Legacy to Zero

21: One Predicted Leap Backward, One Small Step Forward

Lars

The scent of coffee flowed around me, along with the steady whirl of the machines. Closer to the corner, I sat at my usual table in the alcove of Midnight Moon, near a salt lamp that made a backsplash of orange against the floor.

Not two minutes afterward, Patch and Skyla crashed through the door. From behind my laptop screen, I grinned at the two of them and waved them over. Patch lifted her eyebrows in reply as she helped Skyla carry what looked like half a dozen vials of essence.

The handkerchief around Patch's wrist doubled as an extra surface for the four teacups balanced across them. And which she was trying not to disturb on her way to me.

I stuck a hand out, already on my feet. Balancing the cups on my arm, I set them on the table. Close behind me, Skyla dumped the vials of essence from her grasp.

"The café has got cups you could use, you know," I said.

"These are the ones I'm confident with." Skyla stood with her hands braced against the table; the little gulp accompanied by the word confident told me otherwise. "And anyway, I don't want either of you touching the drinks."

Patch threw herself into the chair opposite mine. "It's the scientific method. Can't mess with the experiments."

"Well, yes. This one has the same outcome every time, apparently," I replied.

Skyla glanced between the two of us. "There's no way this is going to work the way you think it is."

"I don't think it's going to prove anything." Shutting my laptop screen, I slotted it back into my bag to make more space for Skyla.

No matter what she told me, I wasn't going to question her. Wouldn't do it for influence magic. It worked in any cup, with any type of vial and in any food or drink, but just like Harlow had told me, some sorcerers had a method, an almost spiritual procedure of sorts, that made it their own. Like an art style, every type of influence was marked by the families that it had come from, the generations through which the secrets to the craft had been passed down.

"Me neither!" Patch said. "I'm just the witness. I'm not saying I think she's innocent either, but the poisoning thing? Total shit."

Skyla arched a brow. She uncapped the vial and added a few drops more than necessary to two of the cups, then pushed them toward me.

I wasn't on shift, but I took them regardless, ordering four coffees, if only because they were the easiest drink to make. With a plink, I set them down.

"So," Skyla started, pointing to the first cup in the lineup, "here's my plan. Two of those right now are normal coffee. The other two have my influence. Felicity said I have to do this right, so—"

"Scientific research," Patch said.

I really needed to revert to her real name. It wasn't innate—when I met her, and even now, I couldn't think of her as anything but Patch. But I wouldn't want her calling me Wilder while out of the suit, either, even if my identity was semi-public.

"Exactly," Skyla continued. "I brought this too." She unclamped the button of her jean jacket pocket. Two small satchels sat in her palm, filled with bright green leaves. The way she placed it immediately on the teacup saucer, and the way its see-through fabric was perfectly upright, it struck me that she almost didn't want to hold it. "For the amount of time and explaining it took me to get this, it had better be worth it."