Chương 1

Hogarth scrambled like mad, stuffing anything and everything he could reach into a bag that never seemed to get any fuller, and indeed didn't seem to mind when he shoved an entire chair into it, despite not being nearly big enough to hold said chair.

"I can't believe I forgot to pack! The portal is going to form in ten minutes! Midnight! Where did I put my hat? You know, the one with the stars on it." Lemon watched from the doorway, her head going back and forth as she followed her master's progress. Master Hogarth was an endless source of entertainment with his whacky antics and scatterbrained approach to wizardry. His one true love was the art of alchemy, which regularly resulted in explosions of all kinds, and which Lemon didn't much mind.

Hogarth's familiar, a snooty black cat named Midnight, wanted nothing to do with his alchemical mishaps, which meant Lemon got to be Chief Research Assistant whenever Hogarth was working on a new potion.

"You already packed it five minutes ago," Midnight informed the flustered wizard.

"Right, right! Of course I did. How silly of me. Okay, what else do we need? Of course! To the lab! It would be pointless to attend the conference without the alchemy!" Lemon scrambled to get out of the way as her master dashed across the room and down the hall. Dutifully, she trotted after him, then paused to wince when she heard something crashing to the floor inside their lab. It sounded expensive and fragile.

Hogarth's dismayed wail came through the open door seconds after the crash, which pretty much confirmed her suspicions.

"Oh drat and bother," he cried.

"I don't have time to clean this up now. Lemon, where are you? Oh! Good. Be a dear and take care of this for me, will you?"

"Don't worry. I'll handle it," she said, her voice coming from the magical charm hanging off her collar. It was shaped like a musical note, and had been specifically enchanted to allow her to communicate. The charm next to it, shaped like a human hand complete with those nifty opposable thumbs they had, allowed her to use a spell Master Hogarth called Wizard's Hand to lift things up without touching them. It was very, very useful for her work as his assistant, perhaps her most important charm.

Incidentally, it was also very, very useful for her work pilfering sausages from the pantry, which was arguably even more important than her work in the lab, regardless of what Midnight had to say about the matter. That dumb cat was too lazy to fend for herself like Lemon did anyway. Lemon dutifully started cleaning up the shards of broken glass. They rose into the air, a handful at a time, and floated over to a large garbage bin kept in the corner for just such a purpose.

Thankfully, they were empty vials and she wouldn't have to execute the potion purging protocol. She needed Master Hogarth's help for that, and he was busy sweeping supplies off the shelves and into his bag with his whole arm.

"Do you really need all of that?" she asked, curious what he was going to use it for.

"I have no idea," he told her honestly.

"At this point, I'm just grabbing everything. Once I get settled in, I'll sort it out. Oh, have you seen the murkberry extract? The jar was missing."

"Over there on the bench by the window," she told him, nodding her head towards the blue jar. That she knew it was blue was the work of another one of the charms dangling off her collar. It was a pair of spectacles, and it granted her the ability to see all the colors humans did, which was one of her favorite things. Humans had so many pretty colors that they got to see all the time!

After the third time she'd accidentally ruined a potion because she couldn't tell what shade it was, Hogarth had made her the charm and personally affixed it to her collar for her. He'd told her quite severely that she had no more excuses to screw that up, and he'd been right. Ever since getting her spectacles, Lemon had been able to tell exactly when the potion turned the right color so that it could be removed from the heat.

"Ah! Of course, I forgot we were working on those tinctures last night. Can you deliver them to the village after they've finished setting? I promised Mardin I'd have them done today."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it," Lemon promised.

"The portal is opening!" Midnight called from down the hall.

"Oh no! I have to go. No more time left. Thank you, Lemon. I'll be back in four days! Mind the place for me until then!" Then her master dashed out of the room, nearly tripping over a small stirring pot that had fallen over when he'd knocked the empty vial rack off the table. He righted himself quickly and ran off down the hall, calling for Midnight to join him as he went.

Lemon made it out of the lab just in time to see her master, cat perched on his shoulder, walking into a big circle of light in the middle of his office. Then the light was gone, and Lemon was alone. She huffed out a great big doggy sigh and went to go clean things up. Hogarth had torn through three different rooms like a hurricane, stripping them of anything and everything he thought would be even remotely useful, and leaving what was left behind in total disarray.

Lemon straightened everything up, a charm on her collar shaped like a music box playing a lively tune for her while she worked. That one was her favorite. It had more songs than she could count stored in it. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She finished the bedroom, which would have involved a great deal of rehanging his clothes back up in his wardrobe, something that was very time consuming since he'd taken a random assortment of clothing from various outfits, leaving behind the odd pair of trousers or shirt, but which she couldn't actually do because he'd accidentally broken the rod that held the hangers in his haste.

Repairing that was beyond Lemon's abilities, so she settled on laying the outfits out across his bed (after making the bed itself, something Hogarth never felt the need to do, but always appreciated when Lemon did it for him). He could repair the damaged wardrobe with magic when he got back, and the clothes would be fine laid out on the bed in the meantime.

Lemon roamed the tower, righting upturned chairs, rehanging paintings that had been knocked off their hooks, licking the plates from breakfast clean and then depositing them in the sink to be washed later, and finally making her way back to the lab to finish cleaning it up. The wood frame holding the empty potion vials had also shattered when it hit the floor, but that couldn't be mixed with the glass, which was going to be recycled into new vials.

Lemon got out a broom and dustpan to clean up the rest of the mess, dumped that into the regular garbage, and set about straightening up what little was left of the supply cupboard after her master's thorough ransacking of it. She was mostly just killing time until the magical clock said the tinctures had finished settling so she could deliver them, which should happen soon. Probably. She wasn't very good at telling time.

The arms moved in every direction and different speeds and pointed at the numbers that Midnight made fun of her for not being able to read. But when all the hands pointed straight up, that meant it was ready. Hogarth had been very clear on that, not to touch the tinctures until then. They had to sit exactly as they were, no cap or anything, until then. So she kept herself busy cleaning, then used her dog bed charm to summon forth an extremely comfortable cushion to take a nap on.

When she woke back up, the clock hands had circled all the way around again and were just past the top. That either meant it was already ready or it was just about ready, she wasn't sure which. It was probably fine either way. Lemon carefully stoppered all three vials, then pulled them off the curing rack. She floated the rack over to the shelf to put it away, and that's when she saw it. Master Hogarth's newest invention, the Potion of Unlimited Invincibility, was sitting in its own rack inside the cupboard.

He'd put the rack away without removing his potion, then left for the conference to show it off! She chuffed out a sigh and removed the potion from its rack. Without this, there was no point in him even going. It was the only thing that mattered, so of course he'd forgotten it in his rush to pack everything up. Lemon carefully placed the potion and all three tinctures on a rack and paced around in a circle while she thought.

The portal spell was too expensive for it to be casually cast again so he could come back for it, even if he realized it was missing. Considering how much stuff he'd packed, it could be days before he noticed that he'd forgotten the potion. Normally, Lemon would just take it to him, but the conference was far away. She wasn't sure exactly how far, but far enough that Hogarth had opted to spend the extra money to portal there instead of walking.

There was a map hanging up on the wall in his bedroom that had the location; she'd just go check that. It was framed inside a big wooden thing and covered with glass, so heavy that Lemon pushed Wizard's Hand to its limits pulling it down so she could see it. It took her a few moments to find her home on the outskirts of Wilbourghy, and then another minute to trace the roads all the way to a city near the west coast called Kapsulon. It didn't seem that far on the map.

Now that she saw it, Lemon bet she knew who the real culprit was. Obviously it was Midnight who'd complained about the 'long' journey, and since Hogarth spoiled her rotten, he'd paid for the portal service. That sounded exactly like something that snooty cat would bully him into doing. Well, there was only one thing to do. She would just have to bring him his potion. Lemon removed the map from its frame, rolled it up, and carried it to her room. If she was going on a trip, she'd need to pack appropriately for it.

The first thing she needed to do was switch out which charms she had hanging off her collar. Right now, her selection was voice, hand, music box, bed, and spectacles. If she was going on a long, long walk, she needed her leash charm. It let her walk faster and longer and protected her paws from sharp stones. She was also going to need her messenger bag charm in order to make sure the potion was still intact when she got there.

There were a few other ones hanging from their posts in her charm case that she considered taking. The levitation feather might be useful, though it was by far the hardest charm for her to use. She probably didn't need her nose guard, but then again, it was alchemy-related stuff, and Hogarth always said to wear it when doing alchemy-related stuff. This didn't really count, to Lemon's way of thinking, but she decided to pack it anyway.

She swapped her music box and doggy bed out for her leash and messenger bag, and then put the levitation feather, alchemy mask, and her writing pen charms inside the extradimensional space her bag manifested. As much as she wanted her digging claws and toybox (those were two of her favorite charms), this was a serious mission and she wouldn't have time to play, so they got left behind. Her doggy bed also went back onto its peg. It was too nice to be taken outside of the tower, according to Hogarth.

He said she'd just get it dirty if she did, so she should leave it at home. Begrudgingly, Lemon followed her master's instructions. She made her way down to the pantry, took about half the sausages hanging up, then reconsidered, and took the other half too. She wouldn't be doing anyone any good if she collapsed from hunger in the middle of the road, after all. There was some jerky up on the top shelf that she could smell, but not see.

Lemon used Wizard's Hand to blindly grope along the shelf, accidentally knocking over a bag of flour in the process and powdering her face white. She sneezed once, shook the flour out, and resumed her search for the- ah, there it was. The jerky went into her messenger bag, and Lemon let her eye roam the pantry for any other important supplies she might need. Nothing jumped out at her, so she left it behind. She could clean the flour mess up when she got back.

After collecting her water dish and storing it inside her bag, Lemon returned to the alchemy lab to grab the tinctures and Master Hogarth's Potion of Unlimited Invincibility. Finally loaded up and ready to go, she stopped only to snack on one of the sausages and leave a note behind on Hogarth's bed just in case he did show back up after all before she found him. Then, tail wagging, Lemon started down the road towards the woods around Wilbourghy.