The key felt heavier than it should.

  Not because of the metal. Because of what it opened.

  I stood outside the door for longer than I needed to, turning that key over in my hand, feeling the teeth catch the light. Behind this door was a workspace. A real one. Not a fire escape with dying plants and cracked pots. Not a kitchen counter where I had to hide my work every time the landlady knocked.

  A workshop.

  Mine.

  Well. Oscar’s.

  But mine to use.

  I unlocked the door and stepped inside.

  The smell hit me first—old wood, soap residue, something faintly metallic underneath. The room was narrow but deep, stretching back further than it looked from the doorway. Brick walls. High ceiling. A single bulb hanging overhead that cast everything in that yellow-gray light you only get in places nobody’s supposed to see.

  But it was clean.

  Someone had swept. Wiped down the surfaces. Left it ready.

  There was a workbench along one wall—scarred wood, solid construction, the kind that had seen decades of use and didn’t apologize for it. Shelving above it, empty and waiting. A sink in the corner with a faucet that dripped once every five seconds like a clock counting down to something.

  And in the back corner, a two-burner stove. Gas. Old but functional.

  No icebox yet. No storage. No ingredients.

  But it was a start.

  It was more than I’d ever had.

  I set my bag down on the workbench and just stood there, breathing it in.

  This was mine.

  Not because I’d earned it through years of hard work or education or kissing the right asses.

  Because I’d made something impossible real.

  Because I was useful.

  I ran my hand along the workbench, feeling the grain of the wood, the gouges and stains left by whoever worked here before me. I wondered what they’d made. What they’d hidden. Whether they’d felt this same electric hum in their chest when they realized they were good at something the world said didn’t exist.

  Then I pulled out the book.

  Dimitri’s grimoire.

  It looked smaller in this space. Less significant. Like it had been waiting for a room big enough to hold what it knew.

  I flipped past the Chameleon Effect—that section was dog-eared now, stained with my notes and corrections—and kept going until I found the page I’d been avoiding.

  Saint’s Swallow.

  The name alone made my stomach tight.

  Category: Alchemical / Interrogative Tincture

  Not a hiding brew.

  Not a concealment.

  A weapon that didn’t draw blood.

  I read the description slowly, forcing myself to absorb every word.

  For 30 minutes, the drinker cannot knowingly speak a falsehood.

  Simple. Clean. Terrifying.

  The ingredients list was longer than Chameleon. More complex.

  Hibiscus petals.

  Shungiku—chrysanthemum greens, the note clarified. I’d never even heard of it.

  Borage leaves and flowers.

  And a base—cucumber water, clear grain spirit, or wine.

  I read Dimitri’s margin notes, his handwriting tighter here, more careful.

  Truth emerges naturally, without compulsion, unless forced mode is invoked.

  Forced mode.

  I kept reading.

  There were two operational modes. Passive—where the person couldn’t lie but could stay silent, could refuse to answer. And Forced—where they had to answer, but only five questions, triggered by a specific phrase.

  “This is my question. You have heard it. Answer.”

  I said it out loud in the empty workshop, testing how it felt in my mouth.

  It felt like a key turning in a lock I hadn’t known existed.

  I kept reading. The preparation method. The ethical clause—Dimitri had actually written that in, like he thought morality mattered when you were brewing something that ripped truth out of people’s throats.

  Subject must be informed of the potion’s nature before drinking.

  I snorted.

  Yeah. I’m sure Oscar’s going to ask permission real polite-like.

  But I kept reading anyway, because even if Dimitri had been weak, he hadn’t been stupid. His notes were detailed. Precise. He’d tested this. Multiple times, from the look of the annotations.

  Hibiscus steeped low and slow until liquid turns deep red-black.

  Shungiku added last to preserve sharpness.

  Borage bruised, not crushed—bitterness must remain clean.

  I pulled out a notebook—new, blank, mine—and started copying the recipe. Not word for word. I rewrote it in my own hand, with my own corrections, my own understanding of how the ingredients would interact.

  I was already planning the first attempt in my head.

  Where to source the ingredients. How to test it without getting myself killed. Whether I could start with just the Passive mode and work my way up to Forced.

  I was thinking like a craftsman.

  Like someone who knew what they were doing.

  And I realized, standing there in that dim workshop with Dimitri’s book open and my own notes forming—

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  I wasn’t scared.

  I was excited.

  I spent the rest of that day cataloging what I needed.

  Hibiscus I could get from the florist three blocks over. They sold it dried for tea. Fresh would be better, but dried would work for testing.

  Shungiku—that was going to be harder. I’d need to find a market in Chinatown, maybe, somewhere that sold vegetables I couldn’t pronounce.

  Borage I’d never even seen before. Dimitri’s notes mentioned it grew wild in some places, but wild meant unpredictable. Weak. I needed cultivated. Clean.

  And the base—wine would be easiest. Cheap red wine, nothing fancy. Something that wouldn’t overpower the herbs but would carry the intent.

  Intent.

  That word kept coming back.

  Because the ingredients were just ingredients without it.

  I’d learned that with Chameleon. You could have the freshest jasmine, the cleanest water, the perfect measurements—but if your mind wandered, if you let fear or doubt creep in while the brew was setting, it failed.

  Intent was the lock that turned mixture into magic.

  And I was getting good at holding that lock steady.

  I closed the book and looked around the workshop again.

  It needed equipment. Proper glassware. Measuring tools. A mortar and pestle. Straining cloth. Bottles with stoppers that actually sealed.

  I needed the greenhouse.

  I grabbed the second key Oscar had given me—smaller, older, stamped with a number I didn’t recognize—and headed for the roof.

  The greenhouse was smaller than I expected.

  Not tiny. Just… practical.

  A lean-to structure built against the roof’s edge, glass panels clouded with age and city grime. The door stuck when I pushed it, scraping against the frame before finally giving way.

  Inside, the air was warmer. Stale but not unpleasant. The smell of old soil and sun-baked wood.

  There were planting tables along both walls, empty and waiting. A shelf with cracked terracotta pots stacked haphazardly. A rusted watering can. A coil of hose that looked like it hadn’t been used in years.

  But the bones were good.

  The glass was intact. The structure was sound. And there was light—real light, the kind my fire escape plants had been starving for.

  I could work with this.

  I walked the length of the greenhouse slowly, running my hand along the tables, already planning what would go where. Hibiscus near the south-facing glass. Shungiku in the shadier spots. Borage somewhere in the middle where I could watch it closely.

  And chamomile, lavender, mint—everything I needed for Chameleon, grown fresh, so I wouldn’t have to rely on markets and strangers.

  I could be self-sufficient here.

  I could control every variable.

  That thought sent a thrill through my chest that I didn’t want to examine too closely.

  Because it wasn’t just about the brewing anymore.

  It was about mastery.

  About building something from nothing and watching it work.

  About being the kind of man people needed.

  I stood there in that run-down greenhouse, looking out through the dirty glass at the city below, and I felt something I hadn’t felt in years.

  Purpose.

  Not the fake kind you tell yourself when you’re trying to justify wasting another day.

  The real kind.

  The kind that makes you wake up before the alarm because you can’t wait to get back to work.

  I was good at this.

  And I was going to get better.

  When I came back downstairs, Milo was waiting in the workshop.

  He didn’t knock. Didn’t announce himself. Just leaned against the workbench like he’d been there the whole time.

  “Oscar wants to know what you need,” Milo said.

  I pulled out my list. I’d written it while walking back from the greenhouse, my handwriting cramped and eager.

  Milo read it without expression.

  “Some of this is going to take time,” he said.

  “How much time?”

  “Week. Maybe two.”

  “I need it faster.”

  Milo looked at me like I’d just tried to negotiate with gravity.

  “Kid, you work on Oscar’s schedule. Not yours.”

  “Then tell Oscar I can’t make his truth brew without the ingredients.”

  Milo’s expression didn’t change, but something shifted behind his eyes. Calculation. Re-evaluation.

  “I’ll tell him,” Milo said. “But you better be as good as you think you are.”

  “I am.”

  Milo pushed off the workbench and headed for the door. He stopped in the doorway, half-turned.

  “You know what happens if you fuck this up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No,” Milo said quietly. “You don’t. Not yet.”

  Then he left.

  I stood there alone in the workshop, my list still in my hand, my heart pounding steadily.

  He was right.

  I didn’t know what happened if I failed.

  But I wasn’t going to find out.

  Because I was going to make this work.

  I was going to brew truth.

  And Oscar was going to need me even more.