The Peculiar Alchemist

32 || Catching Up

When Agnes entered her cottage, she had expected to see her student inside working on progressing with his alchemy, but instead she saw that there was nobody there and she frowned at how unusual this is. Aubrey never missed a day.

Before she let herself become worried, she walked in as she took off her hood and stood in the middle of the room picking up faint sounds coming from a certain direction. There was nothing bubbling in her large cauldron, the place should have been quiet, but the sound of movements was clear.

She headed towards these sounds – one of them was the crow – and she knew what to expect when she looked under one of the large tables and lifted the fabric covering it to reveal what was hiding under there.

The crow stared at her with nuts and berries beside it as it munched on them happily, and next to its cage sat Aubrey in the middle of mixing a potion. He looked afraid when he realized someone had found him, but when he saw that it was just her, he visibly relaxed.

Agnes didn't waste time asking. "Why are you here?"

"No reason. I just like it better here." He mumbled playing idly with the ingredients in his hands, but unfortunately for him Agnes was too sharp to believe in his obvious lies.

"What are you hiding from?"

"Nobody. I am not hiding." Aubrey stammered not realizing that Agnes had asked what, not who. In his nervousness, he was giving himself away. "I can just, erm, focus here better."

There was displeasure on her face as she stood up straight, too tired from bending down, and she glared at nothing in particular as she crossed her arms. "That useless thing is back, isn't he?"

Peeking from under the table, Aubrey nodded his head answering her quietly. "Yes."

"Where is he now?"

"The garden, I think." Aubrey answered as he peeked out from under the table. He looked a little bit reluctant as he spoke. "Would you mind if I actually kill him?"

"No, I'd be impressed. He built up immunity to most things." She told him honestly with a smile on her face, however, she knew he was a few years too early to be attempting to create poisons that could actually kill Kellen all by himself. "Test all your potions on him, he's disposable."

That surprised Aubrey a little, but then he remembered that while Agnes keeps saying things like that, she also made a phenomenal healing potion that healed Kellen's injuries in a matter of minutes. If it wasn't for her, Aubrey was sure Kellen would have been dead ten times over.

"I'll keep that in mind." He told her, amused, and he watched as she made her way to the back door where it led to her garden.

The moment the door slammed open, Kellen groaned looking behind him to see her staring at him with a steely gaze. Clearly there were many things she was upset about, but Kellen suspected that it was mostly because he disappeared without warning and left her to collect her own ingredients by herself.

"Where were you?" Her tone didn't reveal if she's as angry as Kellen would assume or simply curious, but he decided to answer her anyway.

"I was in many places searching for someone. Did anything happen while I was gone?"

Agnes was about to shake her head before she remembered that a few things did actually happen. "Marc came to me asking for you."

"Eh, it's probably about what I stole from him." Kellen shrugged, dismissing that with a disinterested wave.

"He also asked about Toby." Agnes continued not sounding very concerned as she continued filling him in. "That idiot went out blabbering about his inability to die. I don't know how he knew, but now everyone knows about it."