Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“Which shed am I— Oh.” My stuff was all waiting outside the oldest of the sheds. Vemar and I walked to the door, and I peeked inside. Despite being the smallest by far, it still held several pots used to brew things and had plenty of empty counter space. In the corner on a cleared-off worktable I assumed was my workspace sat a few of Granny’s products still in the wrappers with the fucked-up butterfly on the front. Alongside them was an assortment of my product, separated by type but not necessarily by dose. “Okay. Let’s get to work.”
Some time later, I had burns covering my arms, scrapes dripping blood, and smoke billowing up into my face, making me cough.
“Ugh.” I gagged. “Fuck this stuff.” At that moment, I registered a grumpy sort of presence.
I glanced over my shoulder to see the woman from yesterday, Arleth, standing in the doorway. She didn’t comment, so neither did I. Instead, I stood up to try to help clear the smoke for a minute before going back to the mess on the table, mashing up part of Granny’s coating and putting it into the contraption that acted like a pressure cooker. I fixed my goggles in place and lit the flame, watching the reaction to the heat. As I expected, the coating blackened, bent, twisted, and started expanding.
“Vemar!” I shouted, standing and grabbing the contraption. “Vemar, hurry!”
My skin blistered as I ran at Arleth.
“Move!” I shouted, and thankfully, unlike Raz, she actually got out of the way.
“I’ve got it.” Vemar met me outside with potholders taped up his arms, across his chest, and over his hands.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry!” I didn’t let go but let him support most of the pressurizer as we moved outside.
He set it down on an exterior table away from the door, jarring what was inside. I launched at him, covering him with my body as the device exploded. Glass pelted my side, back, and down my legs. Hadriel was never going to lend me his clothes again. Heat seared my calf and parts of my back. Something sizzled, and I turned to find the little bit of coating left in a puddle of slimy goo.
“You shouldn’t keep trying to save me, Captive Lady,” Vemar told me, flat on his back. “It’s a weird look for a gardener-prisoner to save a mighty dragon, even if that gardener-prisoner has a tendency to blow things up rather than create.”
“It’s not your fault you’re in this mess.” I patted his shoulder, getting off him. “Look at that.”
I hunched down next to the goo, my contraption in pieces and now totally unusable. I’d have to beg Weston to buy me more parts so I could make another.
Glass crunched under my partially burned boot. Vemar got up carefully and then leaned next to me, looking down on it as well.
“Slime and goo.” I studied what was left. “We haven’t seen slime and goo before.”
“No, I don’t reckon we have. What does it mean?”
“It means we changed the properties. It’s giving us a look under its skirt and showing us its secrets. We’re on to something.”
Vemar waggled his eyebrows. “I do love looking under skirts.”
I laughed. “Fucking right you do.” I stood up. “Let’s do the same experiment but with a different contraption. I have an idea.”
Vemar stood and gestured toward the pile of broken glass. “Good thing, because this one was blown all to hell.”
“Yeah. Hazard of the trade.”
“Is it really?”
“In the beginning stages, yes.” I turned toward the door of the shed. “Come on, let’s rig up another one.”
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Arleth stood in the doorway with an indignant scowl just as the queen walked toward us. In a brown pantsuit with embroidered flowers giving pops of color, she fit right in with the garden.
I held up a blackened finger, and Vemar helped by picking out a chunk of glass. Blood oozed out. “I’m getting to the bottom of that coating. I have several ideas on how they create the chemical portion of it, and a few ideas on what the ingredients might be.” A drop of blood went splat! on the floor.
“Great gods, what happened?” the queen said, hurrying over with Hadriel and Hannon in tow. “Are you okay?”
I glanced down at myself, cataloguing the scene: the jacket tattered in places and blackened all across the back and down one arm, part of a pant leg missing, glass everywhere, and blood.
“Sorry about the clothes, Hadriel,” I said. “I didn’t realize that stuff would be quite this volatile.”
“Who cares about the clothes! Fuck a limp turnip, look at you!” He stepped around the queen and held out his hands. “What are you doing to yourself?”
“Oh, I’m fine. I heal really quickly, so don’t worry. I’ve learned that my body will actually work the glass back out. I don’t have to bother picking it out.”