Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

in stride as he went over to help her manage her awkwardly flexible burden. It was only once they’d brought it over to the table and laid it out that Milo realized she was talking about repeatedly doping him.

“Wait,” he said sharply as Imrah began to straighten the uncomfortably familiar shape across the table. “What are the side-effects? I mean, you can’t just keep taking nightwatch forever, right?”

Imrah didn’t bother to look up as she finished spreading her burden on the table. At first Milo balked at what he took to be flayed human skin, but staring at it, he saw hides of different colors and textures all together to make a human shape. He breathed a sigh of relief at realizing that none of them were human.

Imrah surveyed the hide carefully before turning to scrutinize the materials Milo had gathered on the next table.

“I suppose it would be possible to take it for an extended period of time,” she said thoughtfully as she checked a bowl. “Depending on the quality of the batch you make and the level of control in its activation, you could probably go for a week without sleep, maybe two, before you saw any decrease in function.”

She scooped up the bowl she’d been scrutinizing.

“You’ll need far more dried pupae,” she said, holding the bowl out to Milo and nodding at a jar on another table. “Two handfuls.”

“Okay,” Milo said, calling over his shoulder as he went to get the husks, “but you’re saying it won’t have any negative effects? What happens once you finally come off the stuff?”

Imrah gave the rest of the ingredients another sweep and then a curt nod before answering.

“Long-term use of any elixir will have side-effects, though nightwatch is mostly cosmetic and behavioral. Nothing serious, and again, that would be with extended use.”

Milo tried to block out the dry scrape of the spent pupae on his skin as he carefully drew them out and deposited them in the bowl.

“And as far as when the elixir runs out,” the ghul continued, “that will depend on how long you have been using it. If it has only been a few days, then the fatigue will be intense. If you are pushing a week, you’ll have minutes, maybe seconds before you collapse. If you’ve pushed it further than that, well, just don’t do that.”

Milo gulped at the implications as he came back with his bowl of expended cocoons, offering them to Imrah for inspection. She waved them over to the table.

“Good, now start stuffing the pupae into one of those eels,” she said absently as she prowled around the table.

Milo frowned at the long black shapes floating in a murky glass jar.

“I still want to know where you got all this,” Milo muttered as he rolled up his sleeves. “It’s not like you had time to gather it.”

Imrah bared her teeth at him as he removed the glass jar, filling the basement with a rank, fishlike smell.

“If you don’t manage to foul this up too terribly, I’ll show you,” she teased, then frowned as he plunged his hand into the jar. “Mind the teeth!”

Milo swore furiously as he yanked his hand clear of the jar with a wriggling eel fixed on the meat of his thumb.

“These things are alive!” Milo howled as he whipped his hand around, spattering stinking water.

“Obviously,” the ghul remarked with wry amusement. “Now quit playing with the vermin. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Milo finally managed to pry the needle-toothed jaws from his hand, gripping it behind its blunt head as its black length flopped and dangled. Then, still swearing and cursing the eel to the very progenitor of its kind and the last offspring of its entire species, he began the process of coaxing the ill-tempered fish to eat the pupae. Imrah watched with crinkled eyes as he taunted it into fits of snapping at him that saw cocoons slipping down its gullet. It was a slow, frustrating process, and soon Milo was sweating and so intent on the task he didn’t even have time to swear.

He’d made it halfway through the bowl when Imrah finally burst out laughing.

Milo looked up, eel in one hand, bowl of empty pupae in the other, eyes wide.

“What?” the magus asked, his voice sharp and trembling. “What!”

Imrah wiped tears from her eyes.

“I said stuff it, not feed it,” she wheezed, barely able to keep herself from devolving into further chortling. “You kill them first. What do you think the ramrod is for?”

To illustrate, she pointed at the bronze cylinder on the table, its baroque filigree twinkling mockingly in the light.

Milo made to argue, but a spluttered curse was all he could manage before turning an accusing eye on the gaping eel.

“I’m going to try to enjoy this,” he hissed into the cold eyes. “If nothing else because both of you have been enjoying making a fool of me.”

The eel gave no reply except one more defiant snap of its jaws as Milo set down the bowl and picked up a knife from the table.

The ingredients were finally prepared and placed in their appropriate places within the empty skin, which Imrah had described as the easy part. The swollen skin and series of puncture wounds on Milo’s thumb begged to differ, but either way, it seemed they were ready to proceed with empowering the fetish.

“The essence to empower the skin will come from this,” she said, holding up a small pouch. “It should have all the power you need to complete the process. You’ll probably need one for each skin-coat you prepare.”

Milo took the pouch, and the second his fingers closed over it, he heard a soft click and rattle within. Certain he wouldn’t like the answer, he tugged the top open to peer inside. An assortment of tiny bones was within.

“Birds?” he asked, hating how hopeful he sounded. Somehow, as delicate as bones were, even he struggled to believe that was possible. Animal corpses offered many ingredients and potential