“Scale of mermaid, hair of nymph,” Alexa muttered while scribbling furiously in her notebook, “tongue of skink, and… Maiden’s tits, nothing rhymes with nymph!”

With a cry of despair, she slammed her notebook down on her desk and picked up the well-worn copy of Intermediate Potioncrafting she’d bought cheap off an upperclassman. Professor Vandergelder had assigned the latest edition, but new textbooks cost a pretty penny. And besides, I’m garbage at this no matter what book I’m reading!

There was only one reason Alexa hadn’t marched to the archproctor’s office to drop Potioncrafting 131: her study partner Estaline. They’d met in lab section after Alexa’s attempt at a Philtre of Animal Friendship had all the mosquitos on campus flying through the window, eager to “befriend” her bloodstream. Estie had whipped up a counterdraught while Vandergelder was still gaping at the cloud of insects that had invaded his classroom, and a dose of +2 Calamine Lotion to boot.

She remembered Estie rubbing lotion up and down her arms, face all business but hands so gentle. Alexa was pretty sure it was that moment she’d fallen irretrievably in love.

Estie practically insisted that they meet up after they’d finished classes, “for your own safety,” and they’d been studying together twice a week ever since. It was only thanks to her diligent tutelage that Alexa had managed to scrounge up a passing grade on the midterm—her Invisibility Tonic had turned the rat decidedly translucent, without any undesirable side effects! But as grateful as she was for her passing grade, she was even more desperate to have Estie in her arms instead of across the table.

But Estie couldn’t help her with this potion. She couldn’t even know about it. Alexa had resolved to solve her problem once and for all, and it seemed only poetic to solve it with the tools Estie had given her: by brewing a love potion.

“Okay, okay.” Alexa walked over to one of the many mirrors in the empty lab, took a deep breath, and recentered herself. “You are a capable and intelligent young sorceress. This is just one silly potion. It doesn’t even need to work all the way. Just a little crush is enough! Even you can manage that. I mean… especially you, you sexy and competent witch-queen.” She did finger-guns at herself, then thanked the Crone that no one was there to see her make a fool of herself. Unless class was in session or a big test was on the horizon, the lab rooms always sat vacant beyond the occasional study session.

Sighing, she turned back to her beaker, whose contents had gone a sour purplish color after her last attempt, and poured it into the waste vat under the bench before filling it up again with clean water. She consulted her notes, made a few corrections, and began again.

“Scale of mermaid, tongue of skink. Hair of nymph and young squid’s ink…”

Every nexus point in Alexa’s body felt like it was vibrating as she sat down across from Estie at the usual time at their usual lab bench. Alexa always insisted on using the room furthest from the stairs on the top floor of the building so no one was around to see her failed concoctions. Her study partner was dressed neat as a pin as usual, in a button-down top with a stylized frog print and a calf-length pencil skirt.

Estie set down the book she was reading and began, “So I know divinatory reagents may sound complex, but they’re actually critical for—” before glancing up and interrupting herself. “Alexa, you look awful. You know we’ve got three weeks before the next test, right?”

Alexa laughed nervously, “Haha, um, yeah, I just, I didn’t get enough sleep last night?”

She felt like such a ditz. She needed this potion if she was going to have a shot with Estie.

“I, um, actually I might go get myself some tea. Do you want anything? Like, while I’m there.”

This was not as smooth as she had planned, but it was at least a plausible excuse. It hinged on Estie accepting her offer, but her friend (okay, acquaintance) was also on a student budget and she’d never yet seen her turn down free food or drink.

“Starlight latte, hemp milk. Thanks,” Estie replied, and immediately went back to reading her book.

The potions building had its own little café, Unhallowed Grounds, so Alexa was able to quickly retrieve Estie’s latte and a firemint tea for herself. She squatted on the floor outside the door to the lab before going back in, set down the drinks, and pulled from her purse the vial she’d prepared. It was reddish pink with a glow that was only faintly visible in the daylight.

“Well,” she said to herself, “I came this far. No backing out now.”

She popped off the lid to the latte, which was full to the brim. She took a swig and enjoyed the flavor of night air and darkness before uncorking the vial, dumping it in, and reattaching the lid. She opened the door and did her best to seem nonchalant as she walked to the table and handed the latte to her study partner.

Both women sipped their drinks as Alexa tried to avoid staring too obviously. Her heart leapt into her throat as Estie seemed to pause after the first sip. This was the moment of truth—if Estie noticed anything off about her drink, the flavor or the texture or the temperature (oh Mother fuck, Alexa thought, the potion must have cooled down the latte), she’d know something was wrong. She’d blame Alexa, and that would be the end of their study sessions and any hope Alexa had of kissing those beautiful lips.

But Estie seemed satisfied and gave the latte a second hearty drink before setting it down and hauling out her own copy of the textbook.

“So, divinatory reagents.”

“Right, um, yeah,” said Alexa, trying to wrench her head out of the lovelorn clouds and back into academia. The biggest risk was over. Now it would take weeks for the potion to work its subtle magic on Estie’s heart, and that’s if it was working at full potency. Which it probably wasn’t. Alexa might have to make sure they’d study together next semester too, even though she didn’t need Potioncrafting 221 for her general education requirements, which meant she might have to bump—

Alexa realized she had been staring into space a second or two too long. She shook her head and tried again to refocus.

“So, um, I did read that chapter, but it seems like the reagents don’t actually do anything? Like, all the example concoctions just add mugwort or whatever to stuff we’ve already made and it doesn’t seem like it does anything different?”

Estie took another big sip of her latte and nodded earnestly, “That’s a good observation! Adivinic potions—that is, potions without divinatory reagents, what we’ve been making up to now—do work, of course, but there’s no feedback system. No way for them to adjust their magical output based on the consumer, or know to…”

This time it was Estie who trailed off. She began absentmindedly rubbing her collarbone.

“...to what?”

“To, uh, sorry, to stop working based on their actual effects. Divinatory reagents let a potion see what it’s doing, in a sense.”

Estie was beginning to look a little flushed. She seemed to feel it, too, unbuttoning the top of her shirt to let in a little more air.

“Okay,” Alexa asked doubtfully, “but how do you know which of these reagents to add to your potion? And how much? And when?”

“Well, that depends on a lot of things. The potion’s ingredients. How you want it to react. And of course you need to follow… uh…”

Estie’s hand had crept down and was now actively massaging her upper chest. Her second button had popped open at some point, and Alexa was beginning to worry if something had gone wrong with her potion. That shouldn’t happen—she’d put in powdered quartz to draw out the duration, so it shouldn’t be taking effect immediately. But then again…

“...to follow the law of rhyme…”

Several more buttons had come undone and Estie’s cleavage was in full view, cradled in a sensible black bra. Her eyes were losing focus, although even still she seemed to know more about potions than Alexa.

“You have to… think of the potion as a unit… all the ingredients affect each other…”

The last word trailed into a moan as Estie undid her last few buttons with one hand and started touching her breast through her bra in the other. There was no denying it now. Something had definitely gone wrong.

“Alexa.”

Estie’s distant eyes had snapped into focus, locking Alexa in a piercing glare as her hands continued caressing her own body.

“What did you do?”

“I’m sorry I’m sorry, oh Crone I’m sorry-” Alexa babbled as she hurried around the table and tried in vain to button her study partner’s shirt back up, “-this wasn’t supposed to happen, it was a love potion, I just wanted you to like me, I thought I knew, I thought I’d learned,”

She was interrupted by Estie grabbing a handful of her thick curly hair, right down by the base.

“Shut. Up.” Estie was looking her dead in the eyes again. “I need you. To shut up. And fuck me.”

She then pulled Alexa’s face down into the crook of her neck. Alexa knew she should resist. A love potion was one thing, but taking advantage of this was something else entirely. But Estie’s smell was just so enchanting… old books and beeswax and something dark and sweet like date wine, but Maiden help her, Alexa started kissing.

Estie’s greedy hands moved from herself to her friend, roaming under Alexa’s shirt and caressing the soft skin of her belly and back. Alexa kissed and sucked on Estie’s neck, salty with sweat, losing all her worries in the joy of this body that she’d desired. Estie began whimpering plaintively and Alexa picked up the hint, deftly unhooking the plain black bra behind her back and saying a silent blessing that she’d learned at least one thing in high school.

Estie was not so skilled, fumbling with Alexa’s bra briefly before ripping it apart in a surprising display of raw strength. Alexa couldn’t really afford a new bra right now, but in the small pocket of her mind that wasn’t focused on cradling Estie’s perfect breasts and suckling her nipples, she figured that she probably deserved the time she’d spend sewing it back together.

Bra now conquered, Estie pushed Alexa back and ripped her t-shirt off over her head, eyeing her hungrily.

“Mother fuck me, you are hotter than I thought,” she said before grabbing Alexa by the waist, whirling her against a wall, and stooping down to grope one tit while lapping and nibbling at the other. Despite her feverish state, she bit just hard enough to make Alexa yelp in pleasure rather than pain.

Alexa’s eyes closed as she lost herself in Estie’s mouth, one hand buried in her lover’s hair and the other wandering across her bare shoulders and back, finding it almost hot to the touch. She didn’t see Estie, never breaking her attention to first one breast and then the other, unzip and wriggle out of her skirt, leaving only a pair of dark blue panties into which her hand quickly dove.

When Estie finally pulled back, Alexa looked down and was surprised to find her study partner’s eyes no longer predatory but plaintive. Sweat beaded all across her beautiful bare flesh as she knelt on the floor, gazing up at her friend’s face surrounded by disheveled hair.

“Pleeeeease,” Estie let out a long, husky whimper, “Alexa, please.”

Both her hands were buried in her panties now, but it wasn’t enough. She needed another woman’s touch. She needed Alexa.

Alexa knelt down with her on the cold tile of the lab room floor and kissed Estie long and deep as she pulled her panties off and tossed them to the side. She gently moved her partner’s hands aside and ran her fingers along her soft, wet folds, picking up moisture before she circled her clit once, twice, eliciting more moans around her own tongue. Then she dove in.

Each time her fingers entered Estie’s pussy and curled to rub just the right spot, Alexa felt the pleasure ripple throughout the body she held close. The potion had made Estie so sensitive, so needy, that she could barely react. She just held onto Alexa, returned her kisses, and was swallowed up by the pleasure of her fingers.

Finally, Alexa pulled out and started circling Estie’s clit more and more tightly.

Estie broke the kiss and began panting, “Yes. Oh Crone. Ohhhh yes, there, there, right there!”

Alexa noticed Estie arch her back just in time to slap a hand over her mouth to muffle a scream that surely would have had everyone in the building come running. She held her lover close and eased off her ministrations and Estie’s body was wracked with aftershocks, letting her fingers lazily trace her labia.

After a few minutes that felt like a blissful eternity, Estie’s eyes opened. She was panting, her whole body flushed red and drenched with sweat.

“Water,” she said, hauling herself up, turning on a bench faucet, and drinking directly from the stream. Once she’d had her fill, she turned back to Alexa, her face back in her familiar no-nonsense expression.

“Something’s wrong.”

“I-I know,” stammered Alexa, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should never have done that, it wasn’t supposed to work like that, but I thought—”

“No,” Estie interrupted, “I mean something’s wrong with your aphrodisiac.”

Alexa had no idea what to say about that, so instead she just stared at her lab partner who was now sitting on a bench stool, stark naked, with her brow creased in thought just like it had been the countless times she’d tried to figure out how to explain the finer points of potioncrafting to Alexa.

“If this was a monoclimactic aphrodisiac, my body should be cooling down now that I’ve been satisfied,” Estie explained matter-of-factly, “but if it was multiclimactic I should still be fully within the arousal demesne. But I appear to be in a normal refractory period while still almost fever-level temperature. Did you intend this to be multiclimactic?”

Her inquisitive eyes met Alexa’s, who didn’t know what to say. As Estie had been musing, Alexa had tuned her out and set to the task of getting them both dressed, putting her own shirt back on and conjuring up the robe she always kept in netherspace to drape over her lab partner, who seemed to have no interest in replacing her own clothing.

Estie helpfully popped her arms into the robe and sighed. “How many orgasms did you intend me to have when you brewed the potion you obviously dosed me with?”

“How many—none! I’m sorry, that’s what I was trying to say, it wasn’t supposed to work like that at all! I just, I… I made a basic charm, w-with nymph hair a-and mermaid scales for affection, and, a-and ink for permanence, and it wasn’t supposed to do anything yet, I used powdered quartz—”

“Squid ink and powdered quartz?!” Estie looked aghast. “Alexa. I need to know. How much powdered quartz did you add?”

“Uh, um, I think, just half a gram? To slow it down over three weeks… I didn’t want it to hit all at once…”

Estie rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger before taking a deep breath and continuing, “Alexa, remember we talked about this just before the midterm? Powdered quartz increases the duration of effect, but it doesn’t amortize it over the duration. It’s still just as strong as it would be without.”

“I, um. Yeah. I remember that. Now that you say,” Alexa replied, blushing deep crimson.

Estie took a deep breath.

“Okay! Well. I have good news and bad news.”

“Um, bad news first, I guess.”

“The bad news is that I’m going to die in a few hours,” said Estie solemnly. Then, breaking into a grin, “The good news is that I know how to fix it.”