Alexa gaped at Estie, who was sitting on the lab stool clothed only in a conjured robe, sweat still beaded on her brow. She had a predatory look in her eye that her lab partner had never seen when they were studying together, and she was talking about her impending death as though it were just another assignment to be worked out.

Her impending death that’s all my fault. If she hadn’t tried to dose Estie with a love potion… if she hadn’t been such a fuck-up at potioncrafting… if she hadn’t needed Estie’s help in the first place, she’d never have fallen for her and this never would have happened. Now she might end up killing the woman she loved.

Alexa burst into tears.

“Alexa, no! Why are you—? I told you, I can fix this.” Estie was uncharacteristically flustered by her friend’s tears, her predatory glint replaced by confusion and concern. She hopped up from the stool and took Alexa by the shoulders.

“I… I… I-I’m so sorry,” Alexa choked out between sobs, “I just wanted t-to, you didn’t, and I t-tried, and I shouldn’t… and now I’ve killed you!” Her last word turned into a wail as she threw her arms around Estie, grabbing handfuls of her robe and burying her wet face in the crook of her lab partner’s neck as she continued to sob.

“Alexa. Hush. It’s okay. Look at me.” As Alexa’s sobs faded to sniffles and hiccups, Estie gently pushed her back a step and started dabbing at the taller girl’s tear-stained face and runny nose with one of the lab towels. “I’ve helped you fix your potions before. Remember the Liquid Shield? Or the Waterbreathing Draught? You’re breathing air again, aren’t you?”

“Y-yes…” Alexa remembered how scared she’d been, gasping in the air that was suddenly choking her, as Estie had calmly filled a bucket with water. It had taken half an hour of her kneeling with her head in that bucket making good use of her newly-sprouted gills before Estie had finished an Airbreathing Draught and brought her back to normal. She’d never forgotten to make an additive emulsion again.

“So you know I got this,” Estie continued. “All we need is for you to run through your recipe with me.” She rested her hand on Alexa’s cheek and tenderly wiped another tear away with her thumb. “We’ll figure out where you went wrong, and-” Alexa couldn’t help noticing how deeply Estie was gazing into her eyes, “-and we’ll-” Estie’s other hand came up to cradle Alexa’s face, “-and we’ll grab—”

She interrupted her own meandering words to pull Alexa’s face down and give her a deep tender kiss. Her friend, emotionally exhausted from her tears and anxiety, had nothing left with which to resist her own attraction. She kissed back passionately, allowing Estie’s tongue to slip into her mouth and caress her own. Estie’s hands crept downwards, stroking Alexa’s neck before moving to massage her collarbone. Soon they found her breasts, covered only in her thin t-shirt.

Reality quickly caught up to Alexa though, and she turned her head to the side to break the kiss. “We’ll grab what? Estie, the counterdraught! You’re dying!”

Estie paid her no heed, and just took her turned head as an opportunity to trace the contours of her friend’s ear with her tongue.

“This isn’t you, Estie, you have to- ah!—” Estie gave her nipple a pinch and Alexa involuntarily clenched her thighs at the sudden rush of sensation. “—you have to fight it! I’ll tell you my reci-mph!” Estie’s left hand had come back up to Alexa’s face while she was objecting, and the thumb now pushed itself into her mouth and ran along her teeth.

If I can’t talk sense to her now, Alexa reasoned, I guess I know one way to make her lucid again. Not that she minded terribly—she’d often imagined what studious and put-together Estie would look like in nude abandon, and the reality didn’t disappoint. But in her nighttime fantasies, it was always a little more personal and a little less life-or-death.

Giving up all pretense of resistance, Alexa undid the closure on the front of Estie’s robe (which she’d fastened not ten minutes prior), plunged her hands inside, and ran them along her study partner’s curves. Just that touch was enough to elicit a soft moan of need into Alexa’s ear, and before she knew it she was on the ground again, underneath Estie this time. The open robe draped across both of their bodies as Alexa continued her exploration.

Everywhere Alexa ran her hands felt incredible, overwhelming, and Estie briefly stopped her own petting just to luxuriate in the feeling. But while her hunger was less aggressive this time, it was no less hungry, and she soon began grinding against Alexa’s pleated skirt. The texture was rough against her inflamed and sensitive cunt, though, so she hastily yanked it down to rub on her lover’s bare leg.

Glad that one was elastic. She could have spent blissful hours lost in the soft skin of her study partner and the sound of her needy moans, but the clock was ticking on brewing the counterdraught. Estie’s grinding was getting more intense, too, and Alexa’s heart wasn’t made of stone.

An idea occurred to her. Although her potioncrafting skills were undeniably dire, Alexa was a deft hand at stereomathematics. She fixed the necessary sigils for form, substance, and purpose in her mind, pleased at the chance to show off magic she was confident in. Then she pulled her hands out from the robe (eliciting a quiet “nooooo” from Estie), brought them together, and drew them slowly apart. Between them, the luminous threads from which the universe was made wove themselves together, layer after layer, finally forming just the object Alexa had envisioned: an opalescent, faintly glowing, double-headed dildo with the two shafts set at an angle.

She shimmied out of her panties and pushed one end of her new toy inside herself, gasping at how sensitive she was already thanks to Estie’s attentions.

“Estie, sit up.”

Her instructions were futile; her lab partner was too focused on trying to get herself off on Alexa’s leg and leaving hickies all over her neck obvious enough to require a glamour for at least the next week. She tried instead to grab Estie’s hips, and this was more successful: the pleasure of Alexa’s touch was hypnotic, and Estie became pliable and ready to move wherever they guided her. As Alexa coaxed her upright into a squat, the robe fell away, leaving them both naked in the classroom. Then Alexa grabbed her hips and gently guided her pussy to the other head of the dildo.

As soon as it made contact, Estie sank down onto it with a loud aaaaaaah! Her arms dangled uselessly at her sides and her eyes were cast towards the ceiling as though praising the Mother for this gift. Once the shaft was buried as deep as it could go, she turned her gaze back down to Alexa, her eyes alight with ecstasy and need. She grabbed her friend’s shoulders and began to steadily, forcefully ride her.

Every time Estie moved down the shaft, the other head moved upwards and against Alexa’s g-spot. She couldn’t help crying out herself as it pressed again and again in just the right place, sending waves of pleasure crashing through her. She held onto Estie’s hips and gazed upwards at the short body now towering over her, the gorgeous expanse of exposed skin and the breasts bouncing to the same rhythm that was pulsing through her body.

Estie was lost in a hurricane of sensations. The fullness inside her was the eye, the single point of pounding bliss that was the center of her world. Around it whirled the awareness of Alexa’s hands upon her, intimate, tender, and a little guilty, still sending tingles of fuzzy joy radiating out from where they lay. She could feel Alexa’s cool shoulders and collarbone beneath her own hands, and it felt like her childhood imagination of touching the marble curves of a statue of the Maiden she had seen at the art museum. She saw Alexa’s body beneath her, tall and broad and sturdy, but still squirming helplessly at Estie’s touch. And most of all she felt the hunger, the greed to take in all this sensation and seek still more.

To that end, she moved her fingers to her clit and started rubbing, first in time with her movements on the dildo, but soon faster and faster. The storm within her gathered strength, all the sensations building more and more strength until they finally crashed through her body. She arched her back as the orgasm took her, threw her head back, and screamed.

Alexa could see Estie’s orgasm coming, but she couldn’t reach her mouth to muffle the scream, nor was she terribly inclined to change positions. As soon as she saw her study partner’s back arch, thrusting her breasts out and shoving the toy even deeper into Alexa’s own pussy, she came to her own climax and was just happy to embrace Estie as she slipped off the shaft and into Alexa’s arms.

But when Estie moved up to kiss her friend, Alexa turned away.

“Estie, no. Shouldn’t you be lucid by now?”

“I’m not trying to fuck you silly right now, if that’s what you mean.”

“Okay, so, we need to get to work on the counterdraught. To fix you.”

“You’re so neurotic,” Estie replied with a dry smile. “We’ve got hours before I’m in any real danger. More if I brew a Liquid Energy. We’ve got a little time to enjoy ourselves. Or each other,” she added mischievously, going in for another kiss which her friend dodged again.

“Estie…” Alexa trailed off, running her gaze down her lab partner’s body. Here she was, the object of her affection, the subject of all her dreams and fantasies for months. Estie was looking at her just as she had envisioned, asking her for everything Alexa had longed to give. But…

“This isn’t you. It’s the potion. What you’re feeling isn’t real.” She could feel herself choking up. “I made a mistake.”

Alexa began to weep as the realization hit her that the plan which had seemed so brilliant just an hour ago was doomed even if the potion had worked perfectly. As great as the sex was, knowing that Estie’s love was unearned turned it to ash in her mouth. She’d destroyed the relationship she valued most in the world for nothing.

Estie lifted herself onto an elbow to reply, but just then the door opened and a young man’s voice called out, “Is everything okay in here? I heard a scream.”

The two women exchanged a panicked look. The lab bench blocked them from view from the door, but if he walked around he’d see them naked and sweaty and inevitably come to an embarrassing conclusion. Their clothes were scattered too far to easily reassemble, so Estie grabbed the robe and lay back down over Alexa, hiding herself and leaving only her friend’s head visible.

The interloper’s footsteps began to move around the bench. “Hello? I see your equipment, did you have an alchemical accident? Should I fetch a healer?”

“You took Illusory Arts, right?” Alexa whispered frantically, “Make us invisible!”

“There’s no time!” Estie hissed back as she ran her index finger in a hasty pattern over her friend’s stomach. Alexa did her best not to squirm and giggle too much as the man rounded the bench.

“Oh, there you are!” he said. “Is everything all right?”

Alexa recognized him as a student who had been reading in Unhallowed Grounds. “W-we’re not— um, yes?”

“What happened here? I heard a scream.”

“I um, I messed up a potion?”

“And that landed you on the floor?”

“Y-yes? We, um, I added the wrong ingredient and it, uh, it exploded.”

“That was quite a scream. You didn’t end up turning yourself into a frog or anything?”

“I was, uh, I was just frustrated. That I couldn’t get it to work.”

“Ah, big class project? I’ve been there. Look, why don’t I help you up and—”

“No!” Alexa yelped. “I mean, um, I lost an, uh, a toadstool cap and it’s down here somewhere. Bye!”

“Oh, no problem!” He squatted down. “Let me see if I can help you find it. My name’s Rick, by the way.”

“No no no,” Alexa stammered, “it got turned invisible, um, in the blast. It’ll take me a long time to find it, I’m sure you’ve got better things to do. I’ve got this!”

“Better things than helping out a pretty girl with a tricky potion?” Rick flashed her a big grin. “My Orcish Literature readings can wait.”

Finally Alexa understood why he wouldn’t leave. She sat up and crossed her arms under her breasts, not noticing that they were totally bare once they left the robe.

“Look, Rick. I’m sure all the straight girls find you dashing and adorable but I’m as gay as they come and I’ve got no time for nosy men who are ‘just trying to be helpful.’”

“All right,” he replied, taking no more notice of her bare chest than she did. “Message received.”

Only once he was out of the room did Alexa glance down and realize she had been topless. “Oh Crone! Why didn’t he say anything? What must he have thought?”

Estie popped her head out of the robe. “He didn’t even notice. I gave you a Quotidian Glamour.”

Alexa looked at her blankly.

“It’s a classical fae enchantment,” Estie explained, eager to share her knowledge whatever the circumstances. “A glamour is much simpler than a true illusion because it doesn’t change what people see, it just changes how they think about it. The Quotidian Glamour encouraged him to assume he was seeing what he expected and to ignore anything that didn’t match that—as long as you play along.”

“So if I hadn’t been so annoyed that I forgot I was wearing a shirt…”

“Right! If you’d drawn attention to it, he would have noticed too. Might have blown the whole thing, since I didn’t exactly apply it under optimal circumstances. I didn’t know you were ticklish, by the way.”

She reached out to tickle Alexa’s stomach again, but her friend batted her hands away, suddenly serious.

“Estie, we need to get to work.”

“Sure, sure. I’ve probably got a bit more time before the next wave hits. Two huge orgasms takes a lot out of me,” she shot Alexa an uninterpretable look as she got to her feet, “which should make my refractory period longer. My temperature is still high, but as I mentioned I think I can stand at least five more cycles before it begins to pose a risk.”

“That’s good,” said Alexa, not entirely convincingly. She knew she should be glad that Estie would be herself long enough to actually make the counterdraught, but a darker part of her had hoped for more moments of intimacy before the crisis was resolved. She knew she had done something unforgivable, and once Estie wasn’t in danger she’d probably never speak to Alexa again. She’d probably even get her kicked out of the university. And I’ll deserve it, too.

“Right, then.” Estie had her notebook in hand and was tapping a pencil against it. “Your ill-fated recipe.”

“R-right.” Alexa dug out her own notebook, the secret one she’d used to plan out her love potion, and opened it to the most recent page. “So I started with mermaid scale…”