With a holler to wake, I kicked my new apprentice’s door. The grumble behind the wooden doorway let me know my apprentice was awake, if not prepared for the world. I had woken early and visited the local baker. I snagged two loaves of bread - still warm and steaming - along with a pair of morning dishes of a sweet breakfast porridge in a bread trencher from a street vendor. I wasn’t usually a fan of sweet-porridge, and I didn’t have an animal to dispose of the trencher. Still, the treat would likely help alleviate my apprentice’s future anger. If not, then that would be informative as well.

When my apprentice joined me in my front room, wiping the morning from her eyes, I simply gestured to the bread bowl and the contained sweet concoction. Still looking half asleep, she sat and pulled the food close, the sudden sweetness bringing a rare smile to her face as she quickly began to eat. I hummed a tune to myself as I ate. My preparations for the morning were already handled while my apprentice slept. I had to silently sneak into my basement workroom to remove the magical device needed for today’s training, so I was oddly happy with Abby’s late morning.

In truth, I was still smarting from the discussion with my mother. There was a reason that the two of them exclusively focused on work with high nobles and the politically capable of the kingdom, and I avoided such deep political waters. Where I had been annoyed with the Baron buying Abby’s apprenticeship and his attempted manipulations, my mother had been happy. It took a bit of explanation, an explanation which was still fuzzy to me. Still, the long and the short of it was that if the other nobles thought he wasn’t willing to invest in Abby and me, he wasn’t serious about his protection. It was more in-depth than that, there were subtle ways to imply his investment in me, but overall, that was the simplification my mother gave me. The Baron wasn’t just paying me a hefty sum for my services or in taking Abby as an apprentice. He was also forcing gossip about how much he was spending—intentionally letting the details of the deal leak so that other nobles would know what it cost him to make the deal. This would protect me from those who didn’t want to bother the Baron. This meant he was painting a larger target on my back when it came to those who planned harm for the Baron, but my mother argued that this was always the case and was a worry but not something they could change.

This explanation did not make me happy. In fact, it might have made me understand the Baron’s actions, but not excuse them. Even if I had gotten some small amount of revenge in our negotiation, this new news increased my worries. No longer was I able to see the Baron as overbearing. Now I had to include the entire upper nobility as a danger to go along with the Baron’s overbearing attitude.

As my mother finally left through my window, she promised to look into my questions when Mason returned. Until then, she would remain as the Baron’s spy and my father as his newest protector. That the Baron would resort to my parents for spying and guard duty told me a lot about the recent assassination attempts. Worse, my mother informed me there had been more attempts than had been reported.

When my apprentice lowered her trencher and let free a sound of happiness, I couldn’t resist a snicker. It might be petty, but I was looking forward to the coming training. It would serve multiple goals, but one of them - I was almost ashamed to admit even to myself - would be the appeasing my feelings of powerlessness. That it would anger my apprentice while giving me a chance to see how she dealt with it was another critical factor. It would also help her earn a useful Skill, a necessary one I now believed. Though, I would wait to explain how to develop the evolution later.

“Alright, I have a lot to get done today, and you have a price book to search through to pick a new Skill to learn,” I said with a cheerful voice.

Abby smiled at me, but it was less a look of happiness and more silent acceptance of her fate.

“Now, don’t give me that look. If you don’t want to be my apprentice, you can leave,” I said while scraping the last of my sweet porridge from the hard bread bowl.

“Yeah, I know. I’m just not a fan of being forced into things,” Abby said.

I nodded at that as I reached across the table and stacked my trencher on hers.

I had nothing further to say on that point, my agreement being apparent, so I continued with my original conversation.

“I also have a training session with the Baron’s daughter, Alexis, in the afternoon. This will leave most of the day for you to practice my training without me,” I said. When she gave me an annoyed look and was about to talk, I cut her off, “this training is better done without me, I’m not putting you off.”

I had expected an angry rebuke and had planned for it, but she seemed to swallow her annoyance at my interruption. In part, I was trying to see how she handled her anger, and I was happy that she seemed able to reign it in when needed. Though this was just a verbal disagreement, we would see how she handled her training.

“This is awkward, but before our training begins, I need you to do something,” I said uncomfortably.

The look of disgust was precisely what I was expecting. In any other Master-Apprentice relationship, she would be right in her assumption as well.

“No, nothing inappropriate. I’m not asking you for sexual favors,” I said while my face flushed red before I could activate [Acting] and bring my face back under my control.

“Skill training regularly has painful or uncomfortable aspects, often in fact. You will deal with blood, spit, feces, and a host of other things which will want to make you gag. Your training today will likely be mild, but it will go better if you go to the bathroom first. That was all I was going to ask you to do,” I said.

I was glad that [Acting] allowed me to control my face and body so that I could continue with a professional demeanor.

Abby stared at me for a moment before she frowned and left the room. I hoped she intended to use the restroom, but she would have only herself to blame if she ignored my advice. My mother gave me no warning when I went through this training.

The water closet was under the stairs, the small room claustrophobic in size, but it was an expense I was glad that I paid for. The piping was from fired clay, required alchemical compounds to keep working correctly, and made one corner of my basement workroom unusable to keep from damaging the pipe. Even then, it was a worthwhile cost. Not dealing with nightsoil collectors or outhouses made it well worth it. The reduced smell alone was enough of a benefit to outweigh the expense.

When Abby returned, her body language spoke clearly even to myself how uncomfortable she was. Ignoring the discomfort, I reached into my pocket and retrieved the supplies taken from my shop the previous day.

“This,” I said while putting down a small vial of amber-colored liquid, “is a draft that will slow your digestion.”

At my silence, Abby reached out and took the vial from the table.

“It’s a single dose. So please, bottoms up!” I said with a bit of cheer at the look she gave me.

Reluctantly, she pulled the cork from the vial and sniffed the concoction. At the lack of scent, she cautiously sipped at the liquid, then her face puckered at the sour taste before chugging it down.

“Next,” I said while reaching for yet another medicine, a long flat bar of what appeared to be hardtack, “is a bit of hardtack laced with a compound to induce constipation.”

“Excuse me?” she asked.

Shrugging, I put the hardtack on the table, and joining it was a handful of small white pills.

“These are pain pills—no more than once every two hours. Too many, and you are liable to thin your blood and bleed. They should help with the mild discomfort from constipation, but depending on how your training goes, you may need more,” I finished before I walked to the kitchen.

Turning in her chair to follow me, she watched as I pulled my water jar from the corner. Shaking the jug to check it’s contents, I made a mental note to visit the neighborhood well to refill it. That, or pay a local boy to refill it.

“White or red?” I asked while holding up the two bottles and tapping the water jar with my foot to cause it to slosh.

“Red?” she said, her confusion evident.

Preparing a wine flask with dilute red wine and water, I sat again across from Abby. Setting each down on the table in front of her - the watered wine, the price book, the hardtack, the pills - I withdrew a small red bauble made of polished glass. Holding it up, I let the light from the kitchen window shimmer through the glass, the table crawling with intricate runes as the light passed through it.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked while handing the device to my apprentice.

Slowly she rolled it around, the light flickering and shimmering as she turned it.

Suddenly, I clapped my hands, the loud noise drawing my apprentice out of her investigation.

“Do you know what that is?” I began, before waving my hand to draw her attention as she tried to look back at the glass bauble in her hand.

“Don’t look at it,” I said, trying to put some command into my voice with [Acting].

“No, what is it?” she said with a sudden tension, her hand carefully held out of her line of sight.

“It’s a Mage trap called a fascination orb. Mages and merchants with the clout and coin use them to catch thieves,” I began before smacking my hand on the table when her eyes roamed to the orb again.

“Don’t look at it. The fascination orb is too hard to look away from if you look right at it. That’s how most thieves are caught.”

Nodding, the young woman carefully put the orb under the table and out of her eyesight. I was silently praising her for that, though she obviously hadn’t noticed the second part of the trap. Which was unfair; I hadn’t either.

“The second part of the trap is subtle and tricky. Notice that you haven’t put the orb down?” I asked to her confused look.

“You don’t want to put it down, do you?” I asked with a smile.

Abby’s look of confusion lasted for only a moment before she frowned and said, “I didn’t want to damage it.”

“So why not put it down now?”

There was a pregnant pause, my apprentice trying to find a reason not to put down the bauble she held with a tight fist, even as she knew it was messing with her mind.

“What about getting up? Maybe, walk around the room?” I asked.

Her mouth opened, jaw moving as if to utter an excuse, but none followed.

“So, you need to release that orb. That’s your training today. All you have to do is put the orb down and walk away. When you get frustrated with that - and, oh how I remember how bored I got - you can study the pricing guide. I’ll be back in the late afternoon,” I said as I walked out of the house.

“Wait!” Abby shouted, but I continued to my next bit of business for the day, pretending that I hadn’t heard her.