''...teas, potions, and even salves to avert the rot. Some of you might be sent to one of the outposts, where resources are scarce and kindness scarcer still. Unlike many useless dribbles you were showered with, what you continue to learn here can keep you or one of your fellows alive. A perfectly healthy person can die from a simple, small, cut.''

  Herbology Grandmaster Seraphina Meadowsweet is a short woman with bushy hair. I don't like her high-pitched voice, but she seems the kindhearted type.

  The herbology cssroom is high up, located on the cliff's face, and a little to the south of the Academy facade's giant triquetra. Exposed to the outside, the cssroom has a small balcony-like ledge. The cantilevered outcropping above it prevents rainwater from accumuting.

  The cssroom's well-stocked pantry is packed with jars, pots, and crates, all lining the shelves. The different ingredients are often dry or powdered.

  Small vials and pouches hold crushed minerals and powdery thingies that look like colorful flour.

  The herbology cssroom has a big parchment on the wall, with painted drawings of mushrooms and a notation below each. Those with vivid yellow handwriting underneath are to be avoided while text written in bck describes edible mushrooms and potential locations in nature.

  Some mushrooms have bck stripes, but most are pinly colored, having caps of primarily purple, blue, white, or bck. The verdigris-colored one has a thick yellow inscription below it. Most are edible, though.

  The cssroom is filled with about twenty mortars and pestles. Of course, gssware is abundant: crucibles, beakers etched with markings, narrow-necked fsks, interestingly-shaped retorts(that were the source of many jests, made mostly by the boys), gss tubes, several alembics, and so on. All nicely arranged across a really long desk that reminds me of the one Grandmaster Penelope has: the lying-water-tower-shaped one.

  The surface of the expansive desk was covered with the jumbled intestines of a monster, all turned to gss. But, there was order in the chaos, I guess. The gssware is clean and the cssroom is always neat, although smelly—all the students are forced to clean everything toward the end of css.

  Despite the herbology cssroom being regurly cleaned, the air was always thick with the scent of herbs.

  Sage, mandrake, rosemary, vender, the pungent odor of brimstone, the smell of copper, and other, acrid smells I can't identify mixed together, permeating the air. Unlike my other senses, taste, and smell can be difficult for me to command. This sometimes resulted in random bouts of coughing, and, despite my best efforts to act tepid, the grimaces I made in this cssroom did not go unnoticed. Lana Furia and Cassius found them very amusing. I should grin at them the next time they retch.

  It is better lit than most cssrooms. Besides the many Cobalts about, the space also received plenty of natural light.

  Herbology was one of those few subjects I consider to have an actual practical use—well, that and wrestling. It teaches about the use of herbs to stop rot and how to make medicine, salves, or even how to stop bleeding or dress a wound.

  Like the rest of the css, I wear a pale pink apron with bck straps. Apparently, if you're caught being here without one you lose library privilege—of course—and get sent to the Guts, and your family gets cursed for fifty years or some such. Although; some stains are hard to remove, I suppose.

  ''Weeks ago,'' Seraphina Meadowsweet continues, vivaciously, ''we learned how to make potions that can help you stay awake longer. Today we have something special. An ambergris. We will use it to make a potion that dulls the pain from any injury.''

  Ambergris is a brown greasy substance. Its scent is nice, slightly sweet and loamy.

  Using stonewood mortar and pestle, I grind chamomile, rosemary, and elderflower, breaking them into tiny pieces. Next, I add ambergris and grind some more, fusing everything.

  Bit by bit, I pour the olive oil into the mortar while grinding the ingredients. I continue until the mixture gets all nice and smooth.

  Grandmaster Meadowsweet walks around the students, inspecting our work. ''Those potions found to be the best will be packaged and sent to outposts. The rest will be given to pigs and sheep about to be sughtered.

  ''Gentle, Bolormaa. Or you will break your mortar again.''

  ''No worries, Grandmaster Meadowsweet. I won't break it again,'' I say, nonchantly.

  ''That's what she said about the dancer bow, too,'' Lana Furia whispers to Ariana. They both giggle at that.

  I look at Lana and farcically pretend to barf, my tongue partly out.

  That sorted, I transfer the mixture to the beaker in front of me.

  Gently rotating the beaker above candle fme, I make sure it's all heated evenly.

  After about a third of an hour, I use a piece of linen cloth to strain the brew into a clean gss vial.

  I wish I had this potion years back.

  Perhaps ter I should go back to the library.

  Yesterday, I stupidly held a crystal in my hand to wait and see if anything might change with the light inside. I didn't notice any difference in brightness, though I'm fairly certain a tiny afterimage of the glow is etched somewhere on the back of my eyes. I'm even more certain I have no desire to eat anyone. Quite the opposite, I can spend days without eating or feeling hungry.

  A thought did occur about immediately looking for books mentioning...Vorza things, but doing that mere days after talking to my friends about flesh-eating, crystal-sucking fiends would be slightly suspicious. I trust them greatly. Just not putting-my-life-in-their-hands trust them. Patience is my unloved friend. I will slowly develop a certain interest in chimerical stories and legends—well...expand my interest, I should say.

  For every book that mentions a Vorza, I'll read two or three about towers in the sky.