It felt like the whole settlement was vibrating in tandem with the wasps’ wingbeats, the ancient Guild that had stood at the foot of the Fungal Spire since time immemorial seemingly at the mercy of a lone Red-born. It wouldn’t take more than a word from him to level the whole place, and that wasn’t even the worst that the boy could do.

  If he so wished, he could instantly crush the Starry Princess standing on his shoulder into pulp, forever dooming their world. In fact, he didn’t even have to do anything to the insect directly. Flamel couldn’t help but wonder whether the creature could survive long enough to reproduce without him.

  “Is there nothing you won’t do to further your goals?” Flamel asked in a low voice. “You’d stoop so low as to hold the whole planet hostage?”

  Tossing a quick glance at his fellow elders, he noticed the same bitterness that he was experiencing in their own expressions. None of them spoke, letting him lead the negotiation.

  Percival chuckled. “You misunderstand. I’m not threatening anybody. I’m merely presenting the facts, to prevent you and the Great Houses from doing anything stupid. I suggest that you all drop your old tactics of putting up bounties or sending assassins after me, trying to bully me into submission. I shouldn’t have to explain what will happen if I were to die. That said, don’t try to pin this on me – you only have yourselves to blame for this situation.”

  Flamel raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”

  The young man shrugged. “The hive was already screwed long before I first set foot at the Guild. I’ve never endangered the royal lineage – quite the opposite, in fact. It’s only because of me that Remior even has a future. The Starry Princess standing on my shoulder isn’t the original – just a replacement that the Queen has begged me to help her give birth to. None of this would have happened if the lot of you hadn’t allowed Machaon of House Asclepius to steal the royal egg from right under your noses.”

  Flamel’s eyes shook at the revelation, surprise and horror gripping his heart in equal measure. This couldn’t be true, could it? Scanning the others, he saw them react in a similar manner, though Ostanes was the first to speak.

  “Lies! You expect us to believe that load of crap?!” the short man blurted out, clearly refusing to accept the young man’s story. “Machaon is a serious and respectable figure who has led one of the Great Houses for thousands of years. And what are you? Just an unruly brat – still wet behind the ears – who’s committed over a dozen crimes in as many years. Are we supposed to trust you over him?”

  Percival’s cold gaze landed on Ostanes’s chubby figure, causing him to shudder. It was bewildering, really, that a boy this young could command such presence.

  “Your misplaced respect is precisely what allowed him to play you all for fools. Fortunately, you don’t have to take my word for it. The old Queen is still alive – go ask her yourselves,” he said, before scratching the back of his head with his one good hand. “Ah, but make sure to bring someone with a mind or soul affinity to help with communication. Preferably somebody you trust.”

  Flamel nodded. Now, that, was a reasonable request. He still found the Red-born’s story difficult to accept, but it wasn’t like they had any other options. If the young man ordered his minions to attack, they wouldn’t be able to resist. Besides, Flamel was more than a little curious about this matter.

  “Paracelsus, didn’t you have an apprentice with a soul affinity?”

  “I don’t think she knows any communication spells,” his colleague replied. “I believe Anqi and Ostanes have people with mind affinities working under them.”

  “Good. Anqi, find your subordinate and head into the hive. The rest are staying here with me.”

  He’d deliberately avoided sending Ostanes, since the man was clearly too biased against the Red-born. He was the exact opposite from Eleazar in that regard. The others appeared to be a lot more neutral about it, so they’d probably approach the matter with a level head.

  There was no official leader among the elders – the others held the same authority as him on paper, so it wasn’t like he could boss them around against their will. However, everyone was generally happy to follow his lead in situations like this, trusting in his judgement. At over four thousand years old, Flamel was the most senior among them by far, having been an elder for longer than the others had even been alive.

  The group was patiently waiting for Anqi to return with news from the hive, when Percival suddenly moved. Grabbing the side of his robe, he tore a strip off, feeding mana into its enchantments.

  The hole closed in record speed, even the fabric in his hand swiftly growing into a new set of clothes. The Red-born didn’t stop there, however, ripping the new construct to pieces and repeating his actions two more times.

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  Flamel silently observed him, wondering what he was up to. He didn’t feel threatened by the young man’s actions, since Percival didn’t really need to resort to trickery under the circumstances.

  Eventually, the Red-born tossed the pile of fabric by Paracelsus’s feet, clearly startling him. “You, there. You have a pure affinity, don’t you?” he asked, only to get a confused nod back.

  Clicking his fingers, Percival caused the cloth to crumble into a cloud of bluish-grey motes that promptly scattered away in the wind, leaving a much smaller pile of same-coloured powder in front of the elder.

  “That’s crystallized pure mana,” the young man explained. “Well… okay… it contains some soul mana too – hence its colour – but that doesn’t really change its effect. Given your grade, I’m sure that you can compress your mana into crystals yourself, with very little effort.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Paracelsus asked, voicing the question that was probably on everyone’s mind.

  “It’s the secret ingredient,” Percival said, cutting to the chase. Seeing Paracelsus still confused, he elaborated. “For the Aurora Dew. Add this to regular elixirs and then go through a final round of deattunement at a higher temperature. That’s it.”

  Flamel’s heart stirred again. Evidently, this was going to be a common occurrence when dealing with this particular young man. How many years had he and his colleagues wasted stumbling around in the dark, desperately searching for the very secret that the boy had just blurted out so casually?

  And to think that it was such a simple answer, hiding in plain sight…

  “Why tell us – after all the lengths that you’ve gone through to keep it hidden? Why now?” Flamel asked, still struggling to believe his ears.

  The Red-born sighed. “It was never my intention to bring the knowledge to my grave. That’s why I agreed to have Orin share it eventually. I just wanted some time to get ahead of my peers, and to find a way for Remior to take advantage of the information without running out of nectar and screwing all the low-borns. None of that is much of a problem anymore.”

  That… made sense, admittedly.

  Now that Percival had apparently grown strong enough to compete with Violets, nobody weaker than that was much of a threat even if they advanced. Meanwhile, there were only about a thousand Violets outside of the Divine Order, and all of them were centuries away from White at the earliest. Even if they tripled their core-cleansing speed, none of them would close the gap anytime soon.

  Besides, with the entire hive falling into his hands, the young man now held all the leverage to control what happened to their world moving forward.

  The group fell silent again for the most part, the elders’ expressions a strange cocktail of gloom and cautious optimism. Flamel was no different. Seeing everything that he’d ever cared about suddenly at the mercy of such a reckless boy was a hard pill to swallow.

  However, there was no denying that Percival’s potential was boundless. If they played their cards right, this could end up being the best thing to happen to their world in a very long time.

  Paracelsus appeared more curious than the rest. He spent some time experimenting with crystallizing his mana, with the Red-born sharing the occasional tip to guide him along. The elder didn’t have much trouble compressing a few crystals of his own, though it soon became clear that mass producing it at the necessary scale would be a challenge – especially if they had to rely on lots of pure users at the lower grades.

  That was when Percival explained that they could get around that by exploiting self-repair enchantments, making the process as effortless as pouring mana into a bunch of runes. That way, they would essentially have a limitless supply of the miraculous ingredient.

  ‘Genius… and he’s used it outside alchemy too,’ Flamel noted.

  By mixing the powder with soft mana in a very precise way, Percival had clearly created a very versatile material to fashion his constructs out of. Adding the powerful enchantments that he’d drawn on it and numerous other discoveries that he appeared to have incorporated into his arsenal, and Flamel was starting to see how the boy had grown so strong in such a short time. Whatever he thought about his character, there was simply no denying his talent.

  ‘No matter what the situation with the hive is, it’s still in our best interest to try and work with him,’ he realized.

  Leaving aside the fact that they didn’t seem to really have much of a choice in the matter, it was definitely better to accept the olive branch the Red-born had extended, and to deescalate the situation. Nothing good would come from continuing to oppose him.

  Oblivious to his thoughts, the boy proceeded to explain that the powder could be used separately from the elixirs. Its effect would be weaker that way, and it would still double their nectar consumption, but it was enough to get Yellow-borns to the Clear grade while avoiding the losses during brewing.

  This would certainly please the noble Houses – for a while at least – until they found a way to eliminate the resource bottleneck.

  “I can teach you a cleansing technique to halve everyone’s elixir consumption too, so it will basically be like we’ve just doubled everyone’s cleansing speed for free. Later though…” Percival added with a shrug.

  Flamel was about to ask something else, when Anqi finally returned.

  “It’s true. The Queen has corroborated everything.”

  The news caused everyone’s expressions to twist into grimaces again, though their bitterness was aimed at somebody other than the Red-born for the first time today. Had Machaon truly toyed with the very fate of their world?

  “I’m still not buying it!” Ostanes insisted, though judging from the way the other elders were looking at him, he was probably alone.

  “Are you calling Anqi a liar too?” Eleazar asked, clearly unhappy with his colleague.

  Ostanes raised his hands defensively, rushing to patch things up. “Not at all. I’m just pointing out that we can’t trust the Queen either right now. Just think about it. Her daughter’s life is in the kid’s hands. Obviously, she’ll say whatever he wants her to.”

  Percival chuckled again, drawing everyone’s attention.

  “I don’t really care whether you believe me or not. I thought I’d do you the courtesy of explaining the situation, but your opinions no longer matter. From now on, I’ll be deciding the rules around here.”

  The Red-born’s bold words left everyone with their mouth agape – Flamel included – though he wasn’t even done yet. Walking toward the centre of the settlement, the young man gestured at them to follow with his remaining hand.

  “One of you be a dear and lead me to the prisoners. I’ll worry about cleaning your mess up later.”

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