Quinlan stepped into the lamplight. "I need a brew that has never been brewed. The recipe doesn't exist, and it might not be possible at all. I just have a hunch."
"A hunch, you say," Gideon spoke up, adjusting his monocle. He was already as invested as can be.
"What's the base?" Naomi asked.
Quinlan raised his hand. Wind gathered at his fingertip, thinned to an edge no eye could follow, and opened a clean line across his own palm.
Blood welled up, catching the lamplight.
It was a shade of crimson that had no business in a living body, deep and dark, somehow heavier than the light falling on it. Every alchemical instinct in the room leaned toward it at once, the way compass needles lean north.
"My blood."
Nobody spoke. Somewhere on the bench, a burner hissed softly under a cauldron.
Gideon's voice had gone reverent and clipped at once. "A brew from primordial blood. Purpose?"
