The Peculiar Alchemist

30 || Always on His Mind

The best thing about Val is that she could easily be found whenever Aubrey needed her, and she'd always have something to study. It seems like pendants are what interested her the most because she still had a couple of them in front of her as she studied them.

Not even when he sat in front of her did she look up, and it made him stare at her waiting for any sort of acknowledgment but got none.

Tired of waiting for her to notice him, Aubrey decided to speak up. "Val-"

The sound of her name made her jump in her place as she stared at him with wide eyes, surprised that he was there, and he jumped, too, startled by her reaction. They both stared at each other before Val choked back a laugh.

"Sorry, Hi." She smiled feeling a little bit silly at her reaction, but also finding her friend's response to it to be funny. Her cheeks were pink from the slight embarrassment she felt. "I was probably a bit too focused; I totally didn't know you were there."

"Yeah, I could tell." He, too, was a little embarrassed as he sighed, finally relaxing in his seat. "What do these pendants even do?"

Val grinned and threw one at him. "Nothing."

Aubrey caught it and looked up at her in confusion. "Nothing at all?"

"Nothing at all." Val confirmed with a nod. "They're just regular pendants. I was just wondering about a few things concerning them."

Her vague answer meant that she was looking into every single detail about them, and Aubrey learned from experience to not ask her for more details if he didn't want to spend all day listening to her talk about pendants. So he just set the pendant down and looked at her nervously.

"Will you still be my friend if I told you I killed someone?"

"You killed someone?" Val asked furrowing her eyebrows.

"I might have." Aubrey conceded not sounding too sure of himself. "I kind of made a poison and tested it on someone."

"A poison."

"They drank it knowing what it was. It's not entirely my fault, right?"

Val stayed quiet for a few moments before she sighed.

"Was it the annoying guy?" When Aubrey stayed quiet and didn't answer, she knew for a fact that it was actually the annoying guy who was possibly dead now. "Are you serious right now? You actually gave him poison?"

Aubrey answered her quietly, she almost didn't hear it. "Maybe."

The way she let out a heavy breath and shook her head made it clear that she was a little bit disappointed and tired of him. Sometimes she made him feel like a child when she did that. "You can't poison every guy you like. That's not how you should deal with it."

The offended frown would have made her laugh if they weren't dealing with the possibility of someone dying because of her friend.

"What do you mean guy I like?" Aubrey hissed watching her shake her head at him. "How did you even make that conclusion?"

"Why did you even make that poison?"

Aubrey hesitated for a moment before answering her. "To make him drink it. I hate him, but I didn't mean to kill him."

"Right. Ok." Val sat up straight and leaned on the table with her elbows clasping her hands together as she looked at her friend with a straight face. She was tired of this. "You hate him so much that you made a poison with him in mind, casted spells with him in mind, and also keep coming to me with him in mind. Are you really that dense?"

Suddenly, the pendants on the table became very interesting. "So, what did you find interesting about these pendants? I am very interested."

The loud intake of breath made him avoid looking at her. "Aubrey."

"I know what it looks like, but trust me. I don't like him." He groaned, fiddling with the pendant he had in front of him just to have something to distract him from this conversation. "I even made the poison as painful as possible."

"That's messed up." She remarked flatly not really too bothered by it. "Refusing to acknowledge it won't do you any good."

She watched as her friend sank in his chair, pulling the pendant in his hand even closer to himself trying to not think too much about what she's telling him. It wasn't that he wasn't acknowledging it – Kellen really did annoy him – but it was the fact that she might be right.

Might be.

He could just pretend they never had this conversation and forget everything.

"I am just afraid that I might have killed someone, alright? That's it." It was unclear who he was trying to convince, her or himself, and Val looked at him tiredly deciding to let the matter drop for now.

"Did you not ask the old witch about it?"

"I did ask her, but she was really unhelpful." He huffed crossing his arms with the pendant dangling from them. "She said he wasn't her problem, but she did say she didn't find his body."

Val sat there thoughtfully. "He might be alive then. Did she say anything else?"

Shaking his head, Aubrey answered her dejectedly. "No, she just made me clean the mess he made when I poisoned him."

A small smile appeared on Val's face. "I am starting to like her."

"I love her." Aubrey told her as he looked down with a fond look on his face. Just thinking about her makes him chuckled to himself. "She's brilliant. The poison was her idea."

"Hmm, how many things do you think she killed with all those poisons she's making..." Val wondered out loud, and it made Aubrey think about the immortal crow they had.

"I don't know." He answered her absentmindedly.

Thinking about it, the crow was exactly like Toby. They both came back to life once they died, and Aubrey wondered just how similar the two were. He knew for sure that whatever potion the bird drank was hidden away by Agnes so she could study it, which made it unlikely that Toby drank it, too. It was caused by something else.

It made him wonder just how many times Toby had died before he discovered that he could come back to life, and that thought made him wish he had a way to tell.

Before he knew it, a spell was casted on the pendant and Aubrey found himself looking at Val who never died before, and the pendant in his hand confirmed that. He forgot he had the ability to do that, to cast those absurd spells, but he didn't think it was wise to let her know about it just yet.

Agnes had told him to keep it hidden, and Val was the type of person who'd know almost instantly that the effect of the magic imbued in the pendant is impossible.

It was a dumb mistake; he never learned to control his magic. He never had to before since he thought he could never cast anything, but who knows now how many spells he unknowingly casted. All it took was a single thought, and that's something he needed to control.

"Hey, can I keep this?" He asked holding up the pendant in his hand making Val look up at it for a brief moment before nodding her head without suspecting anything.

Aubrey couldn't help but wonder who died more, the crow or Toby.