Vokey sat in the gloom, the echo of the clerk's shriek still ringing in his ears. So much for a quiet exit. His brilliant correction on the precision of calculations involving ferret droppings had earned him a clout to the head and an expedited trip to the Outbounds, a place where the only law was what you could carve out of someone else's hide. He let his head thump against the stone. "My diplomatic skills are, apparently, a limiting reactant," he grumbled to the empty cell.
Defeated and bored, he retreated once more into the oatmeal-colored prison of his mind. He mentally flipped past the infuriating rules on significant figures, seeking anything that might prove useful. He landed on a new chapter: "Acids and Bases." The first section was simply titled: "Water."
A flicker of hope. Finally, something simple, something fundamental! He knew water. Water was serene, adaptable, one of the five classic elements. How could these chemistry fools possibly overcomplicate water?
The textbook answered with gusto. It explained that water, the very essence of elemental purity, was in a constant state of internal squabble. A small fraction of its molecules were perpetually tearing each other apart in a process called "autoionization."
2H₂O⇌H₃O⁺+OH⁻
Vokey stared at the equation, his brain refusing to process it. "You're telling me," he said to the imaginary author, "that water is having a cosmic divorce with itself?"
The text introduced the belligerent parties:
Hydronium (H₃O⁺), the aggressor, a water molecule that had greedily stolen a hydrogen proton from another.
Hydroxide (OH⁻), the victim, left naked and negative.
He scoffed, pacing the confines of his cell. "This is absurd! A Water-master commands the wave to crash upon the shore! They don't ask the wave if it's feeling a bit acidic today because its sub-atomic particles are having a tiff!" The very idea was an insult to the majestic, unified nature of the element. He was supposed to reshape reality, not psychoanalyze a puddle. These chemists had taken the second of the five sacred elements and broken it into... argumentative shrapnel.
His frustration with the sheer pointlessness of it all was a physical thing, a hot pressure behind his eyes. As his annoyance peaked, the System pinged.
Sufficient Contempt Acquired. New Skill Unlocked: Ion Sense (Level 1)
The world didn't shimmer this time. Instead, a new layer of sensation washed over him, subtle as a change in the air. It was a faint, almost taste-like perception. He could feel the phantom tang of... imbalance.
Curious, he focused on the slow drip-drip-drip from the ceiling. He extended his new sense. The feedback was a flat, boring hum of neutrality. The hydronium and hydroxide were in near-perfect balance.
He shifted his focus to the thick, rusted iron bars of his cell door. A different sensation hit him—a cloying, slick feeling. He could sense the slow, deliberate work of hydroxide ions, patiently tearing the metal apart atom by atom. It wasn't magic; it was just a slow, grinding process of decay.
A clank of metal from down the hall snapped him out of it. A guard appeared with a wooden bowl of greyish gruel and a tin cup of water. He slid them through the slot at the bottom of the door. "Dinner, outcast."
Vokey eyed the meal. His stomach churned, but he was starving. He picked up the cup, and as his fingers brushed the water, his Ion Sense flared. It wasn't neutral. There was a sharp, biting tang to it—a distinct surplus of hydronium. The water was acidic. Not dangerously so, but wrong. It was the mystic equivalent of sour milk.
Why? Was the water just drawn from a bad well? Or... was it intentional? A mild sedative, perhaps, designed to keep prisoners docile? The guards wouldn't waste a proper potion on a banished failure, but tainting the water supply with some cheap acidic compound? That seemed exactly like the kind of lazy, efficient cruelty they'd employ.
He looked from the sour-tasting water to the rust-slicked bars. He thought of Elder Thistlewart's failed potions, a problem of ratios he never knew he had.
"Fine," Vokey whispered to himself, setting the cup of water aside. "You can keep your bickering water-fleas."
For the first time, he understood. Knowing the whole was one kind of power. But knowing the "useless" component parts—the thief and the victim inside every drop of water—that was a different power entirely. The power of seeing the rot before it starts. The power of sniffing out the trap.
And in a place like the Outbounds, that might be the only power that mattered.