When her fingers could hold the pen again, she made a list of sub-points with all the things she needed to do to prepare for the possibility of a fight or flight situation. This list was even longer than her original list of problems, but at least each point was something she could accomplish. Tentatively, she marked which items were the most critical, knowing there would be more to come and that no matter how much she might wish it, she couldn’t do everything at once.

Next, she considered the blood sample the coppers had. Eagle Tower was in the process of being repaired, and unless the coppers had lost her blood, or it was damaged in the explosion, which she couldn’t count on, they would be trying again. The next time, Tanya’s little trick wouldn’t work.

She’d considered the problem before and had a few different ideas about how she could get rid of the blood. Most of them were unfeasible, requiring either a very powerful thaumaturge, or a group of them, to channel enough power. The coppers weren’t entirely incompetent. Evidence was well-protected. ‘Liza offered to solve the problem for eight hundred gold crowns. Is there any way I could afford to hire her?’ Looking at the next point on her list of problems, which was her overwhelming debt, Sebastien set that idea aside.

Her best bet was still working out how to combine the reverse-scry spell with a curse, which meant she would need to research and practice sympathetic curses.

This extracurricular project was one she wouldn’t be requesting Professor Lacer’s help on. He might be willing to overlook something like the sleep-proxy spell, and maybe even research into curses, but he was too sharp for Sebastien to give him any hints about her identity. That could end up going very badly for her.

However, maybe Liza would be willing to consult for a much-reduced price, with some wheedling or extra incentive. Of Sebastien’s contacts, Liza was the most knowledgeable about divination, and maybe could suggest some better ideas about how to handle the situation. If Sebastien could afford it.

Which brought Sebastien to her next issue. Funds.

Beyond her debt to the Verdant Stag, it seemed like all other types of problems were easiest to solve when one had coin to throw at them. It reminded her of a joke she’d heard once: “If a fireball spell can’t solve your problem, you need a bigger fireball.” With enough gold, Sebastien could make other problems into money problems. She could hire competent help or bribe important people to do what she wanted. Of course, that level of wealth was well beyond her reach. Sebastien was now at the point that an entire weekend spent brewing for the Stags until she reached exhaustion would cover about two weeks of interest, plus a little left over. That was huge, compared to where she’d started.

She thought back to the concoctions she’d seen in the Verdant Stag’s little apothecary. She had taken no particular note of the prices, but her mind was a steel trap. She closed her eyes, trying to recreate her experience as she walked through the shelves. Even after a couple of minutes of effort, however, the details wouldn’t come to the clarity she was used to. ‘Perhaps my memory was impaired by how fatigued I was at the time.’

Still, she had the initial list Katerin had given her of what concoctions they were willing to buy, and a good idea of what the shop’s new offerings cost. Many of those she had no experience with. She chose a couple for their usefulness to her, some for the practice they would give with a particular type of magic, and some for their effect. All-purpose battle magic, like potions of night vision, feather-fall, and fleetfoot, would pay well, and she wanted at least one or two of each to keep for herself anyway. If she could conceal herself, see where the coppers couldn’t, and move where they could not follow, she would have a significant advantage.

With more estimation than she would have liked, she calculated what other items would get her the best return on investment for her time and effort. Impotence relief potions, for instance, were very lucrative, but she discarded that option because they were best brewed by a man—a man in a full state of arousal. She technically might have been able to meet that requirement, but she wasn’t interested in doing so in Oliver’s office, not for any amount of coin.

If she were to work as an alchemist for the Verdant Stag full time, producing a reasonable amount every weekday instead of pushing herself to exhaustion, she could earn about one thousand seven hundred gold a year, significantly more than the average Apprentice’s wages, and more than enough to pay off her debt. With their expanded client base, they could probably move sufficient product to make it possible.

Sebastien stared at that number on the paper before her, reconsidering her conception of the Stags’ generosity. They could have, fairly, offered her much less. Of course, it helped that they didn’t pay the thirty percent magic tax, they had no Master thaumaturge trying to get rich off the backs of their lessers, and they didn’t spend extra money on a fancy storefront, decoration, or any marketing besides word-of-mouth referrals. Even their potion vials were the cheapest versions.

Still. A low-wage laborer might earn about five silver per day, or one hundred thirty gold per year, skewing slightly higher for men and lower for women. In many common families, everyone contributed what they could, even the elderly and children. A huge chunk of a low-income family’s wages would go toward basic food and lodging, with the rest going toward clothing and healthcare. Taxes took what little might be leftover. One emergency could leave the poorest families homeless, or someone dead for lack of healthcare, because so many lived forever on the knife-edge of poverty.

In contrast, an Apprentice-certified thaumaturge, even though they could only legally practice magic under the supervision of a Master or for their own personal use, not sell items or services directly to others, could make up to forty gold a month. Almost four times as much as a low-wage laborer. It was enough to support a family, frugally, and if they budgeted well, they might even have enough left over to save for emergencies.

But despite the generous sum Sebastien made from alchemy, she only had ten weeks before the next term started, when she would need to pay for more classes. She had slightly over fifty gold to her name, if she didn’t count the dozen coins sewn into her clothing, which she wouldn’t, because that was hidden away for exactly the kind of emergency she was trying to be better prepared for.

‘If I spent every weekend until next term brewing, and then the whole of Sowing Break, and didn’t put any of the earnings toward the loan, I could maybe eke out three hundred extra gold. Altogether, I could barely afford the fee for six classes. Realistically, with my other expenses, that’s five classes, not six.’ The thought pained her, but dropping a class wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to her. She could learn a lot through self-study in the library, after all. And at the moment, the extra free time sounded heavenly.

Still, unless she dropped a class, she would have zero coin left over for any other endeavors, including her new preparations. It also left her no time for taking a break. Alchemy alone wouldn’t be enough.

Even if Sebastien had cared only about coin, dropping out of the University to spend all her time brewing wasn’t an option. The Verdant Stag had given her that loan as an investment, and they were expecting greater things from her than low-level alchemy. Beyond the knowledge and skill the University could impart to her, the access to higher-level magic would become invaluable.

A thaumaturge needed variety and new magic to grow. Simply increasing the power channeled through the spells they were already familiar with was insufficient. Even if she could brew a batch of twenty, fifty, or even a hundred regeneration potions, eventually the homogeny would lead to stagnation of her Will’s growth. Thaumaturges who became Archmages moved on from simple spells to complex ones that bent the world in new and interesting ways, their skills constantly building upon the foundation they created until they reached heights of understanding and skill that the average professional thaumaturge couldn’t even imagine. There were no Archmages who were only alchemists, or only diviners, or only skilled with any single craft of magic.

Sebastien was willing to take requests from the Stag for other favors, as long as they were lucrative and relatively safe, but she couldn’t control if or when they would have work for her, or what kind of work it would be.

Tutoring was another option, but it was high-effort and low-reward, unless she could somehow fill up an entire classroom with people willing to pay multiple silvers each for a single lecture. Sebastien simply didn’t know anything people would pay that much to learn. Nothing legal, anyway. And imagining a gaggle of gossiping, intrusive classmates showing up with the idea that they could ask personal questions of her made her shudder.