Eldin blinked her dark eyes.
She stood frozen.
According to the script she had imagined for a moment like this,
a poor boy like Evan, approached by a wealthy young lady of her standing who had even offered him her hand,
should have been overwhelmed with respect and excitement, scrambling to say a few more words and leave her with a good impression.
So why had he just... walked away?
To haul sacks?
Was hauling sacks more appealing than she was?
Behind her, Helen, the girl who was still sniffling, looked up and stared in surprise at Evan's retreating back.
Evan did not look back.
He headed straight for Lane and John at the edge of the Sports Ground, their eyes full of envy and regret.
"It's almost dark. If we don't leave now, we'll miss the streetcar."
Lane stared hard at Evan and lowered his voice, speaking with something close to reverence.
"That was Miss Hurst! From one of Britain's great noble families!"
"Do you know how many middle-class students have brought her flowers, fawned over her, and written her love poems without even getting close?"
"My God! What did you say to her? Hauling sacks? You... you completely ruined your precious chance to talk to her!"
John hurried to pile on.
"She rides to and from school in a car every day! Do you even know what a car is?"
Evan shrugged, his tone flat.
"No."
John stamped his foot in frustration.
"The kind the car magnate Durant rides in!"
Evan curled his lip.
"I only know the kind Chennault rides in."
"Who's Chennault?" John froze.
Evan slung on his schoolbag without answering.
"School's out, brothers. Time to go home."
With the others sighing behind him about how he had let such a chance slip away, he quickly left the Sports Ground.
He could not afford to linger.
School security had already carried Gilbert away. Sooner or later, they would discover that he was missing three bottles of medicine.
Evan, who had just heroically saved him, would be near the top of their search list.
His stomach was the safest place to hide the medicine.
The other poor boys who remained on the Sports Ground still wanted to go over and make themselves known to Eldin.
Unfortunately, Eldin had already turned away and was walking toward the Teaching Building with her arm linked through Helen's.
Her straight-backed silhouette looked especially aloof in the sunset.
"Man, that Arkham kid really let his chance slip away."
Several students sighed, already imagining themselves in Evan's place.
If they had been standing there, they would surely be chatting and laughing with Miss Hurst by now, exchanging addresses.
Evan took out a five-cent coin and squeezed onto a clanging tram.
By the time he returned to Gooding Street, it was half past six, and the sky was completely dark.
Streetlamps lit up one after another, washing the road in a warm amber glow.
Evan went upstairs, unlocked his door, stepped inside, and locked it behind him.
The apartment was so quiet he could hear himself breathe.
He went into the bedroom, sat at the desk, and lined up everything he had acquired that day.
Five bottles from Pulis. Three taken from Gilbert.
Eight bottles in all.
Evan studied the eight little glass bottles for a few seconds, then decided to smell them first.
After all, he had the Power of the Nine Dragons. At present, his panel showed only two dragons—the Demon Hunter Characteristic and the Copper Plague.
A few more dragons would not matter.
Every Magic Potion he digested would teach him a little more about this world's Beyonder system.
He compared the bottles carefully and found that the three he had taken from Gilbert all contained the same medicine. The bottles were identical, so they were probably a three-day supply.
Evan picked up one of them and pushed off its wax seal with his thumb.
A sharp, pungent smell immediately burst out.
He instinctively recoiled, his eyes stinging.
"What the hell is this? Chili water?"
As his nose caught the scent, that familiar whisper sounded in his mind again.
This time, it brought a different piece of strange, precise knowledge.
"Night Sound Pepper. A Magic Potion ingredient.
It grows mainly in damp rock crevices near Bloodthirsty Species nests. Its roots absorb the waste those creatures excrete as nourishment.
It has a powerful hemolytic effect. When ingested, it temporarily heightens the sense of smell and increases muscle strength."
"Made with magical chili peppers?"
Evan muttered to himself.
He weighed the risk.
The Power of the Nine Dragons could reverse side effects. In theory, there was nothing he could not try.
He tipped back his head and swallowed the little bottle of pungent liquid in one gulp.
Scorching heat burned down his throat and into his stomach.
In an instant, it felt as though someone had stuffed his entire body into a red-hot copper furnace.
[You consumed an Incomplete Blood-Burning Potion. Duration: 5 hours.] [Effects: Physique permanently +0.2; while active, healing ability decreased by 300%, Blood Quality decreased by 50%.] [Reverse the Side Effect?]
The next second, Evan's face changed.
He felt like a ball with its valve punctured, all the strength draining out of him.
His Physique stat was still there, but he could clearly feel some quality deep inside his body rapidly collapsing.
His skin began to ache faintly, as if it were rotting from within.
Worse, his breathing grew rapid, and that long-forgotten ringing in his ears and dizziness returned.
The symptoms were almost exactly the same as when he had suffered from severe anemia.
"Bro."
Evan collapsed into his chair, bracing both hands on the desk.
"I'll never take random medicine again."
On the verge of tears, he stared at the two remaining Blood-Burning Potions on the desk.
"You rotten potion!"
Only then did Evan realize he had underestimated just how bizarre this world's Magic Potions could be.
At least the ones Pulis gave him had pretended to be "health tonics," and their positive effects lived up to their names.
But this thing...
"The reversal option is still there!"
"That means... reducing healing ability and Blood Quality are this potion's positive effects, not its side effects."
"Damn it."
He propped his forehead on one hand, his temples throbbing.
"What kind of legitimate medicine has reduced healing and Blood Quality as its positive effects..."
Halfway through the thought, Evan's pupils contracted sharply.
"Wait."
"Blood-Burning Potion. Reduced healing. Reduced Blood Quality."
The thoughts that had been scattered moments ago suddenly snapped into a clear line.
He raised his head and stared at the two remaining Blood-Burning Potions on the desk.
The blood-red liquid swayed gently inside the glass bottles, like little lengths of vein filled with blood.
"Was this... a Magic Potion developed specifically to counter the Bloodthirsty Species?"
At the thought, Evan's eyes lit up.
"Looks like Byron and Pulis aren't on the same side."
He stared at the two bottles of red liquid left on the desk, his breathing quickening.
"This is a good opportunity."
"Reverse!"
[Reversal Progress: 5 hours.]
"Good thing it's an incomplete version. It won't last too long."
"But hauling sacks tonight is out of the question. I'll eat first, then read for a while."
Evan pushed himself up from the desk, his calves weak.
He went into the cramped kitchen, scooped a few lumps of coal from the iron bucket in the corner, and tossed them into the stove.
The orange-red coals gradually burned steady, casting a warm glow over the smoke-blackened kitchen tiles.
None of the apartments on Gooding Street had gas service.
Every household had to buy coal to cook and boil water.
A bag of ordinary bituminous coal cost twelve cents and lasted five or six days.
Evan took the leftovers he had brought back from the cafeteria—Pulis's meal—out of a biscuit tin, turned them onto an enamel plate, and set it on the iron rack above the stove to warm.
The fried fish sizzled softly in the heat. The butter on the vegetables melted again and soaked into the bread crumbs.
He watched the flames dance inside the stove and sighed.
"Almost out of coal again. More money to spend."
In the past few days, he had paid a dollar eighty in monthly property tax, fifty cents for water, a dollar for kerosene, and eighty cents altogether for a notebook and ink. The odds and ends added up to several more dollars.
Even counting the money he had earned testing medicine and hauling sacks these past few days, plus the eleven dollars he had found at the bottom of Mary's trunk,
everything he had left amounted to six dollars and forty-one cents.