Phoebe nodded at Kobus, tightening her grip around the cold metal of the blade. She accepted the amulet around her neck without a word; her look was one of concentration and serenity, her eyes mirrors of ice in the flickering light of the room. Silence weighed down upon the staff members grouped together like a thick blanket, muffling any sound.



"We shall start," Phoebe spoke silently. Nonetheless, her voice resonated through the room like a hollow echo that sent shivers down one's spine. She approached a table, on which a matt silver cauldron stood next to a vial with Norandola dust as well as the khaki green potion Phoebe and Kris Airlia had worked on earlier that week.



Without pause for further interruptions, Phoebe laid the blade of the dagger into the palm of her left hand; a swift moment later, she had cut herself without even as much as flinching. The dagger rested in her right hand for another moment before she put it down on the table. A thin trace of red liquid on its edge indicated what was not yet to be seen on her hand: A cut. Phoebe clenched her left hand to a tight fist, holding it over the cauldron that stood on a set of scales…the blood came: Slowly at first, but rapidly increasing in speed. Yet, it took a long while until all the 45.9ml of it were collected and when the last drop fell into the cauldron, though serious and distant, Phoebe's features were distinctively pale.



She pulled a dark cloth out of a pocket of her robes and clenched it in her hand; it was magically enchanted and stopped the bleeding while Phoebe went on with her work. Carefully measuring, she added 7.2g of Norandola dust as indicated in the directions for the Draught of Ephemera: It floated on the scarlet surface of her blood like a sheet of silver.



Somebody had lit a small, weak fire to her right without Phoebe's notice; the entrancing effect of the potion—or ritual—was already taking place. Although she was still aware of her actions, Phoebe felt strangely guided, yet alone and empty at the same time. Mechanically, she placed the cauldron on top of the low flames and let the heat do its work. After several minutes, the silver dust had been absorbed.



"Leithian feir mân," Phoebe chanted slowly, reaching for a single blond hair and pulling it out with its root, "Leithian feir mân," she repeated and dropped the hair into her blood in the cauldron. "Leithian feir mân… Leithian feir mân… Leithian feir mân… Leithian feir mân… Leithian feir mân… Leithian feir mân… Leithian feir mân."



Phoebe stepped back from the cauldron as the contents began hissing and spluttering…the colour was changing from the scarlet red of her own blood to a darker, richer shade of crimson. Her hand stretched out without her being able to influence it, and Phoebe took the cauldron off the fire, setting it down on the table. She reached for the khaki potion she had brewed with Kris Airlia and added it to her blood, repeating the incantation, " Leithian feir mân," another nine times. The liquid was now brown.



Phoebe looked at it with disinterest; she saw the colour, knew what it was, knew what it meant—and yet, felt void and without emotion. A cold, invisible hand pressed her down on a hard wooden stool while somebody warm and distinctively human had filled the Draught of Ephemera into a tall glass. Phoebe set the tumbler to her lips and closed her eyes.



She drank. Out of own violation or not, she could not say.



Her stomach was rebelling against the cold, metallic taste of her own blood. Soon her hands were clenched to tight fists, her nails digging into her flesh, piercing the barely healed wound of the dagger, as wave after wave of nausea washed over her, which she was forced to fight against time after time. By now, Phoebe was doubled over, shaking uncontrollably with tightly shut eyes, yet tears leaking out from the sides and blood running over her hands, her clothes…not that she noticed. She felt somebody—something—pulling her back into a sitting position…her intestines stopped squirming. The room was strangely out of focus, humans only visible as red smudges of heat, ghosts icy patches of blue, inanimate objects—the walls, the doors, the cauldron—green; the little rest of the Draught of Ephemera bright, blinding white.



And then, all went black.