The memory potion was buried in the back of Dimitri's grimoire.

  Not hidden. Just overlooked. Tucked between a brew for fever reduction and something about removing stains from fabric that I'd skipped entirely.

  I'd been flipping through the book for hours, looking for anything that matched what Oscar wanted—something that fogged memory, made recall uncertain, left witnesses confused without raising suspicion.

  And there it was.

  Actually, there were two.

  The first was gentle. Soft. Chamomile, lavender, lemon balm, honey, orange peel. The kind of thing that put you to sleep and made you forget the edges of the day.

  The second was sharp. Aggressive. Rosemary, peppermint, ginger, lemon balm, lemon peel. A brew that didn't ask permission—it disrupted focus, fractured recall, made memories slip like water through your fingers.

  I read both recipes three times.

  Then I made a decision.

  Oscar wanted fog.

  I'd give him precision.

  I started with the sharp version.

  ---

  The brewing took two days.

  Not because it was complicated—because I needed to get it perfect.

  Memory wasn't like hiding an object or extracting truth. Memory was delicate. Fragile. Push too hard and you didn't fog it—you shattered it.

  I worked in the greenhouse, surrounded by fresh rosemary and peppermint I'd been growing for weeks. The plants were thriving now—stronger than anything I'd bought from markets or scavenged from willing gardeners.

  Fresh ingredients made all the difference.

  Dimitri had written that in the margins a dozen times, and I'd ignored it at first because I didn't know how to make things grow.

  Now I did.

  The rosemary went in first—sharp, resinous, the smell cutting through the greenhouse like a blade. I bruised the leaves carefully, releasing the oils without crushing them into pulp.

  Peppermint next. Cooling. Clean. It balanced the rosemary's aggression, smoothed the edges.

  Ginger for heat. Lemon balm for drift. Lemon peel for that crisp, chemical finish that made the brew feel intentional instead of accidental.

  I boiled it low and slow, watching the color deepen from pale green to something darker, richer, almost amber.

  When I held the bottle, I focused on the intent.

  Not erasure.

  Uncertainty.

  A memory that felt real but wouldn't hold details. A face you couldn't quite describe. A time you couldn't pin down. Words that slipped away the moment you tried to repeat them.

  The brew settled.

  I labeled it carefully.

  **Memory Fog.**

  Then I started on the second one.

  ---

  The gentle version—what I started calling **Sleeping Beauty** in my head—was easier.

  Chamomile and lavender, lemon balm and honey, orange peel to mask the bitterness. It smelled like something you'd drink before bed, not something that would make you forget the last four hours of your life.

  That was the trick.

  It didn't just put you to sleep.

  It erased the lead-up.

  You'd wake up twelve hours later, rested, calm, with no memory of how you got there or what happened before the lights went out.

  I made six bottles of each and brought them to Oscar.

  ---

  He was in his office when I arrived, door open, sleeves rolled up, working through a stack of papers that looked like they'd been annoying him for days.

  "Garrett," he said without looking up. "You got it?"

  "Both versions."

  That got his attention.

  He set the papers aside and gestured for me to sit.

  I laid out the bottles on his desk—Memory Fog on the left, Sleeping Beauty on the right.

  "Explain," Oscar said.

  I pointed to Memory Fog first.

  "Twelve hours of uncertainty. They remember something happened, but details slip. Faces blur. Times don't stick. Numbers fade. It's not amnesia—it's unreliable recall."

  Oscar picked up the bottle, turned it slowly in his hand.

  "Side effects?"

  "Headache. Trouble concentrating for a few hours after. Nothing permanent."

  "And if we dose them more than once?"

  "Don't," I said flatly. "Two doses in a month causes severe migraines and memory problems for days. Three or more? Permanent damage. Early dementia symptoms. Personality changes."

  Oscar nodded slowly. "Good. That keeps it controlled."

  He set Memory Fog down and picked up Sleeping Beauty.

  "And this?"

  "Deep sleep for exactly twelve hours. No dreams. No grogginess when they wake. But they lose the last two to four hours before dosing—complete amnesia. And they don't form memories during the sleep period."

  Oscar's eyes narrowed slightly. "So they wake up rested and confused."

  "Yeah."

  "I like that better."

  He set the bottle down carefully, like it was something precious.

  "This one," Oscar said, tapping Sleeping Beauty, "is cleaner. No loose ends. No half-remembered details. Just gone."

  He looked at me.

  "You did good work, Garrett."

  He stood, walked to a cabinet in the corner, and pulled out a bottle of whiskey—the real stuff, not the rotgut most places served.

  "Drink with me," Oscar said.

  It wasn't a question.

  He poured two glasses, handed me one, and sat back down.

  We drank in silence for a moment.

  Then Oscar said, "You know what I like about you, Garrett?"

  I looked up.

  "You don't bullshit me," Oscar continued. "You tell me what works, what doesn't, and what'll kill someone if I'm stupid with it. No ego. No trying to sell me something you can't deliver."

  He swirled the whiskey in his glass.

  "Most men in this life? They lie because they think it makes them look better. They promise things they can't do, then scramble when it falls apart."

  He looked at me directly.

  "You don't do that. You just do the work."

  I didn't know what to say to that.

  "Thanks," I managed.

  Oscar smiled—barely, but it was there.

  "You're not just useful, Garrett. You're honest. That's rare."

  He raised his glass.

  "To honest work."

  I raised mine.

  We drank.

  And something shifted.

  Not business anymore.

  Something closer.

  ---

  The plan was simple.

  Too simple, almost.

  One of Vic's crews ran a regular transport—laundered money moving from the docks to a drop house in his territory. Small operation. Predictable route. Low security because nobody was supposed to know it existed.

  Oscar knew.

  Oscar always knew.

  "We hit the transport," Oscar said. "Dose the crew with Sleeping Beauty. Take the money. Leave behind evidence that makes it look like another crew hit them—rival outfit, not us."

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  He gestured at a map spread across his desk.

  "Vic writes it off as bad luck. Accidents happen. He tightens security but doesn't come looking for us."

  "And the money?" I asked.

  Oscar smiled. "I return it. Personally. Directly to the Don. Tell him I recovered it from a crew that got hit, that I'm protecting the family's interests."

  I saw it then.

  The whole shape of it.

  Oscar wasn't just stealing from Vic.

  He was making himself look better than Vic.

  More competent. More loyal. More necessary.

  And when the time came to replace Vic entirely, the Don would already believe Oscar was the better choice.

  "When?" I asked.

  "Two days," Oscar said. "You'll be there. With Marco. Make sure the brew works exactly like you said it would."

  He paused, then added, "And Garrett? After this works, we celebrate. You and me. Proper dinner. Not business. Just… two men who did something right."

  I blinked. "You don't have to—"

  "I know," Oscar said. "But I want to."

  He looked at me like he was deciding something.

  "You're not just working for me anymore," he said quietly. "You're with me. There's a difference."

  I felt that land in my chest.

  With him.

  Not under him.

  With him.

  "Okay," I said.

  Oscar nodded once.

  "Good. Now let's make sure this works."

  ---

  It worked.

  The transport crew never saw us coming.

  Marco and I hit them at a red light—two cars, four men, none of them expecting trouble in broad daylight.

  Marco handled the approach. Calm. Professional. Gun visible but not raised.

  "Out of the car. Hands where I can see them."

  They complied.

  I stepped forward with the bottles.

  "Drink," I said.

  One of them started to argue.

  Marco's gun moved slightly.

  They drank.

  All four of them.

  Within ten minutes, they were unconscious—slumped in their seats, breathing steady, faces slack.

  We moved the money to Oscar's car.

  Left behind cigarette butts from a brand Vic's crew didn't smoke. A scrap of fabric that matched jackets worn by a crew two territories over. Small details that told a story without saying it out loud.

  By the time Vic's men woke up twelve hours later, we were gone.

  And they remembered nothing.

  ---

  Oscar returned the money to the Don the next day.

  I wasn't there for that meeting.

  But I heard about it.

  The Don praised Oscar. Thanked him. Made a point of saying how rare it was to see a capo who put the family first instead of his own pockets.

  Oscar came back smiling.

  Not the warm kind.

  The satisfied kind.

  "It worked," he said simply.

  Then he clapped me on the shoulder.

  "Get cleaned up. We're going to dinner."

  ---

  The restaurant was nicer than anywhere I'd ever eaten.

  Not fancy—Oscar didn't do flashy. But clean. Quiet. The kind of place where the food was good and nobody asked questions.

  We sat in a back booth.

  Oscar ordered for both of us—steak, potatoes, vegetables that didn't come from a can. Wine that didn't taste like vinegar.

  "To success," Oscar said, raising his glass.

  I raised mine.

  We ate in comfortable silence for a while.

  Then Oscar said, "You ever think about what comes next?"

  I looked up. "What do you mean?"

  "After Vic," Oscar said. "After I take his territory. After the family sees what we can do."

  He cut into his steak, deliberate.

  "I'm not stopping at capo, Garrett. I'm going higher. And I'm bringing you with me."

  I set my fork down.

  "Why me?"

  Oscar looked at me like the answer was obvious.

  "Because you're the only person in this organization I trust completely," he said simply. "You don't scheme. You don't play politics. You just do what you say you'll do."

  He paused.

  "That's more valuable than muscle. More valuable than money. Trust is what builds empires."

  He leaned forward slightly.

  "I don't have a brother, Garrett. I don't have family I can rely on. But I've got you. And that's enough."

  I felt something tighten in my throat.

  Nobody had ever said anything like that to me before.

  Nobody had ever looked at me like I mattered that much.

  "I won't let you down," I said.

  Oscar smiled. "I know."

  He raised his glass again.

  "To brotherhood."

  I raised mine.

  "To brotherhood."

  We drank.

  And I realized something as I sat there:

  I wasn't just working for Oscar anymore.

  I'd die for him.

  ---

  That question sat in my head for three days.

  What else can you make?

  Not what's in the book.

  What else.

  I started thinking about transformations.

  Not hiding things. Not extracting truth. Not fogging memory.

  Changing things.

  Physically. Structurally. Reshaping environments to tell whatever story Oscar needed.

  I brought the idea to Gabriella.

  ---

  We'd been spending more time together.

  She started coming by the greenhouse in the afternoons, helping me with the plants. She had a knack for it—knew which ones needed more water, which ones wanted to be ignored, which ones would strangle their neighbors if you didn't separate them.

  The greenhouse had become something real.

  I'd replaced all the glass—new panes, clean and clear, letting in light that didn't have to fight through decades of city grime.

  New tables. New soil. Proper drainage systems.

  Everything organized by plant type, growth speed, watering needs.

  And it worked.

  The herbs I grew here were five times more potent than anything I'd bought. Fresher. Cleaner. The brews I made from them were stronger, more consistent, lasted longer.

  I didn't need to buy ingredients anymore.

  I was self-sufficient.

  Gabriella noticed.

  "You're good at this," she said one afternoon, hands dirty from repotting mint that had tried to take over an entire table again.

  "I had a good teacher," I said.

  She smiled. "I just pointed you at the right books. You did the work."

  She wiped her hands on a rag, looked around the greenhouse.

  "This is impressive, Garrett. Really. A month ago this place was barely functional. Now it's…"

  She trailed off, searching for the word.

  "Alive," she finished.

  I liked that.

  Alive.

  ---

  I told her about the transformation idea over coffee.

  Not at the diner this time—at a small café near the library, the kind of place with decent coffee and tables far enough apart that nobody could eavesdrop.

  "I want to make something that changes environments," I said. "Physically. Not illusions. Actual restructuring."

  Gabriella's eyebrow lifted. "Like what?"

  "Like turning a clean room into something that looks abandoned. Or making a new crime scene look old. Or…"

  I hesitated.

  "Creating evidence that isn't real but looks like it's been there for years."

  Gabriella set her cup down slowly.

  "That's not brewing," she said quietly. "That's alchemy."

  "Maybe."

  She studied me for a long moment.

  Then: "What would you need?"

  And just like that, we were planning.

  ---

  The first attempt exploded.

  Not metaphorically.

  Actually exploded.

  I was combining willow bark and oak gall when the mixture went exothermic—heat building faster than I could control, pressure spiking, and then BOOM.

  The flask shattered.

  Thick, acrid smoke filled the workshop.

  Marco, who'd been standing near the door, stumbled backward coughing.

  "Jesus Christ, Garrett!"

  "I'm fine!" I shouted, waving smoke away from my face.

  I wasn't fine.

  My eyebrows were singed. My hands were covered in sticky residue that smelled like burnt forest and regret.

  But I was close.

  I could feel it.

  ---

  The second attempt caught fire.

  The third filled the room with fumes so toxic Marco refused to come inside for the rest of the day.

  The fourth turned half the worktable black with scorch marks.

  By the tenth attempt, I'd learned to stand further back.

  By the twentieth, I'd figured out the temperature had to stay below a very specific threshold or the pine resin would ignite.

  By the fiftieth, Oscar moved me.

  ---

  "You're affecting business," Oscar said flatly.

  We were standing outside the laundromat—or what was left of it. The public floor still functioned, but my workshop downstairs was unusable. The air was so saturated with chemical residue that customers were complaining about the smell.

  "I need more space," I admitted.

  Oscar nodded. "I know. That's why I'm giving it to you."

  He handed me a key.

  "Warehouse. Two blocks over. Your workshop's on the ground floor. Greenhouse space doubled. You've got an apartment on the second floor—furnished, clean, yours."

  I stared at the key.

  "Why?"

  "Because you're making things nobody else can make," Oscar said simply. "And I need you to keep making them. But I also need my laundromat to stop smelling like a chemical fire."

  He paused, then added something quieter.

  "And because you deserve better than that closet you've been living in. You're family now, Garrett. Family takes care of its own."

  He clapped me on the shoulder.

  "Move in today. Get it done."

  I looked at the key in my hand, then at Oscar.

  "Thank you."

  Oscar's expression softened—just a fraction.

  "Don't thank me. Just keep doing what you do."

  He turned to leave, then stopped.

  "And Garrett? If you need anything—anything—you come to me first. Not Milo. Not Marco. Me."

  "Understood."

  Oscar nodded once.

  "Good. Because I don't say this often, but you matter to me. Not just as a chemist. As a person."

  Then he walked away before I could respond.

  But I didn't need to respond.

  I felt it.

  Brotherhood.

  ---

  The warehouse was massive.

  High ceilings. Concrete floors. Enough space to work without worrying about explosions shaking the walls.

  The greenhouse was on the roof—double the size of the old one, with better glass, better ventilation, better everything.

  And the apartment.

  I'd been living in a one-room walk-up with a hotplate and a bathroom I shared with two other tenants.

  This was different.

  Two rooms. A real bed. A kitchen that worked. Windows that didn't rattle when the wind blew.

  It was the nicest place I'd ever lived.

  I moved in that afternoon.

  And that night, I sent money home to my mother.

  Not much. Fifty dollars. But enough that she'd know I was okay.

  I didn't tell her what I was doing.

  Just that I'd found work. That I was safe. That she didn't need to worry.

  I hoped she believed me.

  ---

  Gabriella came to see the new space a few days later.

  She stood in the greenhouse, looking around with that same cataloging expression she always wore, taking in the rows of plants, the organized tables, the clean glass overhead.

  "You did it," she said softly.

  "We did it," I corrected.

  She smiled.

  Then she turned to me, and something in her expression shifted.

  "You want to see a movie?" she asked.

  I blinked. "What?"

  "A movie. You know—moving pictures, popcorn, uncomfortable chairs."

  I almost laughed. "Are you asking me on a date?"

  "I'm asking if you want to see a movie," she said. "You can call it whatever you want."

  I did.

  ---

  We went that weekend.

  Some picture about a detective and a blonde who were both lying to each other. I didn't remember most of it.

  I was too aware of Gabriella sitting next to me, close enough that our arms touched on the armrest.

  When we left, she didn't pull away when I offered my arm.

  We walked back through streets that felt quieter than they should have, the city settling into that late-night rhythm where only the diners and bars were still lit.

  "Thanks for tonight," I said.

  "You already thanked me three times."

  "I mean it."

  She stopped walking, turned to face me.

  "I know," she said.

  Then she kissed me.

  Not long. Not dramatic.

  Just enough to change everything.

  When she pulled back, she was smiling.

  "Goodnight, Garrett."

  "Goodnight, Gabriella."

  She walked away, and I stood there like an idiot, grinning at nothing.

  ---

  I made Wyldwood Veil on the eighty-ninth attempt.

  The warehouse looked like a war zone.

  Scorch marks blackened half the walls. Tables were scorched and pitted. The floor was stained with residue from failed batches that had eaten through protective coverings.

  Marco refused to come inside anymore.

  "You're insane," he'd said after attempt seventy-three had turned his hair completely white on one side. "I'm not dying for your science project."

  I didn't blame him.

  This brew was brutal.

  Willow bark, oak gall, ivy, moss, fern, pine resin, rosemary, sage, cedar, yarrow, horsetail, lichen—twelve ingredients, each one fighting the others for dominance, each one trying to transform before the brew was ready.

  Each plant carried its own idea of what the world should look like.

  Willow wanted things to bend.

  Oak wanted them rigid.

  Ivy wanted to spread.

  Moss wanted to soften and bury everything under green.

  They weren't ingredients.

  They were arguments.

  The trick wasn't forcing them to cooperate.

  The trick was convincing them they were all already winning.

  Horsetail was the stabilizer—silica hidden in the plant's bones, the same thing that gave stone its stubbornness. It didn't transform. It anchored. Held the other arguments in place long enough for them to settle into agreement instead of war.

  That's what I'd been missing for eighty-eight attempts.

  I wasn't brewing.

  I was mediating.

  On attempt eighty-nine, I got it.

  The mixture turned into a pale green mist when released—soft, almost gentle-looking.

  I tested it in a sealed room.

  Bare concrete walls.

  I released the mist, held the intent: forest floor, moss-covered stone, root-twisted wood.

  And I watched it happen.

  The concrete didn't just look different.

  It became different.

  Moss spread across the surface like living skin. Texture shifted from smooth to rough, bark-like. The smell changed—damp earth, old wood, green growth.

  It lasted six hours before slowly reverting.

  But it worked.

  I'd made something that bent reality.

  Not from Dimitri's book.

  From my own understanding.

  My own skill.

  I stared at that transformed room and felt something dangerous bloom in my chest.

  Pride.

  Not the small kind.

  The kind that makes you think you're untouchable.

  ---

  Oscar came to see it the next day.

  I showed him the transformed room—still holding the moss and bark texture, still smelling like forest floor.

  He walked through it slowly, running his hand along the walls, testing the texture.

  "This is real," he said quietly.

  "Yeah."

  He turned to me, and there was something in his eyes I'd never seen before.

  Wonder.

  "You made this," Oscar said. "Not from the book. You created this."

  "Yeah."

  Oscar stepped closer.

  "Garrett, do you understand what you just did?"

  I shook my head.

  "You didn't just follow instructions," Oscar said. "You invented something new. Something nobody else has. Something nobody else can replicate."

  He gripped my shoulder.

  "You're not just my chemist anymore. You're an innovator. A genius."

  He paused.

  "You're my brother. And brothers build empires together."

  I felt my throat tighten.

  "We're going to win this, Garrett," Oscar said. "We're going to take Vic's territory. Then we're going higher. And nobody's going to stop us."

  He pulled me into a brief, hard embrace.

  When he stepped back, he was smiling.

  "Come on," Oscar said. "Let's get a drink. You earned it."

  We left the warehouse together.

  And I realized something as we walked:

  I wasn't just Oscar's weapon anymore.

  I was his equal.

  His partner.

  His brother.

  And I'd burn the whole city down if it meant protecting that.