“Alright. If you're needing my magic to become my familiar, there's only one way I really know how to accomplish that. Come on, we’re heading downstairs.” Nevin gestured to his shoulder, and Aphrael hopped from the counter up onto his arm, letting out a small happy flourish of flute notes as she did so. Almost immediately she began preening Nevin’s hair, carefully running her beak through the short stubbly hair on top of his head as he turned and headed towards the hatch that would lead down into his basement.

He fished the key to the lock out from under his shirt, where it was hanging on a small leather necklace, and knelt down to unlock the hatch. Aphrael’s claws tightened on his shoulder as Nevin dropped in height, though that and the fact that she stopped moving her beak along his head were the only signs of her sudden tension. Nevin reached up and stroked the side of her head before swinging the door up, revealing the ladder that led down into his workshop. To one side was the small pulley system that he used to move heavier loads up and down, currently empty.

The red-tinged corvid hopped off of his shoulder and onto the small platform, trilling a question at the alchemist, who nodded slightly. She settled back and waited on the small wood plank as he climbed down the latter, her claws scratching lightly at the wood. When Nevin reached the bottom of the ladder he gently pulled on the rope, dragging the wooden platform down, Aphrael swaying back and forth with amused flute notes as the rope rolled along the pulley track. Shortly above Nevin’s head she dropped off the edge, gliding down to land back onto his shoulder with a pleased flourish.

The secret blood mage shook his head slightly, exasperated at the bird. He was already learning that she was quite easily amused by nearly everything that he did, even though he personally didn't tend to be as… free to laugh joyously like she was. He actually felt like that wasn't a bad thing though, and hoped that the ritual he was planning wouldn't change her too much in the process.

Into the chamber he went, pausing a moment on the threshold as the smell of blood washed over him. Even though he wasn't about to be draining the jug of lizard blood for another essence, having the fluid available to work with for other things was useful. And it still made the veins of blood on the surface of his skin sing softly as he drank in the smell. Nevin wasn't a vampire, but he had a strange predilection for the scent of blood, the coppery tang in the air, that he only rarely indulged in.

A confused piping of flutes from his shoulder centered Nevin’s thoughts, bringing him back to the here and now. He reached up and almost lazily stroked the bird’s feathers as he walked into the room. Over to the low stone table he did his experimental Alchemy on, and one hand slowly clasped around the smooth handle of his knife. He tested the edge of the blade against one thumb, and nodded as it smoothly glided along his skin, peeling back a few layers of skin.

Nevin shook his hand to dispel the slight sting from peeling off the top layers of skin and rotated his head around to stare into the ruby-red eye that Aphrael had fixed him with. “My magic works via blood. If you need it to complete the bond -” an energetic trill of flutes, firm and confident, “-then I will have to give you some. As I don't think you'd enjoy cooled lizard blood - and I would not force you to imbibe such - instead, you are going to have some of mine.”