The Accidental Alchemist

by Gigi Pandian

  “He is a very intelligent boy,” Dorian chimed in.

  “You’re not helping, Dorian,” I snapped. “How could you let him go into the lab with you?”

  “He was already there! Would it not have been worse to leave him outside?”

  “No,” I said. “It would have been a million times better if he hadn’t broken into a police lab.”

  “We’re back,” Brixton said. “And we got the poison. No reason to be so upset.”

  “No reason?” I said. “Do you realize you’ve broken the whole chain of evidence? Anything we learn from this can’t be used as evidence.”

  I took measured breaths, trying to calm myself. I really shouldn’t leave those two alone.

  “Who cares about evidence?” Brixton said. “I just want you to fix Blue.”

  It was difficult to be blindingly angry when I knew why they were each doing it. Desperate times called for desperate measures. My exasperation faded. But only a little. “What happened when the police arrived?”

  “I’d hidden my bike a little ways away,” Brixton said. “We ran there and I put Dorian on the handle bars.”

  “The police didn’t follow?”

  “It was weird,” Brixton said. “I didn’t think they had seen us, but then one guy caught up. I took us through the Shanghai Tunnels to get away. My bike got beaten up going down the stairs, but Dorian was able to fix it in the dark. We stayed down there for a little while, to make sure nobody was following us. That’s why we’re back so late.”

  I hadn’t noticed until now that they were both dusty. The underground tunnels explained it.

  “Get cleaned up,” I said. “I’ll drive you to school.”

  “It’s Saturday.”

  “Oh, well, then… take a shower to clean that tunnel dirt off.”

  “Your shower is either freezing or boiling. It’s torture.”

  “Then let the cold and hot water run together and take a bath.”

  He grumbled on his way upstairs.

  “Is this enough?” Dorian asked, holding up the vial.

  “This is a bad idea,” I said.

  “Do you have a better one?”

  ———

  Dorian cooked breakfast—brown bread fresh from the oven with wild blackberry preserves from wild blackberries he found in the woods during one of his recent nights out exploring.

  “I have not yet perfected a vegan butter,” he lamented. “Nut butters are not the same. I will master it yet. Dorian Robert-Houdin does not walk away from a challenge.”

  I had a challenge of my own to tackle. I waited until Brixton climbed into bed before getting to work on the poison.

  With fear as a motivator, I was more effective in the laboratory than I’d been the day before. In a strange way, I was also happy. I had experienced some of the happiest moments of my life when Ambrose and I worked side by side.

  We each worked differently—he with metals and me with plants—but we complemented each other. They talk about couples completing each other’s sentences. Ambrose and I completed each other’s thoughts about our alchemical transformations. If I needed a glass retort for the next phase of a process, Ambrose would hand it to me moments before I moved to get one myself. If he needed a crucible to move his creation into the fire of the athanor, I knew when he was ready for it. In alchemy, a practitioner’s energy is transferred to the vessels they work with. Therefore most alchemists didn’t let other alchemists touch any of the items in their labs. But with two of us, it was as if those rules didn’t apply. We were so in synch that our alchemy transformed us into one. I had never felt so connected to life as I was when I was in the laboratory with Ambrose.

  Remembering those moments, I found my rhythm. Like many alchemists before me, I was so caught up in the moment, so focused on the process, that I forgot I was dealing with an unknown substance. I should have been working more carefully, but I was giddy with getting back into the rhythm of alchemy. Through the distillation process, some of the liquid from the vial had turned to steam. It was too late to stop the process, or to leave the room. I breathed in the noxious fumes.

  I felt myself falling. I must have been physically falling to the hard concrete at my feet, but that’s not what it felt like. I was falling in slow motion, through the sky.

  I knew, then, what I was feeling. The toxin in the air was the most essential metal in all of alchemy: mercury.

  The last thought I had was that I was being killed by an alchemist.

  Then everything went dark.

  twenty

  I awoke to the sharp smell of ammonia overwhelming my senses. I shot up from the cold, concrete floor, feeling like I was going to vomit. My head throbbed. The room spun around me. The light was so bright it felt like the sun was in the room with me. I pressed my eyes shut. The scent of ammonia dissipated, but the bright room kept spinning.

  “Drink,” a deep voice said. Cold hands pushed a glass jar to my lips.

  I sipped the water. The sensation washing over me triggered a sense of familiarity. I remembered what I had been doing before passing out. Mercury.

  “It is better?” Dorian asked.

  “The air!” I said, realizing the fumes might have remained. “We need to get out of the basement.”

  “There is nothing in the air.”

  “Mercury doesn’t have a scent.”

  “Mercury?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  Along with sulfur and salt, mercury is one of the three essential elements of alchemy. The dangerous one. I knew it well, having conducted many alchemical transformations using the enigmatic metal. It has a dual nature, both therapeutic and poisonous, both liquid and solid, which is why it’s called the rebis. It’s an essential ingredient for creating the philosopher’s stone, but one that has also poisoned countless alchemists.

  “Do you need further care?” Dorian asked.

  “With the amount I ingested, I should be fine. But we need to air out the basement.”

  “I will take care of it.”

  “Be careful, Dorian.”

  “Mais oui.”

  Dorian helped me up the stairs. I lay down on the couch, awake but reeling. I closed my eyes. A raw ache radiated from my shoulder and spread through my arm. I must have hurt it when I passed out.

  A sharp claw poked my side. I opened my eyes. The little creature stood bending over me, his eyes wide. “I do not think you should be lying down.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I mumbled.

  He poked me again, harder this time.

  “Fine.” I let him pull me to a sitting position.

  “This is better.”

  “How did you know?” I croaked.

  “I heard the sound of a crash. When I came to investigate, I found you unconscious on the floor. You did not have smelling salts that I could see, therefore I took a jar of ammonia to wake you.”

  I smiled weakly. My body trembled.

  “D’accord,” Dorian said. “You may rest. I will watch you.”

  Though my body pleaded for rest, my mind raced. Now that I had ingested a stronger dose, I had a better understanding of what the poison was. But it raised even more questions. The strangest thing was, what I had told Dorian was true. Mercury didn’t have the noxious scent of other poisons. It was odorless. Then what had I smelled on Charles Macraith and Blue Sky?

  I’d let myself be confused because it wasn’t poison. Not exactly.

  I recognized some of the herbs from an old Chinese herbal remedy, which included mercury—but this blend had been tainted with additional substances I couldn’t identify. It wasn’t poison for poison’s sake. And it wasn’t the same mixture that had been used on Charles Macraith. It was as if someone hadn’t checked for toxic contaminants in formulas that otherwise would have been harmless or even healing. I had no way of know
ing if it was purposeful, or if someone had been cutting corners. Either way, coupled with mercury, it was a dangerous mix.

  Front and center was mercury, but not in a high enough dose to kill anyone. In spite of my initial reaction when I realized there was mercury present, an alchemist wasn’t the only explanation. There was something I was missing.

  I must have dozed off. I hadn’t meant to, but my body needed the rest to recover. Being attuned to natural substances makes me both stronger and weaker than the average person. Stronger when it comes to natural substances, because of my connection to plants. But weaker when it comes to unnatural additives, such as some of the toxins I’d ingested.

  When I woke up, I was back in the basement. How had that happened? No, that wasn’t right. This wasn’t my basement. I was back in the old alchemy lab I’d shared with Ambrose. He was there, working at my side. The underground stone walls were covered with rich green ivy, so bright it was nearly fluorescent. The plant’s tendrils covered not only the walls but the floor as well. As I watched, the ivy grew. The tendrils reached out like octopus arms, enveloping our glass and copper materials, even wrapping itself around Ambrose. Why wasn’t he reacting? This must have been a dream, though it didn’t feel like one. I was awake and sleeping at the same time. The ivy wrapped itself around my ankles. I screamed. Just before I was swallowed up by the plant, a stick poked me.

  I opened my eyes. Dorian was seated cross-legged a few feet away from me. He held a hardcover book from the library in one hand and a stick in the other.

  “Quit it with the poking,” I said, my voice hoarse.

  “You were making odd noises. Whenever a look of distress appeared on your face, I poked you. It calmed you.”

  “Odd noises?” The dream came back to me. It had to have been a dream, but it felt so real. Because it wasn’t a normal dream. It was a hallucination.

  “Your complexion did not change,” he said, “nor your temperature. I thought it was best to let you sleep instead of dialing 9-1-1.”

  “Good choice,” I said, stretching. Pain shot through my shoulder, but it was a surface pain, not the bone. “Oh God, what time is it?”

  “Do not worry. The boy still sleeps.”

  I sighed. “I should call Max.”

  “You cannot go to the detective with the information you learned from the stolen vial. Especially since you said it was an unscented poison. How would you explain your information? This is information for us to find Blue’s killer and retrieve my book.”

  He was right. I couldn’t tell Max how I’d learned it was Chinese herbal remedies tainted with mercury and God knows what else. I wasn’t even sure what that meant. I was somewhat familiar with Chinese herbs, but not enough to identify the exact mixture. But I had to do something. On shaky legs, I stood up.

  “You are going to the police station?” Dorian asked as I bundled in my thick wool sweater and jacket.

  “I haven’t figured out what I’m doing.”

  “Then where are you going?”

  “I need to walk off the effects. You’ll stay here with Brixton?”

  I walked to Blue Sky Teas, taking the long way around the neighborhood. The rain was holding off, for which my roof was thankful, though clouds blanketed the sky. When I reached the main drag, the sidewalks were crowded with people going to restaurants, coffee houses, bookstores, specialty shops, or simply walking their dogs.

  Olivia’s friend Cora was behind the counter at the teashop when I arrived. I was unsurprised that Olivia passed off her good deed to the frazzled woman. The shop was only half-full now, a stark contrast to what I’d seen the day before. I supposed there was nothing more for people to learn. Still, even with only a few customers to deal with, Cora looked at least as distressed as she had the day before. Her red curls were pulled into a messy knot, which had fallen onto the side of her head.

  Before I reached the short line, I was startled by who I saw sitting at a back table: Max Liu.

  I held my locket between my fingers, took a deep breath, and walked over to him. He looked up at me but didn’t offer me a seat. Two newspapers and an eBook reader filled the table, along with a teapot and teacup.

  “Shouldn’t you be off catching bad guys?”

  “I’m on leave.”

  “You’re what? Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter why,” he said. “What matters is that right when we might have a breakthrough in the case, I’m off it.”

  “A breakthrough?”

  “I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”

  “But you said you were off the case.”

  “I’m sure Detective Dylan would greatly appreciate me telling the details of the case to one of the suspects.”

  “I’m still a suspect? I thought you said there was a breakthrough.”

  Max’s facial features relaxed a little. He didn’t smile, but his deep brown eyes softened as he looked at me. “I think he’d be wasting his time if he focuses on you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me.” The warmth in his eyes was gone, if it had even been there to begin with. “I can’t do anything about what happens from here.”

  The poison was in my basement. Oh, God. What if they got a search warrant?

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t like any of this. A man was killed outside my new home and meaningful objects were stolen. I don’t believe Blue did it.”

  “Neither do I.” He sighed. “You might as well sit down.” He folded the newspapers, making room on the table.

  I sat across from him, not entirely sure why I’d walked up to him in the first place. I wanted to tell him what I’d learned about the poison, but hadn’t yet figured out a way to do it. I also couldn’t deny that I was drawn to the man. But there was something different about him today. He held himself at an emotional distance that I hadn’t felt before.

  “I feel like I should be asking you what’s the matter, too. For a guy on leave, you don’t look very relaxed.”

  He looked over my face for a moment before speaking. I felt suddenly self-conscious. I hadn’t looked in a mirror since being knocked out from the tainted herbs.

  “Remember how I told you how I was injured,” he said, “when I fell through a trapdoor while chasing a suspect?”

  I nodded.

  “That wasn’t all there was to the story.”

  “What happened?”

  “That night, I discharged my weapon.”

  My breath caught.

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” he said. “I’ve never killed anyone. But that night … It was down in the old tunnels that run beneath the city. They were built to transport supplies from ships to merchants without clogging up the streets, but many of them were used for unsavory purposes.”

  “The Shanghai Tunnels.”

  “You’re learning your local history. Kidnapping able-bodied men and forcing them into indentured servitude on ships is a big part of this city’s history.” He paused to take a sip of his tea, wincing as he raised the cup.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “It’s nothing. I’ve had much worse.” He shifted in his chair and I noticed he was trying to keep one of his legs straight. “Last month, in those tunnels, I fell through a trapdoor—which I learned is technically a ‘deadfall’ when it’s made for the express purpose of capturing an unsuspecting man. I wasn’t careful because I didn’t think it was possible—I was already below ground in a tunnel, but it turns out there’s another level of tunnels I didn’t know about.”

  “Didn’t you have backup?”

  “I hadn’t waited for it. Stupid, I know. But the case was important. A girl had died.” He indicated the lone photo hanging on the wall.

  “You knew her?”

  “We all did. Blue has created a great sense of community a
t the teashop. All of us who are drawn to the healing properties of tea find each other here.”

  “The girl who died was one of them—one of you?”

  Max lowered his voice before continuing. “Anna West. A real shame. She was supposed to start college this fall. Her mother likes to spend time here now, to feel close to her. I don’t see that it helps her, though.” He looked toward the counter.

  “The woman working the counter is her mother?” Of course. Now that I looked at the framed photo on the teashop wall, I saw the resemblance, most strikingly with the lush red hair they shared.

  Max nodded.

  “Anna was killed in the tunnels?” I asked quietly.

  “No, it was a suicide at her home, but I suspected it was connected to the people who I was chasing in the tunnels.”

  “Since you were on your own when you got hurt down there, how did you get out?”

  “I was lucky not to have broken any bones. I was able to get out of there myself. But I saw some strange things.”

  “Strange?”

  “I don’t know what I saw. In the darkness in those tunnels, I saw shadows … Shadows that I was convinced were monsters. That’s what I shot at.”

  I remained silent. He must have taken my silence for skepticism.

  “I know what you’re thinking. The psychologist who examined me after the shooting agrees it was trauma brought on by the acute pain caused by the fall. That I had a mental break. She was loath to put me back on duty. She reluctantly agreed to it. But after what happened last night, she put me back on leave.”

  Oh no. Last night? I was afraid to ask. “What happened?”

  “There was a break-in at the lab where we sent the poison found at Blue’s house.”

  “You were there?” I swallowed, feeling guilt and bile rise in my throat.

  “Since it was my case, I got a call. The perpetrator had already gotten away, and the first responders had lost sight of him. But from the direction I came from, I caught sight of a suspect fleeing.”

  My heart was beating so furiously that I was sure he would hear it. “And?”