The next two days passed in a blur of endless ink, ink-stained fingers, and high anxiety.
I spent nearly every spare hour hunkered down over my desk, cross-referencing ancient grimoires with modern anatomy charts. Realizing I was quickly reaching the limit of my own theoretical knowledge, I had asked Eloise to stop by the private quarters on Wednesday afternoon. Together, we spent hours mapping out elemental binders and testing how different lunar matrices held up when diluted in organic solutions. Eloise’s deep understanding of potion stability proved invaluable, helping me weed out three different fluid bases that would have destabilized the moment they hit stomach acid.
By the time Thursday afternoon rolled around, my notebook was crammed with refined runic diagrams, chemical balance
