“But Fagan might take a Complement at any time,” Diego said, “and despite all that we’ve done, whatever it is that Jamie’s supposed to do to save the world hasn’t seemed to happen yet. At least, the scar on his hand is still there.”

Jamie moved to hide his hand but then stopped. It didn’t matter if they saw; after all, they all knew it was there, as much between them as the damned potion. He wanted to pick it up and throw it.

“Whatever it is, we can handle it,” Raven said, “and if the Hegemony doesn’t like it, they can fuck themselves. With giant studded dildos. Up their urethrae.”

Jamie and Diego winced again, and Raven reached forward and snatched the potion from the table.

“I don’t trust them,” she said. “Whatever this is, there’s something off about it.” Jamie felt her reach out with her will, touch the potion. “They told you that it would pick your Complement?”

Jamie nodded. “They said it would show the truth,” he said.

Raven scoffed.

“Something seems off about it to me,” Raven said, and tossed it to Diego, who frowned, but then touched it with his own will.

Slowly his frown deepened. “I agree,” he said. “Whatever is in here is very powerful, but there’s something ... perverse about it. It’s not the truth that it’s meant to reveal.” And he tossed it to Jamie.

It was heavy still, and Jamie was tempted to just open the damn thing and drink it right there, end the debate and the lingering question of what would happen. Instead he touched it with his will, studied it, though Diego was the wiz when it came to potions. Something did seem off about it, though. Twisted. It was like a well whose rope twisted endlessly just out of sight, and any attempt to pull something up from the depths would end ... poorly.

“Then what do we do?” he asked, putting the potion back onto the table.

“We just ignore them,” Raven said.

Jamie knew she would damn the consequences if it meant staying free, despite what it would cost her, what it would cost all of them. He wished he were strong enough to just let the her and Diego Complement so he could be kicked out alone, but not only did he know they would never accept such a plan, he couldn’t. They both meant too much to push away, even in order to save them. There had to be another way.

“We’ll have to take the potion,” Jamie said, though he knew it was wrong. He expected Raven to argue, and indeed she seemed primed to, but it was Diego who spoke first.

“What if we try fixing it first,” he said, and Jamie and Raven stared at him. Fix a potion already made?

“How’s that even possible?” Raven asked, before Jamie could.

Diego flushed slightly in a way that told them both he had done something astounding again but didn’t want to claim it.

“It’s just a theory, really,” Diego said, staring at the potion on the table. “But I think I can feel what the potion is supposed to do. It is incredibly powerful, but right now it’s been purposefully altered from whatever it was originally designed to do. It should be possible to ... restore the original, because its magic is still there, just warped.”

“We could untangle the knot someone’s put in it?” Jamie asked, imagining the rope in the well, his impression of the magic there. It should have been impossible, changing a potion already made, but Diego nodded.

“Exactly,” he said, but then hesitated. “Only ... it won’t be easy. Whoever altered the magic was also very powerful, and if we fail ... it could be dangerous.”

“We can handle dangerous,” Raven said, and then both of them looked to Jamie, expectation in their eyes.

Jamie sighed, but he knew it was worth the risk. “Let’s do it,” he said, and Diego smiled and stood, motioned for the others to follow, and then moved so they were crowded around the table, the potion.