but it definitely resembled it closely enough for her to be satisfied with the result.

"Okay, done." She placed the vial on Morgryn's desk. "Let's see him complain about this." She then thumbed through her phone messages, straight to the message she'd received earlier but didn't look at it because she didn't want to be distracted before she'd finished.

Nathan: Want to meet up by Bear Creek? It's north of the academy. I can drive you there. It's a beautiful place. Strong bear country, but it'll be safe.

Eva: Count me in. When?

Nathan: Oh, hello. I wanted to say an hour… an hour ago. Ten minutes, then? If you're free.

Eva: Ten minutes it is!

She made a mad dash to her dorm room to freshen up, then headed out twelve minutes later; Nathan brightened up when he saw her. However, she couldn't help but notice that quite a few people were staring at Nathan. Women and men, some with naked lust in their eyes. He saw her noticing, and his smile thinned as she approached.

"Yeah. It happens a lot."

"Jesus," she whispered to him, "how can you stand it?"

"You get used to it, believe me," he said, walking ahead and grasping her hand to pull her along with him. The fact that they were holding hands seemed to make no difference to those who stared. "I think once you're aware of what's going on, it's easier to understand and handle."

"Yeah, I think so," she said, following him to his vehicle, parked just outside the academy gates next to visitor's cars. He drove a white Volkswagen, roomy and modern. "I mean, I can still feel the effect you have on me, but I'm able to think a bit more critically about it."

Although she didn't really want to think critically at all, after her heated little "session" the night they'd met, she may have had a couple more like it. She vowed not to do it tonight, however. She wanted to let the heat build, to let the anticipation simmer within her like the potions she mixed. She had a feeling it might inspire her next potion. With any luck, she might be able to create a new, even better one to patent. While people before her had created sensory potions, their potions tended to focus on only one sense at a time. Hers neatly combined all of them and lasted much longer, which is why she was in a hurry to patent it.

She made herself comfortable in the front seat or the car, inhaling the polished fragrance of good leather, of chamois, and of the distinctive smell cars had when they were new or just well-maintained.

He drove them smoothly out and across the road. It was a thirty-minute journey to Bear Creek, and she savored the beauty of the scenery, of the strange glimmers of magic and normal world that overlapped, and some of the fae beings that lived there, unrelated to any of the court realms.

She felt a pang in her heart when they passed a patch of blackness, of rotting wood and dark ground, blighted by something foul as if there'd been an oil spill, except, she knew from the mission brief she'd been given, that this was a result of one too many deals the fae had made. It leached the life out of the land and made it barren. The foulness crept closer and closer to the academy, which is why they needed to sort this out before souls became restless, magic was lost, and reality unraveled, warping and all the laws of physics.

Nathan noticed the blighted land as well, and his gaze narrowed. "It sickens me, honestly, that there are beings that care so little. They just want to consume, to have a good life themselves without any regard for any life that might follow them. It's short-sighted. It's insanity."

"At least not all of them feel that way." Eva leaned her elbow against the window ledge. "We know of at least two. And this Greer person you spoke to is helping to gather more. They're assembling a resistance, and we're a direct part of it. Plus, I'm getting paid. You were right, by the way. I did have to ask. There was a bit of hemming and hawing, but I'm getting a nice wage now."

"Good." He fixed his eyes on the road. "Don't let other people give you any less than you're worth. That's all that matters."

"Do you think I'm worth more?" she asked coyly. He smiled, and his hands gripped the steering wheel tighter.

"We'll have to wait and see, won't we? Right now, though, I just want to get away from the people who stare. It's really distracting when I want to have a good conversation with you. Even in the coffee shop, I was at risk of being approached despite very clearly being with you."

"Such a hard life," she teased before getting serious. "Sorry."

"It's okay; I know you don't mean it in a bad way," he said, and they fell into an amiable silence, relaxing and listening to classical piano music.

It was not the type of music she usually went for, but it was… okay. Maybe she'd ask to pick a few tracks on the way back. Right now, she didn't feel like she had the right to do that.

As they drove near a rushing, wide river, Bear Creek drifted into view. Nathan found a parking spot, and they clambered out of the car. She wondered if they were going to hike a bit, but he lifted the trunk lid and pulled out a picnic basket. He even had a red-and-white-checkered blanket on top.

Alright then. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

They climbed up through a thinning section of trees, shoes grating against shale and loose gravel as they ascended. The journey brought them to a bend in the water, where some of the algae had built up.

"Here," he said, setting down the basket and smoothing out the blanket on the smoothest patch of ground he could find. They settled comfortably beside the water, breathing in the fresh air surrounded by natural beauty and, most likely, some bears, given the name of the place.

"You've been here before, haven't you?" she asked, watching him set out some paper plates, a bottle of orange juice, and even a thermos flask of coffee.

"A few times, yeah. Mostly alone. I did bring someone once, but not to this precise spot. I did note it down, though, thinking it'd make a great picnic area. I never really got the chance to come back, and then, when I graduated, my life got a lot busier. This is the first chance I've had in over a year and a half. How do you like it?"

"It's beautiful," she said.

"Yes," he said, looking directly at her. She flushed, unable to meet his eyes in that charged second.

"I'm amazed at how well-prepared you are. You really thought of everything!"

"Almost," he said. "The food isn't exactly Michelin Star quality. I just threw together some fruits and chips. I'm not really a cook. It's not that I can't cook. I just didn't want to potentially embarrass myself, so I settled for this. Oh, and a little cake." He fished out a roll of cake made of cappuccino cream. Her mouth instantly started watering.

"Oh yeah, I'll definitely have to try that."

They chatted for a bit, and she had the chance to enjoy her first-ever real date since she'd started going hard into the party life, and then afterward, abstaining from anything that might bring her into contact with alcohol and then regret.

"We're doing something important for once," he said. "My boss – is excited that I'm on this mission. It's going to reduce the workload for our entire department if it succeeds."

"It feels almost too easy so far." Eva stretched out on the blanket, seeing as there was enough room for her and all the snacks. "I keep feeling like something's going to go wrong very soon. And when you slip into the fae realm – I can't believe you'll get away with it time and again. There have to be eyes watching."

"I felt something watching," he admitted. "But I've no way to find out. I've… failed to pinpoint a source before during some of my investigations when I couldn't when I was too late. This magic the fae are doing – it's messing a lot of things up. I…" He kneaded the crown of his nose with his knuckles. "One person was glamoured into suicide. No one was able to stop it in time. Some greedy relatives wanted the payout from his life insurance. All we could do was prove that a deal had been made, but there's no bringing back the dead, at least not in the way they were in life."

Eva shivered. Ghosts existed, but they were strange echoes of the person they once had been, not a true replacement for a living, breathing life. They were not able to think or feel in the same way but instead were trapped during their final moments. "I have a friend who's a medium. She says there have been more ghost sightings recently by those who shouldn't be disturbed and should have long ago been at rest.

"I think I've been lucky not to see some of the worse effects. If anything, I didn't realize how terribly wrong some things were going. Then there's what happened to my brother… the glamour that enchanted him…" She bit her lip, remembering. "His glamour went unnoticed for a long time. No one thought he was enchanted; they just thought he was traumatized because he'd seen three of his friends drown, and he almost drowned himself."

"Oh, Christ," Nathan said, tearing open a bag of chips and pausing mid-reach. "You said you weren't there for your brother. You regretted that. That's what you meant?"

"Yes. They… I mean, even I thought that, too, because it never really occurred to me. They thought he was simply grieving and that he needed time to get over it. And, well, it did make sense because there's no way you could endure such a loss and be okay about it. I wasn't there for him then, either. I didn't respond when he tried to reach out to me from the fae realm, although none of his messages went through until a bit later."

"Christ," Nathan repeated. He still hadn't reached into the chips bag. "That hits close to home. Your brother – he's okay now, right?"

"Yeah. I mean, the professors did send him back to the place where he nearly drowned because he was still under the glamour, and they didn't know how to remove it, but they brought a few people with him, including a water witch named Willow. She's a friend of mine, actually." She showed him a brief video of Willow manipulating water from the Triscor fountain on the main grounds.

"Nice. I guess a water witch would help when it comes to the drowning part," he said, nodding. "We have one on our workforce as well. I don't think people utilize her well."

"Well, maybe Willow will be joining when she graduates." Eva grinned. "Sometimes, I feel like I should be envious of the people around me. Sometimes, I'll have these little blips of weakness when I wish I had some other power. I wish I could transform. But then I remember I do have something that not everyone has. It's not as flashy or exciting as some types of magic, I suppose, but it has a purpose."

"I think it's one of the most terrifying magics that exist," Nathan said. "The things that can be brewed – not all are for the faint-hearted."

"Oh, yeah, that freaking potions book. I've had a chance to go through it since we last talked."

"I figured since I drank a Kiss of Truth potion you created."

Her hand flew to her mouth. "Right! Oh, you were the one who drank it?" She examined him for a moment. "You seem okay. Are you?"

"It worked well. It helped me to secure the alliance, which was a crucial step." He grabbed a handful of chips and started chewing. "So, about the book…"

"Some of the potions in there are seriously disturbing! The last one I made is a Potion of Avarice. I hope to God you're not the one drinking it…"

"Avarice?" His eyes glinted. "That sounds… intriguing."

"When brewed correctly, which I'm sure I did," she said proudly, "it inflates a person's natural greed to extreme levels, I mean really extreme. Greed, lust, porn, gambling, addictions – anything that was already a source of greed in their life – becomes more intense. Morgryn implied he wanted to use it to get some members of the court out of the way, but not in a detectable way. I don't know how the hell he plans to get them to drink the potion."

"It's probably going to be at some party or event," Nathan mused, rolling up the chip bag and putting it away. "The courts enjoy socializing, so there are always events happening. He likely plans to slip it in someone on the opposition's drink." He nodded. "Quite clever. I still hate the guy, however. My meeting with the Unseelie succubus was concerning."

"A succubus?" Eva's eyes widened at that admission. "Did anything…?"

"Thankfully, no. But I had the distinct impression that Morgryn would have loved it if something had happened. He strongly implied I fit her taste in men right before I left. I think he enjoys messing with me."

Eva rolled onto her side, facing Nathan in a more comfortable position. "Wow, a succubus. I don't think I'd ever be able to compete with something like that. That's terrifying." She said it half-jokingly, but it also reminded her that fae magic of the type Nathan wielded was out of her league.

Nathan, however, just stretched out on the blanket opposite her. He put the food and drinks back into the basket, which opened up the space between them. "Look, Eva. I was terrified that she'd try to proposition me. It's been… a necessary part of my job, sometimes," he said, and Eva's heart clenched to hear that admission.

Of course… there's no point ignoring his talent.

Still, it sucked to have it thrown in her face. Maybe her disappointment showed because he instantly modulated his tone and dialed up his smile.

"But since I've seen you again and promised that I wanted to try to do things normally for once… I've felt uneasy about that part of the job. So when I felt that she was interested in me, I kept praying, please, God, no. Don't let this be something I have to do. I can't. I refuse."

Listening to those words helped Eva breathe easier, and the tightness in her gut disappeared. "Why?"

"I didn't want to mess things up with you, not when we're just getting started. Can you imagine it? I make that kind of grand promise, and then my current boss sends me off to screw a succubus. Christ, I may as well jump off a bridge now."

She laughed at that, adding, "I think you should stay on the bridge." She gestured to him to come closer, and he grabbed hers; their fingers entwined.

"All this," she whispered, suddenly shy, "I'm really scared of messing things up with you, too. I don't want this to be… just another fling, you know?"

"Me either," he breathed, and the huskiness of his voice sent a bolt of arousal through her, hitting her square between her legs. Already, she felt a distinct dampness there. Her mind went back to those late-night moments of self-pleasure and how she'd wanted her hand to be his. She tried hard to picture it, to really bring that fantasy to life, but it broke the second she opened her eyes and saw her arm reaching down instead.

His eyes searched hers, looking for something. Maybe he found exactly what he wanted, for in the next breath, he moved closer and cradled her cheek. "May I kiss you?"

She made some kind of crude noise.

"English?" he asked, now smiling impishly.

Instead of yes or no, she said, "Kiss me."

Slowly, he drew his face closer, giving her plenty of time to back out if she wanted. Her heart thundered, but she didn't stop him.

Their lips met, and with that soft touch of sensitive flesh upon flesh, her memories sprang to life: his lips upon hers, hot and hurried and with the taste of alcohol; his tongue, driving into her mouth, hard at first, then soft, giving her room to push and pull along with him; her whimpering, desperate and needy, and desire flooding her like a tsunami, crashing over everything in its path so that only the emotions and the flood of chemicals mattered; the lust and need to connect with him, to be with him, to have him inside her.

Then she realized these weren't just memories. She was doing this now, too. She gripped him, pulling him on top of her. She spread her legs and felt his hip bumping into hers. That contact drove her wild.

Their kisses grew more passionate as their lips danced across cheeks and necks – their tongues seeking skin. At one point, she let out a growl, almost tiger-like snarl, and she wished she had claws at that moment; she wished she had an actual tiger within her instead of just enhanced senses.

She felt him harden against her, and her lust intensified as if she had consumed a Potion of Avarice, wanting nothing more than to surrender to her raging emotions, to ascend to pure bliss in the motion of their bodies and the sounds that they made.

He let out a harsh breath, a choking whimper, and midway into a kiss, he pulled away from her, breathing hard. "Wait. Wait," he rasped, pulling farther back when she tried to rear up to kiss him again. "Not now. I don't want this to be anything more than kissing now. Eva, can you hear me?"

She came down to earth after a few deep breaths and clenched and unclenched her jaw. She sighed.

"I'm sorry. I think – I got too carried away. I didn't want to ever…"

"Don't worry. I understand. I just… not here. I want to take things a little slower. At least let us survive our first date," he said with a low, breathless chuckle. "That way, I know you're different. I hope that makes sense."

"Yeah, I get it." She reached up to kiss him again, but it was soft, chaste. "We got this." She cleared her throat, and they awkwardly untangled themselves. He was still hard, noticeably so. She tried her best not to look too much in that direction, to at least spare him some dignity as he adjusted the way he sat.

At least she had zero doubts that he was attracted to her. It helped reassure her in a silly way, knowing he'd rejected a freaking succubus because he wanted to take things slowly with her.

It took them a few minutes to return to the conversation of earlier. It started slowly, hesitantly, but eventually became almost normal again. But how could it be normal, knowing that that kind of energy existed between them? She remembered more of the night than before, but she suspected she'd never fully have everything unveiled to her.

She really, really wanted to create new memories, though. She knew this one would stay with her for weeks, if not months, if not forever.

They finished off the food he'd brought, all the time trying for normal conversation, but the lingering electricity of the moment they'd just shared hovered over them like a ghost. It stirred the little hairs on her arms. It sent tremors down her legs just thinking about it.

Incredible.

This was what she'd been missing her entire life, something her previous lifestyle had never been able to satisfy. The escape into alcohol, into bodies, merged like a black hole in her mind. How could that possibly compare to something like this?

Maybe she should start writing poetry. She thought she now knew what those poets meant when they wrote those words of love.