the clear authorities of the challenge—and the surrounding horde mimicked their every move, fighting over the dwindling ingredients. Across the laboratory, the Poet still fumbled for a frog, barely functioning with one working eye. Abandoning his tongs, he snatched a frog up with his bare hands only to drop it to the floor.
“It burns!”
Red bulbous blisters formed along the Poet’s palms, and his one good eye welled with tears. He wiped his eye with his seared hands, then dropped to his knees.
“My eye! It’s burning my eye!”
Concentrate. Tobias turned to his work, staring with half-opened eyes as his headless frog drained its final, putrid drop. With a shallow breath, he tossed his tongs aside and gripped the table’s edge, struggling to support the weight of his body. He tried to think of the next step, but it was useless; he was consumed by his shallow panting, by the metallic, salty taste of blood and sweat on his lips. Another wave of nausea rolled through him, and he hunched over, fighting against the turmoil of his rapidly fading body.
Hands grabbed his shoulders and hoisted him upright. A man stood in front of him, but Tobias could only make out a cloud of black hair and copper skin.
“Artist,” Flynn said.
Tobias didn’t respond, his body loose in Flynn’s grasp. Flynn shook him, then cupped his cheeks, and when that didn’t work, he slapped Tobias across the face.
“Tobias, what do you need?”
Tobias sucked in a gasping breath. “Ox piss.”
Flynn shouted down the line of men, “Raphael! We need piss!”
The Intellect turned toward him. “Piss?”
“Piss! Get the man some piss!”
The Intellect scanned the shelves and plucked a yellow vial from its rack, passing it off to the Hunter, who passed it to someone else. Tobias tracked the vial’s journey, losing it within the mob until a sinewy man appeared before him—a Beast he didn’t recognize with a sweaty bald head, and in his hand was a vial.
“Your piss,” he said.
Thank you. Tobias opened his mouth to say the words, but instead vomit gushed from his throat and spilled onto the man’s feet.
Goddammit.
The Beast’s nostrils flared, and Tobias feebly took the vial, turning to his workstation.
Breathe. Tobias dumped the vial into his drinking bowl and exhaled; the antidote was nearly complete, and for the first time he allowed himself to feel hopeful. With conviction, he grabbed his pot of boiled starflower and strained the water into his drinking bowl, barely reacting when the heat seared his fingers.
Where’s Flynn? Tobias glanced across the room, searching for the Lord amid the chaos. Some of the men sat beside the walls, finished with the challenge, while others still scrambled. The Poet was in a ball on the floor clutching his eyes—“I can’t see! I can’t fucking see!”—and Caesar tottered past Tobias, stopping to projectile vomit all over the wall.
“If you’re still struggling to prepare your antidote, know that you haven’t much time,” Diccus said. “You’re most likely nearing the last phase of the poison. If you feel yourself shaking, well…I fear the end is near.”
Tobias clenched his trembling palms. Flynn emerged within the crowd, his eyes clamped shut as he dry-heaved, and Tobias stumbled toward him.
“Flynn.” He cupped his face, his fingers wet with the man’s blood. “Flynn, can you hear me?”
Flynn’s eyes fluttered open. “The last ingredient. What is it? Do you know?”
Tobias thought back to the demonstration—to the star-shaped flowers, the headless frog, the wine. He cringed; it was so hard to think of anything but his own sickness. Once more, the demonstration played out before him: the yellow frogs, the cloudy piss, and the stream of blue paint pouring into the drinking bowl.
Blue paint.
“The elixir,” Tobias said. “It’s the elixir.”
The shelves were a mess—most ingredients sat in loose piles or colorful puddles—but a nearly empty rack stood at the far end of the wall.
A rack that held two blue vials.
Tobias bolted across the room. This was it—the final ingredient was in sight. He snatched up the two vials and raced back to his workstation, his heart pounding in his ears, fueling his resolve. Staggering to a halt, he shoved one of the vials into Flynn’s grasp, then turned to his own drinking bowl, the very last vial of elixir in hand.
Until it wasn’t. A meaty fist yanked the vial away, and Tobias spun around to find Drake behind him. Without a word, Drake smashed the vial, and the life-saving elixir poured between his fingers.
Tobias froze, paralyzed. Just like that, all hope was lost. Flynn gaped at