I put the leaf down, pressing it with an empty cup.

– Sydney. Five days, even a half. “Great,” she said out loud and didn’t recognize her own voice. Oh yes. He's not mine anyway.

“Dream during your lunch break,” came a voice from the door. – You are needed in the lower laboratory. Workshop on sublimation with alchemists. “The professor walked to his desk and suddenly turned around. It seems that this was the first time he looked at me like that – directly and for an infinitely long time, and his dark eyebrow slowly crawled up. Can a person actually arch his eyebrows like that? So what's going on? Not a single muscle moved on the professor’s face, but for some reason it seemed that this was an extreme degree of amazement for him. – Since when are you interested in newspapers? And why wasn’t the main flower garden covered with snow for such an occasion? – he asked venomously. – Mrs. Trunberry suddenly went on vacation? So find another healer.

“I already found it,” I chuckled. – I’ll take this number, there’s just a suitable ad here. Do you mind? If you still need it, I'll return it tomorrow.

– Not needed. And hurry up. In fifteen minutes, even Mr. Obley should be standing at the cauldron with a set of ingredients.

This is where panic overtook me. “I’m coping”? Well, of course, I managed until I was required to do anything more complicated than sorting through mail and making changes to the schedule. I don't even know where this lower laboratory is! Not to mention Mr. Obley and his ingredients.

“Charlotte, your mother, where are you wandering? That is, you fly! WHAT SHOULD I DO?!"

The mental scream was a complete success – Charlotte appeared nearby.

– Calm down, nothing bad is happening. Come down, the lower laboratory is next to the ritual rooms, in one of which we met.

The road seemed to magically appear in my memory. A corridor, a staircase, an open gallery with marble statues, again a staircase and again a corridor, narrow and cold. A group of boys and girls appeared in front of the desired door.

– Open the storage room, tell the students to take the sublimation kits. You'll follow up. Mr. Obley, whom the professor mentioned, is an alchemist who was almost expelled from his first year. Almost expelled thanks to Dr. Norwood. He cannot stand careless treatment of his subjects. Look, he’s disheveled, in a lopsided robe.

They made way for me, but from behind someone called out in an oily voice:

– Good afternoon, Miss Blair. Nice weather today, isn't it?

“Mr. Applestone,” Charlotte explained. – Likes to flirt. Nothing serious, don't pay attention.

“If you, Mr. Applestone, want to go to the beach more than to the workshop, I don’t dare detain you,” I attached the key fob to the lock and was the first to enter the opened door.

Yeah, it's gloomy. Tables with tripods, vividly reminiscent of a school chemistry classroom. Three sinks right next to the doors. At the far end of the classroom there is a teaching table and a glass cabinet full of test tubes, flasks and some other chemical glassware, the name of which I did not know. Nearby is a door with a sign “Storage No. 4”. And cold. The students were in no hurry to plunge into this atmosphere, and I turned around and slightly raised my voice:

– What are we standing there, who are we waiting for? Let's go in. You have a workshop on sublimation. You know where to get everything you need.

She leaned against the teacher's table, watching the lazy swarming of the students. They didn’t pay any attention to me: they joked, discussed yesterday’s party and tomorrow’s football match between alchemists and healers, wondering whether “this beast Norwood” would give a test or immediately start with the “lab”. Only Applestone glanced sideways and, for some reason, winked as he walked towards “Vault No. 4.” His flirtations are strange. I wonder to what extent Charlotte encouraged them?