With his wounds healed, Lucas returned to his room, ignoring the mirror fragments on the ground, and climbed into bed.
Silence settled. In it, Lucas lay still, thinking.
His father had been right.
Lucas had begun to believe he was different. First, it was his intellect and maturity that made him different from other children, but now, because of his blood, he was a demigod.
He'd confused potential for destiny, power for readiness.
He thought caution was behind him, as he was a child of an immortal; he did not need to fear the unknown. He hadn't realized - caution wasn't about fearing the unknown.
It was about respecting the unknown.
Still rubbing the sore spot where his back hit the wall, and rubbing a light hand over his bandaged arms and side, Lucas began to clean. The glass he swept into a cloth and tossed into his trash can. Candles were snuffed and set aside. As for the dent in the plaster, he ignored it, unable to do anything about it.
When the room was once again clean, Lucas took the spellbook that had nearly undone him and returned it downstairs to the study.
Then he turned to search the books again - this time, truly searching.
Not for power or any other childish thoughts.
For understanding, to help introduce himself to the dangers of magic.
His fingers brushed across a shelf lower down. The spines here weren't gilded with glowing runes, nor bound in enchanted leather. These were smaller, humbler things.
Titles like:
The Foundations of Herbology
Mist for the Mortal Mind: A Guide for the Newly Gifted
On Potions and Patience
A Beginner's Bestiary: Creatures of the Ancient World
A Short History of Long Wars: The Gods and Their Mistakes
Lucas smiled faintly at that last book, seeing how it was split into many different volumes, each thicker than the one before it. Finally, he found a book that suited his needs.
You Are Not Yet Ready: Warnings, Whispers, and Common Apprentice Deaths
He removed it from the shelf and sat down at his father's desk, this time intending to study here.
...
After weeks of study - immersing himself in tomes, Lucas felt it was time.
Time to return to what he had brought back from the Mist.
The tarot card.
It rested in his hand now, worn and strange. Taken from the obsidian throne in that castle of mist. It looked like a card - but Lucas knew better.
It was not a card.
Not really.
It was a memory, or perhaps a metaphor, the Mist had allowed him to comprehend. Something ancient, folded into shape for his sake.
When he turned it over, a recipe appeared.
Sequence 9 - Apprentice:
Spirituality: The user's innate Spirituality is enhanced upon consuming the potion. This also grants a foundational understanding of magic, witchcraft, divination, ritual-based practices, and the unseen. The knowledge is intuitive - felt rather than learned.
Perfect Recall: The user gains the ability to perfectly remember any event, text, or piece of information they have encountered. Even the most minute details can be recalled with clarity and precision.
Veil Sight: Grants the ability to pierce illusions and see through falsehoods. Additionally, the user can sense lingering magical residue such as wards, enchantments, or charms.
Potion Ingredients:
Water collected at Twilight, from a Crossroad
Blue Mallow Petals
Fragment of Obsidian Polished under Moonlight
Supplementary Materials:
3 grams of hemlock
9 drops of frog blood
7 grams of quartz dust
Lucas knew the card held more than it revealed; he could feel the knowledge beneath the ink, silently telling him: The power of this card came with trials. The potion would not grant strength to one who merely drank it. It would grant strength to the one who understood what it meant. To digest a potion was not to consume it. It was to act its truth. To wear its meaning. To become what it offered.
He had spent the last week gathering the ingredients with care. He'd even told his father, who said nothing but watched closely, allowing Lucas to act independently, hoping his last attempt at magic taught him a lesson on how to act.
Now, beneath a moon-struck sky, Lucas knelt before the large iron cauldron. The grass shimmered with dew in the moonlight.
Steven stood nearby, silent but present.
Lucas nodded, telling Steven he was ready, and Steven nodded back, in understanding and silent encouragement.
First, Lucas poured the twilight water into the cauldron. The twilight water hissed faintly as it hit the heated cauldron, where Lucas was already heating the plain water. When the water mixture began to boil, he added the blue mallow petals, stirring counterclockwise slowly and deliberately until they melted into a vibrant color.
Then, one by one, he added the supplementary materials: 3 grams of hemlock, nine drops of frog blood, and 7 grams of quartz dust.
Finally, at the hour of the moon's peak, he placed the obsidian shard into the liquid.
It sank without a ripple.
The potion shifted - from silver to deep violet, dotted with glinting specks of light that pulsed, vanished, returned, like stars.
He poured the liquid into a flask. Held it in both hands.
Hesitated.
Then he felt a hand rest gently on his shoulder.
He turned. Steven stood beside him, no words - just love and encouragement.
Lucas nodded.
He drank.
The world tilted softly.
He looked up, confused.
And the blackness took him.
...
Hecate watched.
From beyond, in the shadows.
In the mortal realm, her son was working.
He moved with quiet focus - his hands steady, his steps sure, his instincts finely tuned. He measured, stirred, and layered intention where it belonged.
She noticed.
There had always been talent in him - that had never been in question. But pride… pride has many masks.
She had seen it in him, blooming in silence over the years. A subtle arrogance, the kind that doesn't boast, but assumes.
It had worried her.
She had not intervened, but she had watched; her authority of choice reflected in her actions, allowing her children to make their own choices without intervention, allowing them to better understand the world and the consequences their actions bring.
And now, she saw the change. The way he read more than once to make sure he didn't miss anything important. The way he had asked permission before brewing the potion.
He was no longer arrogant, no longer prey to pride; instead, he had become more cautious, learning to respect the journey, respect that which he didn't know.
Hecate didn't smile-not exactly. But her expression softened.
"There it is," she murmured. "Caution, reverence... finally, a little wisdom."
Then, the potion was finished. The boy drank. And, as expected.
Collapsed.
Hecate giggled. A sharp, quiet sound, full of shadows and amusement.
"At least he's consistent," she said, eyes gleaming like obsidian fire.
She waved her hand once, a lazy gesture - and the Mist around Lucas folded, and vanished. No gods, no monsters had seen what she wanted to hide.
...
Apollo felt it - like sunlight piercing through a veil. A breath of clarity where there had only been clouded silence.
For centuries, something had been hidden from him. A thread twisted beyond even his prophetic sight - shrouded, deliberately obscured.
But now… something had moved.
A prophecy. Old. Powerful. Dangerous.
He could feel its edges. The echo of it, humming beneath the surface of fate. He could not yet see it, not fully.
But the barrier had cracked.
And Apollo had waited too long to let this chance pass.
He had searched. Quietly. Obsessively. But there was no trail.
There was one path that could lead to answers.
The Fates.
But he dared not confront them.
He would not risk that. Not yet. They were beyond even him.
And he would not tell the others.
Not until he could stand before Olympus and say he had uncovered the truth, for he feared the mockery and humiliation that would follow if he failed in his own authority and had to seek help from others.