Divah wasn't exactly what I would call a fairy godmother, but my master functioned in pretty much the same way. And yes, fairy godmothers were a real thing, although they didn't dress in sparkly white dresses or turned pumpkins into carriages. From what Divah had told me before, back when she thought scaring me with tales of the realmsverse's shadier side would make me less cheeky—didn't work by the way—a fairy godmother was equivalent to an amiable loan shark who didn't mind waiting a hundred years for someone to pay their debt as long as they paid that debt in full.
"There aren't a lot of rich fairies on Seelie unless you're family's part of the court. My mum and pa work at the local dust factory and most of what they earned went to feeding my thirteen other siblings," Dess explained.
"Um, that's a lot of siblings to have."
"Fourteen's pretty small for a fairy family. We're encouraged to procreate with as many partners as possible."
"S-seriously?"
Dess giggled at how wide my eyes had gotten which I admit was kind of a naïve reaction for someone who wanted to boldly go where no one had ever gone before.
"We only get one life-mate to officially spend our lives with, but the Seelie Court is a polyamorous society. Fairy love has always been free and unfettered, but"—Dess's face darkened suddenly—"now we have a bigger reason than love to grow our numbers quickly…"
"Your war with Unseelie," I guessed.
Dess nodded.
I wanted to ask Dess about their thousand-year war with the dark fairies well, but our conversation was interrupted by the stench of a rotting corpse, and I looked up to find that Faustus had arrived at our table to inspect our work.
A quick inspection of Dess's potion and Faustus nodded appreciatively. "I don't recall you ever making a potion quite this good, um, what was your—"
"Dess," she chirped. "I've been practicing my skills, doc."
It wasn't exactly a lie. She did practice—with my help, of course.
"Well done, Desdemona. We'll make an alchemist of you yet." Faustus moved from Dess's potion to mine, which was when he let out a sharp intake of breath. "Ho-ho, this is a much stronger potion than what I've asked you to make, um, Mr…?"
"Will, sir," I answered.
"Well done, William," he eyed me curiously. As if he was truly seeing me for the first time. "Well done indeed."
The chime of a notification reached my ears. It had come from the status bar Dess was pointing at my potion.
Eagle Eye, the appraisal app installed on her status bar, managed to analyze my potion and named it a [Normal-Grade Amethyst Health and Rejuvenation Potion].
"Whoa, two benefits in one potion?" Dess's eyes widened. "That's—"
"Impossible," Scaredy Cat finished her thought.
He and a bunch of other novices were now crowding behind us.
"Meh, it's okay," the redheaded dwarf girl chimed in. "I can make a potion that both heals and increase a person's regeneration rate as well given more time."
I could feel their envious stares burning my back just as something crazy happened in front of me.
"Doc, don't!" Dess yelled in alarm, but she was too late.
Faustus had already tipped the contents of my potion into his lips, and anyone with a brain knew that was bad because things that heal living people were poison to the undead. This was true enough even for the gentle draugr.
The ghostly flames leaking out of his eye sockets grew in intensity while Faustus doubled over our lab table and coughed his guts out—literally. Rotten innards sprayed across the table, forcing Dess and me to jump out of their way.
"Eugh!" someone yelled, while another person screamed, "He's dying!"
Our class looked on in shock as the doc's spasms continued. It was all we could do as no one seemed crazy enough to come near a wounded draugr while unarmed.
"Should we call for help?" Dess asked. To which Bjorn the Viking replied, "Too late."
Faustus slumped to the floor, and he didn't get back up again.
"I think you killed him, Will," Dess whispered.
"Um…" Frigid Hel. Even I was at a loss for words. "…I didn't mean to."
Seconds ticked by while we waited, but the doctor lay unmoving, and the atmosphere of the class got heavier and heavier until at last the silence was broken by a scream.
"Someone call for a master!" the cloud nymph from the library yelled. Her friend, the dark-skinned satyr, replied, "We can't, Tessa. We might all get blamed for killing—"
The old draugr twitched, causing a collective sharp intake of breath among the watchers.
"Vargr!" Bjorn the Viking cursed. "He's still alive!"
Like a marionette whose strings were pulled upward, Faustus's body jerked to his feet with twitching arms and legs.
"Whoa," Dess whistled.
She was the only one who hadn't backed away from Faustus after his head twitched in our direction. The ghostly flames in his eye sockets were barely lit and he was groaning as a typical walking dead might do in front of food.
"Dess…" I reached for her wrist and began pulling the fairy into the safety of the crowd. "Let's stay out of the biting range for now."
He must have heard me because Faustus's gaze snapped in my direction, and that's when the light of his eyes finally came back.
"That was"—Faustus cracked his neck—"fantastic!"
I frowned. "It was?"
"My sinuses haven't been this clear in a decade," he insisted, which was when he noticed that we were all gazing at him with wide-eyed stares. "What's gotten into you lot?"
"Doc," Dess called, "are you okay?"
"I'm better than okay, Desdemona. I feel more alive than I've felt in a while," Faustus answered.
"You remember my name?" Dess noticed.
"Of course, I do. I remember all my students' names," he said indignantly.
"No, you don't," Tessa the cloud nymph chimed in.
"Why wouldn't I—"
His frown was quickly replaced with understanding once he noticed the empty flask lying on its side on our table.
"Ah, yes-yes, now I see. It seems I've been forgetting to take my medicine." Faustus picked up the empty glass and raised it to our eye level. "It's time for another lesson, children."
Faustus explained that healing potions hurt the undead because they functioned exactly as they would for a living person. Potions healed an undead being's body and temporarily weakened the necromantic power that gave them life.
"But if you're body's healing temporarily, then your brain's also less rotten," I deduced.
"Hurts like you wouldn't believe," he admitted. "However, a good health potion helps to clear the mind and curbs my natural urge to suck you all dry until you're naught but skin and bone."
Cue the mad cackling that made all of us take another step away from Faustus.
"So, um, you have to take health potions regularly to keep teaching us, sir?" Scaredy Cat asked.
"And if you don't, then you'll go back to being just a regular draugr?" Tessa confirmed.
"Yes, that would be a very simplified understanding of my current condition," Faustus answered.
"Doc…" Dess asked the question that was in all our minds. "You've been super forgetful lately… just how long has it been since you last took your medicine?"
A smile more mischievous than any he'd shown so far flashed on his ghoulish face. "To be honest, Desdemona. I don't know. It must have slipped my mind."
Faustus began to gather up the innards he'd puked out and began stuffing them into the pockets of his coat. On that disgusting note, the bell finally rang.
As we filed out of the lab, Faustus made sure to collect our potions, which he jokingly claimed would keep him from eating us the next time we came to class. Just before I left, however, he pulled me aside so he could ask me a strange question. "Have you ever danced with the devil under the pale moonlight, William?"
"Uh, is that a metaphor or something?" I asked.
"Oh, well, it's fine if you don't understand it now." Faustus patted my arm like a dotting grandfather might, but creepier. Much, much creepier. "If you continue to show merits, then you'll eventually find your way to the truth."
With that, he shoved me out the door.
"Memento Mori, William," Faustus added just before the lab door shut on him.
Something about that last phrase grated on my mind as I followed after Dess and the others. It was only later, once we arrived outside the front doors of Skelmir Longhouse when I realized where I'd heard 'Memento Mori' before. It was the last phrase to reach my ears right before the head cultist drove her sacrificial knife into my heart and killed me for the first time.