by Beth Revis
“Nedra!” Master Ostrum’s voice was concerned now, pitched high with worry, and he forced me to break the bond, shoving me away from the body and the crucible, severing the connection I’d had with both Dilada and Death. The crucible clattered to the ground, and I followed behind it, crashing against the floor. For a moment, all I could do was stare straight up at the flickering lights of the oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. My entire being was repulsed by the feeling of Death taking up residence in my body, gnawing at me.
And yet . . . I craved it. It had infected me with its insatiable hunger. I wanted more.
“Are you all right?” Master Ostrum asked, dropping to his knees beside me. He reached for my arm, feeling my pulse. It seemed like it should be strong; my heart wanted to race and rollick out of my body, but I could tell by Master Ostrum’s frown that he could barely find its beat.
I pushed him away and sat up on my own. Dilada’s body still lay on the table, but her normally olive skin looked bleached, abnormally pale, like a layer of ash had been rubbed all over her.
“What have you done?” Master Ostrum said in a low voice, meant only for my ears. He did not try to hide the morbid fascination welling in his eyes.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Nedra
Master ostrum tried a couple of times to get me to tell him what I had experienced in that last alchemical transfer with Dilada, but I wasn’t ready to speak about it.
“Tonight,” he said as we passed through the gates to Yūgen, “we will discuss what transpired.” His tone brooked no argument, but he allowed me to head off on my own.
I started for the library, but it wasn’t books I wanted. Instead, I veered in the other direction, toward the small chapel.
I had discovered the chapel on my first weekend at Yūgen when I heard its bells ringing in the morning. I’d thought it would be filled to the brim with students, but instead, I was one of the few people who visited it. There was no Elder. I hadn’t quite expected one, as the chapel wasn’t a full church hall, but I’d thought perhaps someone would lead the prayers or give a sermon. For all of this school’s famous lecturers, none of the professors came to teach religion.
But there were prayer candles. And it was quiet. And I needed both of those things now.
I stepped into the small chapel with my head down, not inviting any engagement, but there was no one else there this early on a weekday. I supposed most of the people on campus were in the cafeteria, eating breakfast, chatting, completely ignorant that another factory by the docks had closed to plague, that these endless mini tragedies unfolded around them just outside the academy’s gates.
In the center of the chapel was the eternal flame, a candle as tall as me and as thick as my arm, set into the floor. The round glass inset in the roof was supposed to symbolize the eye of Oryous watching us at all times, never blinking. I took my small prayer candle from the basket by the door and lit it on the eternal flame.
As I stared at the flickering light, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia and then fear as I remembered Ernesta’s letter. In a way, I was glad that this chapel was different from the church hall back home, smaller, neater, less used. It would have been too much like saying goodbye all over again if it had the warm familiarity of my village but didn’t have the people I loved inside.
The walls were painted with various holy scenes, but I was drawn to the mural opposite the door. In it, Oryous stood before an image of Death, ghostly white and draped in black, the cloth billowing from an unearthly wind that did not bend the blades of painted grass or shake the trees in the background. The lesser gods stood behind Oryous, all of them rebuking Death, who stood alone. Oryous held his hand out, his palm in front of Death, stopping him. It was supposed to symbolize how we do not truly die when we believe in the gods.
The prayer candle shook in my hand as I approached the mural, the small flame dancing. Cushions were laid on the floor in front of each mural, but I did not kneel. We never knelt or sat at the church hall in the village. We were supposed to stand before our gods, not crouch.
I stepped over the cushions to get closer to the mural. My eyes were not on Oryous, but instead on Death itself. This was not the Death I had seen when I reached into Dilada, trying to pull her back to life. That Death had no shape, nothing as clear as this.
I blew my candle out. I did not need it to pray.
I was not sure who I wanted to pray to.
Instead, I turned to Oryous’s painting. But when I mimicked his stance, when I reached my arm out in front of me, I did not raise it in objection. I reached for Death like a friend.
“Nedra?”
The voice startled me, and I dropped my unlit candle, the hot wax spilling on my hand.
Grey stepped into the chapel, his eyes seeking me. He smiled when he saw me, and I was grateful that he hadn’t seen me a moment before, and that he couldn’t read my blasphemous thoughts.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
I held out the prayer candle as answer. “How did you know to find me here?”
“I checked the library first,” he said. “Then I went to Master Ostrum’s office. He suggested the chapel.” He looked around, drinking in the paintings. I realized this must be his first time here.
I stepped back over the kneeling pads and past the eternal flame, dropping my candle into the basket to be reused by other worshippers. It wasn’t until Grey had followed me out of the chapel that I turned to him. “I thought you were going to come with me this morning,” I said, not meeting his eyes.
“Are we not still going?” Grey asked.
I gaped at him. “Where have you been?”
“You’ve already gone down to the factory?” Grey asked.
“I told you last night,” I said. “Sunrise.”
Grey laughed, but cut himself short when he saw my look. “But the cafeteria doesn’t open until . . .” his voice trailed off. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You did say sunrise, but I just assumed . . .”
“The gods forbid you miss breakfast,” I said, not bothering to bite back my tone.
“It’s not like that,” Grey said.
I raised an eyebrow at him. He did not deserve my rage, but all I had within me now was anger boiling, steeping in sorrow.
“I messed up,” Grey confessed. “I’ll be ready tomorrow. I’ll meet you at sunrise, like you said.”
“Sure,” I said as if it didn’t matter.
I wondered what he would have thought of me if he’d seen me today, reaching past the limits of medicinal alchemy. Would he have tried to stop me?
And then I wondered: If he had been there, would I have even attempted it in the first place?
TWENTY-EIGHT
Nedra
I looked askance at Master Ostrum’s cluttered laboratory, not willing to meet his intense gaze. We both knew what needed to be said.
“So,” Master Ostrum said. “Today.”
“Today,” I replied.
“Today you . . . crossed a line.”
I looked down at my hands in my lap. “I just . . . I wanted to help.”
“You realize,” Master Ostrum said slowly, considering each word, “that you were toying with necromancy.”
Something inside me ached with a hunger that mirrored the greedy maw of Death. And then I remembered the statue of Bennum Wellebourne in the center of the quad, and how people hated him so much they poured molten iron over his image.
“It wasn’t necromancy, though,” I said. “I used my golden crucible.”
Master Ostrum’s eyes were furrowed in concern. “If you had an iron crucible, would you have used it?”
I swallowed, hard. “I just wanted to help.”
He nodded grimly.
“It is good that there was no alchemist there but me,” he said. “Any other, and you might have been faced with an inquiry.”
“I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “I didn’t think—”
“That’s the problem,” Master Ostrum said. “You didn’t think.”
“But I’m not a necromancer—”
“And yet, you seem to have a natural inclination.”
I stood up so suddenly that my chair clattered to the floor, protests already bubbling on my lips.
“Peace, Nedra,” Master Ostrum said. “I meant that as a compliment.”
His words surprised me, and I reached behind me for the chair, setting it upright again.
“Necromancy itself is forbidden,” Master Ostrum said, “but studying it, knowledge of it, is not.”
His eyes were intent on mine, and I felt the weight of his words settling on my shoulders. This was a test.
“Nedra,” Master Ostrum said, “how long have you been helping me research this plague?”
It felt like all my life.
“And yet,” he continued, “you know as well as I that we are no closer to a cure. What causes it?”
“We don’t know.”
“How is it spread?”
“We don’t know.”
“Is it pneumonic or septicemic?”
“We don’t know.”
“Why does it affect some in the extremities, and others directly in the heart or brain?”
“We don’t know.” With every admittance of our limitations, my voice became more and more desperate until it broke.
Master Ostrum leaned over the table. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that this much time has passed, and we don’t even know how the disease is transferred?” he said. “It is a simple test. If nothing else, a control group could determine if the disease is airborne or blood-borne. And yet, the answer is elusive.”
I frowned, still not understanding.
“Today, Nedra,” Master Ostrum continued, “you came very close to a form of alchemy few know anything about. And yet I cannot help but think you came closer to understanding this plague than anyone else has to date.”
“What are you saying?” My voice sounded distant, as if someone else were asking the question.
“I am saying that, at least within the confines of this laboratory, we must consider that perhaps the plague is caused not by a disease, but by a necromantic curse.”
He waited for the words to settle on me, a truth I couldn’t dispute. We had been dancing around this idea ever since he had given me The Fourth Alchemy.
“But if that is true,” I said slowly, “how can we fight it?”
He leaned back in his chair. “How indeed,” he said slowly, his eyes glittering as they appraised me. Then he frowned. “You disagree with me? Even after today, after reading the book, you doubt this is necromancy?”
He made this conclusion a long time ago, I realized. He just didn’t trust me with it until now.
“No, what you’re saying makes sense,” I replied. “But who could be the necromancer? It’s nearly impossible to make an iron crucible.”
Master Ostrum barked with bitter laughter. “Oh, it certainly is.”
Something about the way he said it made me feel uneasy. He noticed my change and shook his head. “No,” he said gently. “I don’t have one. I am no necromancer. I am just a scholar.”
“Of necromancy.”
“Of all forms of alchemy.” He did not break his gaze.
“But no one has practiced necromancy in almost two hundred years.”
Master Ostrum’s eyes widened. “Two hundred—you think Bennum Wellebourne was the last necromancer? No. There have been others, although none so advanced or well-known. Anyone who has come even close to creating an iron crucible has been put to death. It is rare, though,” Master Ostrum allowed. “It requires a specific type of individual. Not everyone can be a necromancer. In Bennum Wellebourne’s private journals, he called it ‘death in the blood.’”
“You mean, you have to be born with something inside of you?” I asked, frowning.
Master Ostrum shook his head. “That part is unclear. It could be an inherent trait. Or it could be merely a willingness to allow oneself to be infected by death . . .”
My eyes shot down. I thought of how Death had felt in my hands as I tried to save Dilada. How I had invited it inside me.
How I wanted more.
“The Fourth Alchemy wasn’t clear,” I said, keeping my tone even, “but to make an iron crucible . . . it seemed extraordinarily difficult.”
“It’s not a matter of difficulty,” Master Ostrum said. “It is a matter of sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice?” I repeated, the word barely audible.
Master Ostrum nodded. “There are other books than the one I gave you. Most of them focus on the sacrifice the necromancer must make himself. The more sensational volumes say that the necromancer’s soul is traded for the power.” He dismissed this. “But they all mention that the necromancer does have to give up something. Health. Blood. Something.”
I thought of the painting of Bennum Wellebourne hanging in the quarantine hospital. I wondered what he had given up.
“The older books are clear,” Master Ostrum continued. “Truth gets watered down over time. The more I go back to the earliest texts on necromancy, the more I see that the necromancer must sacrifice more than himself.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Runes, for one.” Master Ostrum didn’t look at me; he looked at a book on his shelf, but I couldn’t tell which one. “Carved into the flesh of someone you love, or who loved you. The books differ.”
“Carved into the flesh?”
“Dead flesh. You start with the death of a loved one. And then a knife.” He picked up a scalpel from the table. “The runes mark the body for sacrifice.”
“But if the person is already dead, that doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice.”
“You’re treating the desecration of a corpse rather lightly, Nedra,” Master Ostrum said, but he didn’t sound as if he were chastising me, merely commenting. “Could you so easily carve into the flesh of someone you loved?”
I thought of Ernesta. I caught my reflection in the glass covering Master Ostrum’s potions cabinet, and I imagined that it was her, not me, looking back. I imagined her eyes empty, the scalpel slicing into her skin, a trickle of blood between her eyes.
I looked away. “No,” I said slowly. “No, I don’t think I could do that.”
TWENTY-NINE
Nedra
By the time I left Master Ostrum’s office, the sun had long since set. There was no moon on the horizon, just the glow of the quarantine hospital’s clock.
I made my way slowly back to the dorm, thinking of what Master Ostrum had revealed to me. I didn’t notice the boy sitting on the stairs until I almost stepped on him.
“What are you doing, leaving a professor’s office so late at night?” Tomus sneered. I could smell the ale on him from several steps away, but his words were not slurred, and his eyes glittered in the darkness.
“Research,” I said without pausing. I kept my head down, one foot in front of the other.
Tomus grabbed my arm, jerking me around. “Research,” he repeated, sneering.
I tried to pull away. His grip was viselike, his fingers digging into my forearm, purposefully twisting my flesh.
“What are you going to do?” I said in a low voice.
“Anything I want,” he snarled.
He thought he could scare me, but I had seen Death today. Nothing could scare me. He thought his leer would make me cower. I could see it in his eyes. He believed in himself, in his ability to intimidate others. It was almost laughable, the idea that he had any power at all.
“Hey!” Grey came from the other side of the building. “What’s going
on?” His voice was unusually aggressive.
Tomus threw his hands up. “Nothing, nothing,” he said in a mocking tone. “Your girlfriend’s out late, that’s all.”
“I can stay out as late as I want,” I snapped, moving down the steps and away from them both.
“Have you thought about our last conversation?” Tomus asked Grey, holding him back from joining me.
Grey jerked away, jogging to catch up with me. “Mind if I walk you to your dormitory?” he asked, somewhat breathlessly.
I shook my head. My fingers ran along the long, narrow scar across my palm.
Grey pulled my hand away and wove his fingers through mine. “He’s just jealous,” he said.
“He’s not.” Our steps didn’t slow; we both wanted to leave the quad. Tomus wasn’t following us, but he was still there, watching. I knew it without turning. “He isn’t jealous of you, and you have the top alchemical marks.”
“He is,” Grey said. “He just thinks he can use me later, so he hides his anger from me.”
“What did he mean?” I asked as we reached the door to the dormitory. “About your last conversation?”
Grey’s face flashed with exasperation. “There’s a group of students who think now is the perfect time to start protesting the government.” His fingers ran up and down a little arrow that had been carved into the doorframe.
“The governor?” I asked.
“And the Emperor,” Grey said. He stepped ahead of me, opening the door to the girls’ dormitory. “Don’t worry about it. They can’t really do anything but shout.”
Rather than step through the door, I reached for him. “Come up with me?” I asked. “We could study.”
I could see the hesitation in his eyes, but he nodded and followed me to my room. Once inside, Grey looked around my bare room. It was a little homier since I moved in, but not by much. He casually opened the scroll of parchment on my desk, revealing the map my father had given me.