The Elusive Elixir

by Gigi Pandian

  An alchemist’s lab is their sanctuary and thus inexorably linked to their work. The pure intent of Notre Dame Cathedral balanced the impure intent of the two men who recorded their backward alchemy steps in Not Untrue Alchemy, allowing for some sort of stability. Because Dorian and Leopold were innocents from the cathedral, the book itself was able to bring them to life without an external sacrifice. Yet when the original intent was broken, everyone given life through backward alchemy faced the consequences.

  Steps sounded beneath us. Had Dorian gone to Max to get help?

  The attic door opened. Ivan stepped inside and relief washed over me. He’d had a change of heart after all.

  Ivan wasn’t quite as young and vigorous as he’d been when I saw him at the alchemy laboratory in Paris, but he was strong enough to help.

  “The book?” Raven asked him.

  Ivan shook his head. “I searched again. It’s not here.”

  My relief turned to cold terror. Ivan was still working with the backward alchemists?

  But it didn’t matter. The quick deterioration of Ivan’s body showed me that backward alchemy was over. And Dorian’s life along with it.

  Fifty-Three

  “It’s over, Ivan,” I said. “We’ve figured out that backward alchemy is done for.”

  “She’s lying,” Raven said. “She’s trying to trick us into thinking there’s no solution. But her beastly friend is hiding the book that will save us.”

  “I’m telling you the truth,” I said, wondering where my decidedly non-beastly gargoyle friend had gone. “She and Percy misled you—”

  “It’s because of us that you’re healthy again, Ivan,” Raven said. “Zoe would have had you die.”

  “And you would have had him kill Brixton,” I said.

  Ivan winced.

  “I forgive you, Ivan,” I said. “I know you didn’t know—”

  “Enough with the sentimentality,” Raven said. “Do you want to survive or not, Ivan?”

  He nodded silently, his jaw clenched. He refused to look me in the eye.

  “How many more sacrifices will you make?” I asked. “With the link broken, it will never stop.”

  “Men will always willingly give me this gift,” Raven said. “Jasper jumped at the chance.”

  I gasped. “It wasn’t a lie that Jasper Dubois was murdered. Only it was you who did it.”

  “I’ll let you in on a secret, my dear: if you want to tell a convincing lie, stick to the truth as closely as possible.”

  I glared at her. That was my secret. And she’d killed my shopkeeper assistant. Not that I’d been all that fond of the misogynistic Jasper, but still, he didn’t deserve to be murdered.

  “Didn’t you wonder how I knew you wouldn’t be able to trace Jasper’s movements?” she continued.

  “Because you knew he was already dead.” I should have thought of it, but she’d thrown me off balance by appearing in my attic today.

  “I can practically feel my face sagging,” Raven said, feeling her neck with the hand that wasn’t clutching the sword. “Percy, Ivan, stop standing there like useless lumps.”

  Now I was really angry. Not only had she manipulated me, but she’d turned Ambrose’s son Percy and my friend Ivan against me. I lunged for the second sword that was part of the pair. I’d been so calm until now that she didn’t anticipate the movement.

  “Stay out of my way, Percy. Ivan.” My voice didn’t sound like my own, but I was fairly certain it was me speaking. “This is between me and Raven.”

  Decades ago, I’d taken some fencing lessons with a lovely German

  man named Anton. I hoped I’d remember what he taught me.

  The men stepped back as Raven and I lunged at each other. In our rage, we weren’t going for proper form. We were trying to kill each other.

  Raven was already aging, so she wasn’t as strong as she thought she was. She was the first to draw blood, a shallow wound to my hip. While she regained her balance, I slashed a long cut across her shoulder. She cried out, more in shock than pain, I expect. Her sword dropped from her hand and she gripped her arm.

  I immediately thought of Tobias, who carried cayenne pepper with him in his role as an EMT, as an unconventional herbal remedy to stop blood loss. I kept a glass jar of cayenne on an antique spice rack there in the attic and wondered if it would help staunch the flow of blood from the wound I’d inflicted.

  I knew then that I couldn’t kill Raven. It wasn’t in my nature.

  But there was something else I could do. I grabbed the jar of cayenne, tore the lid off, and threw the spice into her eyes.

  Raven screamed in pain, blinded and writhing on the floor. Since she was no longer a threat, I pressed a towel to her bleeding shoulder and looked for something with which I could tie her arms.

  A piece of rope secured a curtain in the corner of the attic that Dorian kept for his private reading room. I yanked off the rope and turned back to Raven. But she was no longer sprawled on the floor. She stood in front of me, red-faced and wielding her sword.

  Then the look on her face morphed into surprise. A spot of deep red formed in the middle of her chest. The tip of a sword burst through her chest. A metallic scent filled the air. She looked down at her chest for a brief moment before her eyelids closed and she crumpled to the floor.

  Behind her stood Ivan, a blood-drenched sword clutched in his hands.

  Fifty-Four

  “On my God!” Percy screamed. He repeated the words again and again until I slapped him.

  Unlike Percy, Ivan stood as still as a nonliving gargoyle statue.

  “Ivan?” I said quietly.

  “She was going to kill you,” he whispered. “I couldn’t let her. I couldn’t.”

  As we stood there, the three of us in shock, Raven’s body shriveled from a woman into a skeleton, then before our eyes changed from bone to ash.

  A siren sounded in the distance.

  I swore. “Dorian and Leopold must have sent for help.”

  “Nobody will believe what has happened,” Ivan said.

  “Oh my God!” Percy started repeating again. Goodness, that man was tiresome. And he hadn’t lifted a finger to help me.

  “Percy,” I said, shaking him by the shoulder. “You’re not doing anyone any good. You’re going to give me your cell phone number and then get out of here. All right?”

  He nodded, wide-eyed.

  “Ivan,” I said. “Pick up Raven’s ashes and then leave. The cut on my leg will explain the mess. I’ll tell the police there was an intruder.” The sirens grew louder. “Hurry.”

  I scooped Raven’s ashes into a set of glass apothecary jars. After a quicker cleanup of Raven’s remains than I thought was possible, I collapsed onto the attic floor. I hadn’t attended to the cut on my hip. There wasn’t enough blood loss for me to pass out, but it was the middle of the night. I didn’t have the natural energy from the sun to draw upon.

  I closed my eyes and felt the cool hardwood floor on my cheek. I’d rest for a few moments …

  “Zoe?” a distant voice called. “Zoe?”

  “Mmm?”

  “You’re awake,” a familiar voice said, followed by a sigh of relief.

  “No, I’m not,” I mumbled.

  Max’s lips found mine. “I hope you’re awake now.”

  I opened my eyes. I was still sitting on the attic floor, but now Max had wrapped an arm around my shoulder. His other hand pressed a cloth to the wound on my leg.

  “EMTs are on their way up,” he said. “Hang on.”

  “I could hang on better if you put both of your arms around me.”

  He laughed. “You scared me, Zoe. You said you’d come back, but you didn’t. Instead I got a call from that French friend of yours—the guy I’ve never met. He said you were in danger. He wouldn’t give me details, but in
sisted I rescue you. He’s a strange guy. I don’t know how he knew, if he wasn’t involved—”

  “He didn’t do this to me.”

  “I know. We saw Ivan Danko leaving your house.”

  “You have him?” What would Ivan tell them?

  “No, he got away. I can see that you rescued yourself, so I’ll have to play hero another day, but what exactly happened here, Zoe?”

  “That question can wait, Detective Liu,” a woman said. She and a man rushed over to me and examined my hip. “We’re having a hell of a time getting a stretcher up here. These old houses aren’t up to code. Let me check out this wound and get you downstairs.”

  My wound was deemed superficial, so I was treated by the paramedics but I wasn’t forced to go to the hospital. Max, however, wasn’t happy about my decision to stay home.

  “If you won’t go to the hospital,” he said, “you could at least stay with me. Or I’d be happy to … ”

  I swept an errant lock of hair from his forehead. “I appreciate the offer, but I won’t get any rest if you stay. I need to sleep.”

  He took my hand and kissed it. “I promise I’ll let you get some sleep.”

  With how much my insides melted with that gentle brush of his lips against my hand, I gave him a truthful answer. “I don’t trust myself to make you keep that promise.”

  That seemed to appease him. I sent him home and awaited Dorian’s return, which was the more important reason I couldn’t have Max stay.

  I wasn’t sure what I was going to tell Dorian, now that all hope was lost. There was no cure for the backward alchemists and those who’d been brought to life by backward alchemy’s power. I could continue making the Tea of Ashes frequently enough to keep Dorian alive temporarily, but I’d be killing myself while he’d continue to slowly die. I should have accepted the truth earlier, but I hadn’t been open to the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to save Dorian.

  I wished Dorian would return home. Everyone had left over an hour ago. A detective had taken my statement. I told him that Ivan Danko had returned to seek revenge on me after I thwarted his crazy attempt to kill Brixton. I hated that it was the lie closest to the truth. I really had wanted to save Ivan.

  I fixed myself a chocolate elixir in the blender in an attempt to stay awake, but I fell asleep on the couch waiting for a gargoyle who never came.

  At dawn, I awoke to the sound of singing and the scents of cinnamon and smoke.

  Dorian stood at the kitchen counter, whisking batter in a stainless steel bowl. Turning at the sound of the swinging kitchen door, he hopped down from the stool and grinned at me. “Bon, you are awake, mon amie. I have only just returned from Monsieur Lake’s home.”

  “I have so much to tell you, Dorian.”

  “And I you. Why do you look so sad?”

  “Why didn’t you come home sooner?”

  “I was confident you could defeat the insane woman who was after my book, as you have. I also knew you would not be alone. I was certain Max would come to your aid. He is a good man, and he cares very much for you. I decided it was best to remain hidden and attend to pressing matters.”

  I sat morosely. “I have news. It’s bad. I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m going to come right out and say it.”

  Dorian rocked back and forth on the linoleum floor and looked at me expectantly.

  “There’s no cure, Dorian. There’s no cure for a backward alchemy transformation.”

  “Ah. Is that all?”

  “Is that all?”

  “I will share my news.” He gave a little hop and clapped his hands.

  Hopping and clapping …

  “You’re moving your left arm. And your ankle. It bends again.”

  “Oui. And all the rest of me. He wriggled his horns and flapped his wings gracefully. “You see, my friend, I have discovered true alchemy. I have found the Elixir of Life!”

  “But how?”

  “Through cooking.”

  Fifty-Five

  “Like alchemy,” Dorian said, “cooking, at its core, is about transformation.”

  “You truly found the Elixir?” I asked. “You’re not joking? Trying to make me feel better about failing?” I’d had so much false hope that I was scared to hope again.

  “Il est trop vrai. It is as true as true can be. This is why I returned to Julian Lake’s house last night instead of coming to check on you. I knew you were safe, so I wanted to complete the transformation.”

  “At his house rather than your own? I’m sorry if I haven’t made you feel like you belong—”

  “Not inside his house. His backyard, you may recall, has an outdoor brick kiln. It is meant for pizza, but it is the same heat—”

  “As an athanor.” The fire to cook the philosophical egg.

  Dorian grinned. “I cooked many foods in that oven, each of which represented a step to create the Philosopher’s Stone.”

  “You’re the one who was moving things around in my laboratory! I worried that was Lucien or Percy. I had the locks changed for nothing.”

  “Oui. I apologize for the deception. But it was necessary.”

  “And you weren’t even bleeding the other day, were you? I knew it wasn’t tomato sauce.”

  He shook his head. “Cinnabar.”

  “I knew someone had taken my dragon’s blood.”

  “I am sorry, my friend. But as you know, alchemy is a personal process. That is why I roped off my own meditative space in the attic.”

  “Your reading space.”

  “Yes, only it was not a reading space. I was meditating on alchemy. Did you not wonder why I had not asked you to obtain more library books lately?” He smiled sheepishly.

  “What was your philosophical egg?”

  “Can you not guess?”

  I smiled. “A food?”

  “An avocado.” He beamed at me. “It was the perfect ingredient for the first step to my Emerald Tablet: Gourmet Food Version.”

  I burst out laughing.

  “It is perfect, no? The avocado is the shape of an egg, and it represents life and fertility. The tree lives hundreds of years. It is even green, like an emerald.”

  “And your last step must have been salt.”

  “But of course. Salt purifies and protects foods from being corrupted, as alchemy’s transformations purify the impure. Salt is the truest, most natural, and most essential of all foods.”

  “The product of mercury and sulfur. The child of the spirit and the soul.”

  “You alchemists are more clever than I gave you credit for. I knew there was a reason I sought you out, Alchemist. We are a perfect balance, you and I. You claim you are not prepared to train others in the art of alchemy, yet it was your guidance that enabled me to find the Elixir.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “You are too humble, Zoe. You are the one who showed me that a meal need not be complicated to reach perfection. You are the one who taught me that salt is the child of the alchemical king and queen. And you are the one who sacrificed yourself for me by creating the Tea of Ashes, showing me that backward alchemy was not the way I wished to live.”

  I hugged my friend, and he wrapped his wings around me. His wings were no longer the stiff-yet-malleable stone they once were. Now they felt like I imagined the wings of an angel would feel.

  I squeezed Dorian’s strong, feather-like wings, then pulled back to look at his transformation. He looked much the same as when I’d met him six months before, but his gray skin held a radiance that hadn’t previously been there.

  “Where’s Leopold?” I asked.

  Dorian blinked. “Is he not in the attic?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Dorian ran up the stairs. I tried to keep up, but now that he was healthy again, it was all I could do to keep him in sight. />
  “Merde,” Dorian said from the attic doorway. “He promised he was coming back here. I had to leave him so I could finish my transformation alone.”

  “It’s not your fault. I’m sure he’ll turn up.”

  “Zoe, you do not understand. He has my book.”

  “You don’t need it anymore. And what could he do with it on his own?”

  Dorian rubbed his chin. “I wonder.”

  We tromped down the stairs, me pestering Dorian about the fourteen food steps he used to create the Elixir of Life.

  “To the kitchen,” he said. But as soon as he opened the pantry door, he flapped his wings in earnest. He turned around, clutching a mangled note in his clawed hand. “From Leopold,” he sputtered. “He has taken the last of my wine from the pantry. And look, that is the least of the affront.”

  I eased the wrinkled note from his hand.

  It is by universal misunderstanding that we agree with each other, it read. You have convinced me, my friend, that I must come to understand this foul alchemy that has given us this malady of life. This is why I must borrow your book, say farewell, and accompany my new friend Ivan to the land of alchemists.

  Adieu.

  L.B.

  Leopold and Ivan together, with Dorian’s book? That couldn’t be good.

  I quickly looked up the local Portland news on my phone to make sure there hadn’t been any gargoyle sightings. Thank goodness for small favors.

  “Zoe,” Dorian interrupted. “I hate to alarm you, but your leg is bleeding.”

  I put my phone down and looked at my healthy friend once more. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I had a lot to tell you about what happened last night.”

  “Let me cook us breakfast. We have much time to talk, and much grand food to eat.”

  the end

  recipes

  Each of these recipes is an easy dish that Dorian was able to make with only one good arm. Using simple ingredients doesn’t mean sacrificing flavor.