“If Miss Pandora and Miss Aurora would like dessert, or perhaps—”

“No need.”

Pandora cut her off cleanly and set her napkin down on the table.

“We’re done eating. You can take us there now, yes? Aurora?”

Aurora blinked, caught up with the conversation a beat late, and hurriedly put down her utensils as she stood.

“Yes. I’m finished as well.”

Unit 039 showed no emotional reaction whatsoever. She simply turned to the side and gestured with measured courtesy.

“Then please, follow me...”

..................

The workshop was on the twenty-first floor.

The elevator didn’t stop there, so the three of them took the corridor on foot.

The heavy oak door, framed in brass, swung open—and what greeted them was nothing like the clean, orderly professional workshop one might have imagined.

Three hours ago, this place had looked more like a corner that time had simply forgotten.

Dusty glassware piled haphazardly on metal shelves. A thin layer of gray settled across every work surface. Spider webs bridging the ventilation grates. The air carrying a stale smell—old herbs and oxidized metal blended into something that hadn’t moved in a very long time.

It wasn’t part of the hotel’s standard operations, so the Live Iron Golem maintenance staff had no reason to come here. Julian wasn’t an alchemist either, and after inheriting the hotel, he’d simply sealed the room off and left it exactly as the previous owner had left it.

Three hours after Pandora arrived, however, none of that was true anymore.

Every piece of equipment stood in its proper place. Metal and glass caught the light with a clean, polished gleam. The work surfaces, the shelves, even the floor in the corners—all of it had been scrubbed down.

The stale smell was gone entirely, replaced by the faint, clean scent of herbs and something astringent.

“Well? Have the materials arrived yet?”

The slight figure at the central workbench spoke without looking up.

Her voice was calm, but it carried a particular kind of weight. The kind that cut through the soft sounds of glass on metal that had filled the room for the past hour and a half.

Unit 039 stepped forward immediately, holding a dark wooden tray.

She began arranging the potion materials—distributed across small glass vials, foil packets, and sealed containers—into their designated positions on the side table beside the workbench, with the kind of care that went slightly beyond standard protocol.

Stolen novel; please report.

The reason for that extra care was simple.

About an hour ago, Unit 039 had placed the silver-leaf fern powder and the moonshade moss in the wrong positions, and had been corrected for it. Without hesitation. Without mercy. By the small girl currently occupying the workstation.

As for Aurora, who understood very little about potions and even less about alchemy workshops—she had been quietly sidelined some time ago.

She was leaning against a cleared metal cabinet not far from the action, one hand not quite sure where to settle, the other pressed to the back of her head, an expression on her face that sat somewhere between lost and vaguely stunned. Like a first-year apprentice who’d wandered into a master’s seminar by accident and could only watch and try to remember, without truly understanding what any of it meant.

In the first few minutes after arriving, she had been curious. She’d looked around the sealed workshop with open interest, taking it all in.

After that, Pandora had simply taken over.

Aurora had watched, essentially without blinking, as My Lady moved through the space with a degree of precision and rigor that surpassed anything she’d anticipated.

She had directed several Live Iron Golem attendants—including Unit 039—with total authority. Every dusty corner that needed attention was identified and specified. The ventilation valve angles were adjusted. The scales and thermometers were recalibrated. Several of the heavy work tables and reagent racks were relocated entirely.

Aurora didn’t understand the specific reasoning behind any of it.

She just had a vague, persistent sense that the workshop wasn’t simply cleaner than it had been three hours ago.

The layout. The angles at which the lights now fell. The sequence in which the equipment was arranged. Even the direction the air moved through the space. There was something about all of it now—a quality she couldn’t quite name.

Like it had stopped being a collection of cold tools, and had become something coherent. Something that breathed. An organic whole built for the specific purpose of making potions.

Aurora shook her head and banished the overly fanciful thoughts.

She stopped trying to analyze it and brought her attention back to My Lady’s hands.

Pandora had already begun preparation for the actual brewing.

During those three hours, she hadn’t only directed the cleaning and functional reconfiguration of the lab. She had also been running through everything in her mind simultaneously—working from Aurora’s verbal description of her current complex potion regimen, cross-referenced with the physical data Pandora had gathered through direct observation and assessment of Aurora’s body.

From that, using three of the original core Second-Rank potions as a structural foundation, she had designed and derived three entirely new formulations. Tailored specifically. Aggressively individualized.

All three had been dictated to Unit 039 for the record.

Pandora didn’t carry unnecessary things on her person.

“So the materials are all here.”

Pandora’s gaze swept quickly across the organized tray, her fingertip touching each critical item in turn. A final inventory check.

“You move quickly, I’ll give you that.”

She looked up briefly, a glance directed at the silently waiting attendant.

Unit 039’s flawless service-industry smile flickered—barely perceptible, less than a full second—before it snapped back into place with a slight, mechanical stiffness.

“I'm... glad it meets your requirements.”

“Mm.”

Pandora ended the exchange there and turned back to the workbench.

Her focus locked in immediately. Her pupils reflected the waiting materials—and something in her expression suggested she was already watching their transformations play out in her mind. What they would become in flame and solvent.

The complete process for all three improved formulations had already been rehearsed in her head more times than she could count. Every step rendered in precise, sharp detail.

Temperature. Timing. Direction of agitation. Order of addition.

Burned in. Exact.

She confirmed there were no gaps. No steps she’d missed.

Then she drew a slow, quiet breath, and let it out just as slowly.

Her hands—slender, but absolutely steady—reached forward and picked up the first tool.

Potion brewing.

Beginning now.