After all this time, I could’ve sworn a bond had grown between us, Gordy,” Mezzarix said, leaning forward in his throne.

Gordy’s grandfather looked healthier than he had the last time Gordy had seen him, which was when he had nearly died from the side effects of the Clasping Cannikin. He was, however, still barefoot and wearing the same threadbare tuxedo.

Gordy struggled against his captors, but there were too many hands holding him down. A blue light cascaded from the top of the column where the keystone was attached, revealing all within the atrium. He was no longer invisible, and neither were the twenty or so Atramenti crowding around him.

Mezzarix’s chuckle became enthusiastic laughter. “Did you actually believe I would give you the one weapon that could end my powers? My boy, how foolish of you.”

“It’s not real?” Gordy demanded. He hadn’t used the Decocting Wand on a single enemy, but that had been by choice, not because he believed it wouldn’t work.

“Oh, it’s quite real. ExSpongements from that wand are permanent and true, but you didn’t think I would allow it to work against me, did you?” Mezzarix said. “And that’s another thing, we need to talk about your restraint. You encountered dangerous criminals as you plotted a course to my island, and yet, not once did you use that weapon to save the ones you care about.”

“How do you know that?” Gordy asked.

“I’ve been watching you!” Anger flashed across Mezzarix’s features. He held up the flask; the image displayed was of Gordy kneeling, restrained by several ancient-looking strangers. Gordy’s Decocting Wand lay on the ground a few feet away, the tip pointing in his direction, broadcasting the scene as though it were a video camera.

“I’ve watched you all from time to time.” Mezzarix’s calm demeanor returned. “I had to see how my gifts were being used, and you disappoint me, grandson. Such poor choices. Instead of a traitor like Zelda, whom you had in your clutches, you opted to ExSponge me. Your flesh and blood.” He clicked his tongue. “I thought we shared a moment back in Greenland.”

“I’m not like you!” Gordy bellowed. “I don’t hurt people for fun.”

“Esmeralda, on the other hand, is a different story,” Gordy’s grandfather continued. “Due to her own ExSpongement, I had to specially treat her wand to allow her to use it.” Mezzarix laid the flask on the throne’s armrest. “And I told her that should she succeed in capturing the final member of the Chamber, I would restore her brewing powers and revoke her parents’ Banishment. You see, the Faustuses were my ace in the hole, and it would appear my gamble paid off. Who would have thought the end of B.R.E.W.’s Chamber would come at the hands of a tortured soul like Esmeralda Faustus?”

Gordy had never suspected his grandfather had been watching him, but now it made sense. It even explained the bizarre black storm that suddenly appeared above the island and snatched them at the precise moment they were landing. Mezzarix had known everything that had happened through the gift Gordy had foolishly accepted.

“Where are my friends?” Gordy asked.

“I’m a gracious host.” Mezzarix pressed his fingertips together, gazing down upon his grandson disdainfully. “They are safe. But now, it’s my turn for questioning. You came with a fifth stranger. An older gentleman. Who was he?”

“His name’s Carlisle,” Gordy said.

The name caused a rumble of whispering through the crowd of Atramenti, and Mezzarix raised an eyebrow. “Ah, the prodigal son of Ms. Bimini has returned? Where is he now?”

“You didn’t see?” Gordy jutted his chin toward his grandfather’s flask.

“I haven’t been watching every step you’ve made,” Mezzarix reasoned. “It’s not a television I can simply turn on with a remote.”

“Carlisle’s no concern of yours.” Gordy looked at one of the Atramenti. The man’s sunken eyes had burrowed deep in their sockets, and most of his teeth had rotted away. How old was he? A century? Two?

Mezzarix nodded to a couple of the others. “Find him and bring him here.”

A man and a woman, equally as decrepit as Gordy’s guards, hurried toward the door from which Gordy had entered the atrium.

“Did you Blotch all of them?” Gordy asked.

“I needed total cooperation,” Mezzarix snapped. “Care to hear a secret?” He continued before Gordy could reply. “Did you know I’ve been Blotched dozens of times? But each time, I was able to break the trance long before the Blotching effects wore off. Want to know how?”

Gordy stared back at his grandfather defiantly.

“I simply plan ahead by asking myself a question only I know the answer to.” Mezzarix continued. “A complete secret from everyone. And I keep this question in my mind always. Then, at the moment I suspect I’ve been placed under a spell, I simply ask the question to whomever I feel may be the perpetrator in my Blotching.”

“That’s it?” Gordy asked, unimpressed.

Mezzarix nodded. “If they answer incorrectly, I can rest assured that my thoughts are indeed mine alone. But if they give the right answer, then I know they are my enemy.”

“But how could they give you the right answer?”

“Precisely!” Mezzarix smacked his knee emphatically. “They cannot know the right answer, and yet somehow they do. That’s how I know I’ve been duped. The Tainted item confusing me has changed the answer to my question, and I no longer know the truth of it. I’m being fed a falsehood, but since it’s coming from my own thoughts, I accept it as fact.”

Gordy leaned back against his captors. His grandfather’s trick actually made some sense.

Cocking his head, Mezzarix studied Gordy. “I have never shared this before. The moment anyone realizes how easy it is to break a Blotching, it will no longer be a practical method of control.”

“What’s going to happen now?” Gordy asked. “To me and my friends?”

“Now?” Mezzarix inquired. “We wait for the Dissolvement Draught to run its course on the Vessel.”

“And then the power will go out everywhere,” Gordy said flatly. He had witnessed firsthand what had happened in his town, and that had been on the tiniest of scales.

“My dear grandson, you are looking at this the wrong way. Yes, the power will go out for a time, but then we will usher in a new age. New developments. Ones not linked to B.R.E.W.” Mezzarix exhaled blissfully. “And in the interim, there will be no more cell phones or automobiles or toaster ovens. No more distractions. Within a week, millions of people will be in dire need.”

“Why are you doing this?” Everything ran on power. Gordy thought about hospitals unable to tend to the sick and wounded, about people unable to heat their homes. It wouldn’t take long before the number of people suffering would be too high to count.

Mezzarix sighed impatiently. “Their need will turn them to us. To me and to you. We will provide their aid. Not B.R.E.W. and certainly not the oppressive governments of the world. We will show them the true power of the Elixirists. With the Vessel destroyed, the world will turn to us for mercy. Before B.R.E.W.’s establishment, there lived a different breed of Elixirists. Restrictions and punishments ended all that, and technology buried their existence even deeper beneath endless layers of distraction. I’m simply restoring an older way—a better way.”

Gordy’s eyes drifted across the room to where the Vessel vibrated beneath the twisted maze of glass equipment. He had no idea how much of the original potion remained, but even if he could reverse the Dissolvement Draught, Gordy could never make it across the room through more than two dozen Atramenti.

Mezzarix’s servants returned to report how they had searched the corridors but hadn’t been able to find Carlisle anywhere. Maybe Carlisle had gotten away, or maybe the old man had vanished, just like his mother.

The news of Carlisle’s vanishing troubled Gordy, and then he caught a whiff of something strange in the air. Though nearly masked by the countless other smells saturating the room, Gordy detected the faintest scent of black cohosh. The feathery herb had a fetid, bitter tang to it, like raw sewage.

Black cohosh, otherwise known as snakeroot, was the primary ingredient in Blotching potions. That meant the object placing the Atramenti under Mezzarix’s control was in the atrium, and it was close by.

“Show me where you looked,” Mezzarix commanded. Taking the flask with him, he followed the servants back toward the corridor. “Keep your hands on my grandson,” he ordered the remaining Atramenti, “but don’t bruise him. I’ll be back shortly.”

Once Mezzarix had left, the Atramenti remained silent, hopelessly entranced. They paid Gordy no attention as he frantically scanned the room, sniffing the air. Gordy smelled passionflower and ant pheromones, tungsten shavings, and sulphured molasses. All the scents mixed together in his nostrils, distorting the air like heat waves.

Gordy saw an opal-colored container resting on the stone table in the center of the room and knew he had found the Tainted object. That bowl was the source of their Blotching. If he could somehow get to it and snap the spell with a disruption potion, he could set the Atramenti free. But without his satchel, he’d need something else—some kind of distraction.

Luckily, Gordy’s best friend was somewhat known for his legendary distractions.

A sudden shattering from across the atrium, followed by liquid hissing as it struck the floor, caused all eyes in the room to whip around.

Gordy grinned to see Maxwell Pinkerman ripping the Vessel free from the glass tubing and hefting it off the table.