I went back to the dorm mansion and was surprised that both Sara and Tabitha were there, as was the carriage Frank had built for the Henrietta Longshore Estate.

“There you are!” Sara exclaimed and waved at me. “We were just about to leave!”

“It is pretty late.” I said as the two personal maids stepped out of the carriage.

“As long as we're gone before midnight, it won't be classed as staying over.” Tabitha said. “I checked with the student administration building staff.”

“They actually told you that?” I asked and she nodded. “Then the two of you need to leave immediately.”

“WHAT?!?” They both exclaimed.

“If they offered to tell you information to let you stay, they obviously lied.” I said. “I'm glad you waited out here in the carriage, especially if they have an established curfew. You weren't actually inside, so it doesn't count.”

Both maids let out sighs and each took one of my hands. “We'll be back in the morning.”

I helped them climb back into the carriage and told the driver to not waste any time getting to the gate, then he was to inform the guard that his passengers had been waiting for me outside of my living space and inside the carriage.

“Yes, my lord. It will be done.” The driver said and the carriage took off at its best speed.

I went over to the guards on the front door and they opened the doors.

“Welcome back, my lord.” One of them said.

I nodded and went inside as the doors closed behind me. I went up the stairs to my room and entered it without knocking, only to find Hope asleep in the bed. I took off my pack and dug out all of the dirty clothes to pile on the floor beside the bathroom. I put my bandoleer into my personal vault, stripped off my clothes and put them on top of the pile, then entered the bathroom.

I only took a quick bath, just to remove the dust from travelling and not really to clean everything. I put the towel around my waist and went out to the room to get dressed in different night clothes from the ones I had on the trip. I climbed into bed and laid down on my back, so I could roll out of bed and be ready for anything.

Hope made a little noise and her hand reached out to pat the bed. Her hand moved around a bit and soon touched my arm. Just like the venomous tentacle pod, she pulled herself over to me and wrapped her arms around my arm.

Maybe I don't have to come up with something dangerous to keep me locked into my survival mode. I thought as Hope rested her face on my shoulder and started to snore.

I stayed vigilant as I dozed off and nothing happened all night. The morning quickly arrived and I was awake just after dawn. Even after going on that excursion and working hard the day before on the clipper ship, I didn't struggle with waking up or getting out of bed. I didn't bother changing, since my maids would probably be arriving soon.

I took out the remaining food that had been in my pack, which wasn't much after five days of snacking, and left the two large pieces of snake meat. I would have to eat them later. I looked inside my pack and there were ten of the 2 foot sections of snake skin that I had used for our disguise. I had left some of the meat on it for a reason, to stop it from drying out before I could properly treat it.

I took those ten large pieces of skin to my work room and cleaned them up, then I used the treatment potion on them and set them on the tanning racks. I regretted having to cut up such a large snake skin; but, the necessity of concealment overrode my need for gathering expensive materials. As far as I knew, this was the only snake of its size to have the skin brought to the capital. That it was also imbued with magic was a huge bonus.

“Helena will know what's best to do with them when they are done.” I said and left my work room to go downstairs.

As if they had timed it, the front doors opened and Sara and Tabitha came in.

“Bath time?” I asked and they had huge smiles on their faces. They grabbed my arms and dragged me back up the stairs and into the bathroom.

“You washed up some?” Sara asked as I was stripped off and they saw the state I was in.

“I wanted to get the dust off before going to bed. I didn't scrub anything.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Tabitha said for the both of them. I could clearly hear the appreciation in her voice and Sara nodded, then they began their work.

I was washed for nearly forty-five minutes before they were done. The actual bath was only twenty minutes long and then Sara won the coin toss for going first in the ritual this time. She started to perform it and it reminded me of what Victoria had said about me being backed up and not being looked after for five days. I told them about it and Sara almost choked. She paused and looked up at me.

“You didn't do anything at all while on the trip?” Tabitha asked, clearly surprised. “You didn't play with it or anything? What about stopping at an inn and having their house maid bathe you?”

“No, I didn't do any of that.” I said. “Do inns have maids for that?”

“The expensive ones do.” Tabitha said. “Of course, you usually have to ask discreetly and bribe the owner.”

Sara slipped me out of her mouth to speak. “Not every inn has the service, so you need to be careful. Some owners might take it as an insult. They get upset if you ask for something that they can't provide because it insults them as an inn.”

“I won't ask.” I said and both women looked up at me from their kneeling positions. “I know I should save it for my own personal maids. It's your job and I won't cause you to feel unfulfilled by letting someone else do it.”

That had set them off with professional pride and made my bath twenty-five minutes longer as they took turns to make up for the five days they couldn't bathe me themselves.

When we left the bathroom, Hope had my academy uniform ready and I was dressed in only a couple of minutes. I put on my knife sheath and my bandoleer under the suit coat and Hope handed me my small pack with the things I needed for potions class. It was the second day of the week and I couldn't have been happier about missing both basic spell construction and spell math the day before. Both of them were quickly becoming a supreme waste of my time.

I left the mansion and walked over to the main student classroom building. The other students were coming from their dorms and I stayed in the same spot that Vanessa had told me to last week. She came out of the crowd after saying goodbye to her friends and gave me a happy smile.

“Good morning, David.” Vanessa whispered. “Did you have fun on your trip?”

“As a whole, it was a bit disappointing. Parts of it were good, other parts were just okay, and a couple parts were horrible.” I responded.

“Aww.” Vanessa took my arm and leaned against me. “You can tell me all about it if you want to.”

“It started off well.” I said and escorted her to class as I told her about travelling on the schooner. We sat down together and the girls gathered around us to keep listening, too.

A few of them were surprised that I did so well while working on a ship, Vanessa included. She told me that it wasn't really something a noble person would do, unless in the official navy or they had joined the naval reserve. They would also specialize and only do one or two tasks. They couldn't do all of them on the ship.

Mage Marks didn't say anything until the bell rang to start class. “All right, it's potion brewing time.”

The girls that had stayed around me while I talked, went back to their seats.

“Only a couple more classes making this one and we'll move on.” Mage Marks said and nearly all of the girls made happy sounds. “You know what to do by now, so get to it.”

“I'll get the ingredients this time.” I said to Vanessa and went to the bin for the first ingredient.

Mage Marks gave me an inquisitive look and I whispered that I was making Vanessa the boosted version to mix with her own. She nodded and I doled out the first ingredient to everyone's workbenches. In the next few minutes, the other ingredients were delivered by the other students and we got to work.

Vanessa insisted on helping, or rather insisted on me helping her to prep the ingredients. We made quick work of it, now that we had so much practice with the simple ingredients, and all we had to do was wait to brew them in order. That was the one thing that couldn't be rushed, unless you were using magical fire. Then you could compress the cooking and simmering times significantly.

I had the original number ten potion down to a solid ten minutes, which meant I could make a whole lot of it in a short period of time, especially with the twelve setups I had at home and at the dorm mansion. In fact, I even had the weaker version down to just under twenty minutes. I couldn't get it down more than that, because of the inferior ingredients.

“Can you tell me what your catalyst is?” Vanessa asked in a whisper.

“No.” I said and she didn't say anything while we brewed the potion. She did give me a concerned look when it was time to add it. I ignored her look and added it, then I asked her if she wanted to help with the infusion. She started to shake her head and then she looked into my eyes.

“Why won't you tell me what it is?” Vanessa asked.

“It's a secret, obviously.” I said. “Helena doesn't know what it is, either.”

Vanessa's mouth dropped open in surprise. “But... I... I thought...”

“Just like you, I'm allowed to have some secrets, too.” I said and held my hand out to the pot of potion. I didn't chant or anything and just used my magic to infuse the potion. It was the same color as the one we had produced with our combined magic and Vanessa stared at it, as if she couldn't believe that it looked the same.

I didn't tell her that after a certain magic level, a potion's color won't change, no matter how much magic you try to add to it. It went into enhancing the effects instead. If she doesn't figure it out on her own eventually, or if Mage Marks doesn't inform the class, I probably will have to tell her myself.

I retrieved a crate of vials and quickly portioned the finished potion out to fill the 36 vials in the crate. Vanessa looked at me expectantly and I shook my head.

“I haven't made another batch of replacement healing potion yet.” I whispered. “I'll experiment and try to have one done by tonight and I'll bring the crate to your dorm.”

“Thank you.” Vanessa whispered. “It has to be done before nine o'clock tonight. That's curfew and you won't be allowed to drop anything off after that.”

I nodded and sat down to wait for the end of the morning classes. I was right. There actually is a curfew that's not stated in the student manual. If Sara and Tabitha had come inside the mansion when I arrived, we would have violated the rules. I sat there and thought about that. I wonder if the person that told Tabitha about the time is also the same secretary that didn't contact me about leaving on the trip with Victoria?

It was something I would have to check into, or at the very least, have someone else check into. Hope has been getting good at digging information up and I could give her the task of finding out what's going on behind the scenes. Discreetly, of course. If anyone knows I know something's going on, they'll either hide further or become more brash in their efforts.

I suspected the director of the academy had a hand in it, because of that first incident, and because of my threat to challenge him as soon as I graduated. I wouldn't know for sure until some evidence is found. It's just a feeling I have that it's someone that has full access to the school and I only really know one person that fits the description. Then again, I don't know a lot about the academy.

I smiled slightly at that thought and the bell rang for lunchtime. I picked up the crate of potions and followed Vanessa out of the classroom and then the building. We went all the way over to her dorm building as I told her more about my trip. The stern woman at the desk saw us as soon as we stepped inside and she didn't say a word as she came right over to me to escort me in.

We went up to the top floor and over to Vanessa's room. She opened the door and stepped inside and I put the crate down on the floor right in front of the door.

“I'll be back down in a minute and you can walk me to lunch and finish your story.” Vanessa whispered and I nodded as she shut the door.

I took the dorm manager's arm and brought her back downstairs. She didn't wait for me to try and take her hand as she offered it to me before we reached her desk. I knew what she wanted, so I took the offered hand and kissed the back of it as I pushed some magic through her hand and into mine. She shivered at the sensation and looked both surprised and happy. I let her hand go, gave her a quick bow, and stepped outside to wait.

Vanessa came out a few minutes later and beamed a smile at me. “Thanks for waiting.” She said in a normal voice and took my arm in the appropriate way to be escorted.

I was getting a lot of practice with that role since coming to the academy.

“I suppose you're going to your dorm mansion to eat.” Vanessa said, disappointment in her voice.

“I don't want to bother causing more scenes and have to figure out how else to trick the cooks into feeding me properly.” I said and she nodded.

“I really embarrassed myself by fumbling with the soup that time.” Vanessa said and then laughed. “My friends teased me so much over that.”

“I hope it was a good teasing and not something you need my help with.” I responded.

Vanessa gave me an odd look, then she beamed a smile at me again. “Yes, it was friendly ribbing and not mean. They've been looking out for me for years during normal school.”

I thought about that for a minute. “What do they think of this version of you?”

“This version of me?” Vanessa asked and then nodded. “Yes, I believe you're right with that description. I'm not restrained by my normal composure when using that cocktail to enhance my mind.” She said and looked thoughtful for a moment. “I don't think they know what to do with me, to be honest. I'm still me; but, I'm so different from what I usually am with my mind opened like this.”

“Then don't let them know you took it.” I said and she caught her breath. “Go in there and stay quiet, barely whisper your words, and see what happens. Let your mind adapt to the situation instead of letting it dictate the situation.”

“I... I didn't think of that.” Vanessa said and spent the rest of the walk over to the student administration building trying to get her voice as soft as it usually was. When she reached the right pitch and tone, I nodded. “Thank you.” She whispered. “I'll see you in class tomorrow.”

“Have fun.” I said and she gave me a smile before she went inside and upstairs to the cafeteria.