The Lady Alchemist

by Samantha Vitale

  “Destry was right. They are trying to summon the spirits of the dead,” Ruhen said. “They’re trying to bring back dead necromancers.”

  Too tired to care about politeness, she asked, “What’s a necromancer?”

  Ruhen set the journal down and looked wearily at her. “Necromancers draw their power from the spirits of the recently dead,” he said. “No one is born a necromancer. People who choose to become necromancers have to do something unspeakable to become one.”

  “Oh.” She thought for a moment. “If necromancers get their powers from dead souls, what does that mean for a necromancer who dies, goes to live with other dead souls in the After, and then comes back?”

  “He’d have a more direct connection to his power source,” Ruhen said after thinking for a moment. “And while he was dead, he could’ve been imbibing power all the time.”

  Sepha swore. There was a short pause. “So, the question is, why are the Spirit Alchemists trying to bring back these dead necromancers?”

  “No idea,” Ruhen said. “They can’t possibly know what they’re dealing with.”

  Sepha shook her head, perplexed. “Well, keep reading. Maybe we’ll find out if he figured out how to do it.”

  Ruhen obediently opened the journal to the next entry.

  “May be on to something. Perhaps the problem is not with the alchem, but with the sacrifice and the script. If I want a specific soul, well, then I have to write its name along the rim, just as always. And if I need a soul to come, I need to sacrifice a commensurate one to get it. The soul of a common criminal simply will not do. To summon a magician’s spirit, I must sacrifice a magician’s spirit. So, these two things I need: the soul of one magician to exchange; and the name of the second magician, the one I want to summon. Two difficult things, but neither impossible. Shall begin experimentation tomorrow.”

  Sepha grasped Ruhen’s arm. This Spirit Alchemist had dropped all pretenses and made human sacrifices. Had murdered people on purpose in order to summon souls who’d already had their own chances at life.

  “May have summoned something today,” Ruhen continued, his voice hard and fast. The date on this entry was several weeks after the last.

  “My trials are limited due to the decreasing number of magicians that come through our doors. But the wait was worthwhile, for I found a name at last! As if that was all that had kept me waiting, a magician was then delivered to me. I wrote the name. I incapacitated the magician. I performed the exchange. All was well at first. The magician died as expected. No problems there. And because she died, I must assume that an exchange of souls took place; however, in my excitement I had neglected to realize that souls are insubstantial. They require a vessel. Something living. Something without a soul of its own, or willing to submit its own soul to the dominance of the other. Lacking a vessel, the soul I summoned today dissipated through the walls and escaped into the wide world. Where it went, I may never know, but it sure as After isn’t here. So now I must seek out a second name, a second magician, and an appropriate vessel.”

  The next entry was dated several months later, in the early months of the current year.

  “After all my searching, I have it! I HAVE it! I have found the name of the, THE, leader of the Necro Rebellion. A magician—named Damen, in case I forget—has just been delivered. And as for the vessel, why, it was beside me all along. Two and a half feet of walking, living, soulless flesh. Dare I do it? Will it work? Well, I shall try. Come nightfall, the necro will be alive once more inside my own homunculus.”

  Ruhen turned the page, then another, but the rest of the journal was blank. “That was the last entry,” he said, sounding a little lost.

  They sat quietly side by side, not touching, not moving, not blinking or speaking, hearts barely beating, lungs half full.

  This.

  This was the answer Destry had been looking for—had, maybe, expected. The Spirit Alchemists had made the undead magician. Had called the necromancer’s spirit back from the After and stuffed it inside a helpless homunculus.

  When she could bear it no longer, Sepha broke the ponderous silence. “Now we know where he came from,” she said. The words were not enough.

  “Do you think?” Ruhen asked, and his words landed in a pile on top of hers.

  “Yes,” Sepha said. “Yes, it must be.” She paused. “That’s why there are no more entries. The homunculus—the magician—all but said he’d killed his master.”

  “What does it mean?” Ruhen asked. He wasn’t asking Sepha. He was asking the air, or the universe, or himself. After a moment, he fixed his eyes on her. “What do we do now?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  A rustling noise near the window sent a thrill of terror down Sepha’s spine. She looked and saw Fio, who’d been curled up on Ruhen’s chair, stirring restlessly. Fio, who was a talking homunculus with a spirit of his own.

  “Fio?” she called. She had a sudden inkling, and only Fio could tell her if she was correct. “Are you awake?”

  “Of course I am,” he said. He scooted off the chair and padded toward them, his eyes open and alert. He shivered, gathered a blanket around himself, and sat beside Sepha. “How could I sleep through all that?”

  “Fio,” she said when he was settled, “you said that homunculi sometimes have spirits.” He tensed, but nodded. “Does that mean that your spirit is sometimes … not inside your body?”

  He raised his eyebrows and nodded again, as if the answer was obvious.

  “Where is your spirit when it’s not with your body?” Ruhen asked, derailing Sepha’s train of thought.

  Fio thought for a moment, perhaps deciding whether to trust them. “Our spirits commune together when they’re not with our bodies. Our bodies obey our masters’ orders when our spirits are elsewhere.” His expression went grim. “Most of us choose to remain separate from our bodies for our entire lives. It means we don’t have to feel our masters’ cruelty in person, you see.”

  The words settled around them, and Sepha’s heart stuttered. Ruhen squeezed Fio’s shoulder, and Fio forced a smile, as if attempting to diminish what he’d said. His smile soured, though, and Sepha wished she could say something to make things better. She remembered the homunculus they’d left behind in the Gestation Chambers at the Institute, and wondered if Fio was thinking of him, too.

  “Where do your spirits live, though?” Ruhen asked, pushing past the moment. “In the After?”

  “No,” Fio said. “Not in the After. Not here, either. We …” He paused, looking sheepish. “We call it the Almost.”

  “Almost?” Sepha asked.

  “Almost here, almost After. Almost human but not human. Almost everything, actually nothing.”

  “You aren’t nothing,” Sepha said fiercely, and Fio’s mouth spread into an embarrassed grin. “So, the homunculus whose body the necromancer’s spirit is in,” Sepha said, edging back toward her initial question. “He has his own spirit, too?”

  “Of course he does. But not in his body right now, obviously.”

  “If his spirit had been in his body, do you think the necromancer could’ve taken it?” she asked.

  Fio shrugged. So did Ruhen. She didn’t know the answer, either, but it felt important. Not just important. It felt crucial.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, Fio,” she said, “what brought your spirit to your body?”

  Fio fixed his eyes on hers, then looked away. “Partly you, partly me. You said, ‘I’ll name you Fio,’ and my spirit preferred that name to the old one. My spirit came. My spirit stayed. I was an in-between thing until my spirit grew into the new name. Then my body woke up.”

  Sepha frowned. “So, anyone who names their homunculus could end up with … someone like you?”

  Fio scrunched his mouth to the side. “Not likely,” he said. “You gave me the name, but it was my choice to accept it.”

  Sepha smiled. “Well, I’m gla
d you did,” she said, and he grinned. Then, struck by a horrifying thought, she exclaimed, “Oh, no, Fio! I didn’t mean to take you away from the Almost. You can go back!”

  “No,” Fio said, patting her leg. “I can leave whenever I want. I choose to stay. I got lucky with you two.” He looked approvingly from Sepha to Ruhen, but then seemed to note the way Sepha’s eyelids drooped and Ruhen’s shoulders sagged. “It’s late,” Fio said. “We should sleep now. Talk more tomorrow.”

  Without another word, Fio scuffed out the door.

  As soon as the door closed behind Fio, Sepha felt Ruhen’s eyes on her. She craned her neck to meet his gaze. Something passed between them, something neither of them needed to say aloud, and Sepha reached for her boots and began to untie them.

  Damned if she was going to sleep anywhere but here tonight.

  “My spare shirt’s in the washroom, if you need it,” Ruhen said, and she nodded her thanks.

  It was different tonight, the thought of sleeping beside Ruhen. Last night, she’d hardly been able to think for outrage. Now, she was calm enough to think past the horror of what she’d just learned and remember what it felt like to hold Ruhen, to have his lips against hers. His body against hers.

  Her contract flipped and flexed, thrumming with approval.

  Sleeping, Sepha, she told herself. Only sleeping.

  By the time she emerged from the washroom wearing Ruhen’s oversized shirt, Ruhen was halfway through pushing his bed against the open window. Brazenly shirtless and unfairly gorgeous, Ruhen froze when he saw her and didn’t seem to notice that she’d gone similarly paralyzed. Gods, the rise and fall of him, the deep clefts between his muscles, the sheer size of him—After!

  For a long moment, his mouth hung open, and his gaze dragged dumbfoundedly down and then back up again. Staring at Sepha, at her bare legs and the shape of her body, which his shirt did nothing to hide. “After, you’re beautiful.”

  Sepha smiled. “So are you.”

  They smiled at each other, but the moment went stale. They hadn’t talked things through, not since the cleptapod attack. Since then, they had lived in the gloaming, neither together nor apart, neither one thing nor the other. Talking when they needed to, touching when they needed to, but never asking for more.

  Sepha wanted more.

  “I’m sorry I’ve needed so much time,” she said, her voice soft. She moved toward him with slow, determined steps, and stopped just in front of him. Ruhen swallowed. “I just—I found out you were a magician, and then Destry died, and it was hard to separate those two things. But now I know—gods, I mean, I never really doubted, I was only afraid—but I know I can trust you. With anything.”

  Ruhen’s mouth quirked into a half-smile. He traced her jaw, her cheekbone, the curve of her ear. “I hope you do trust me,” he said. “It’s always been life or death for me. One wrong word to the wrong person, and I would’ve been dead. I couldn’t trust anyone. Not even you, for a long time. But I’m glad you know now, and I just hope I haven’t ruined things.”

  Sepha hid a smile. Ruhen quirked his eyebrows up. “Ruhen-ed things,” she said, hiding her smile behind her hand.

  Ruhen snorted, and they both broke into laughter. Sepha leaned her forehead against his chest, and the laughter turned into a hug. In that moment, Sepha knew there was one thing she could say that would show Ruhen just how much she trusted him. And she wanted to say it.

  Sepha pulled away, arched her neck so she could look Ruhen in the eyes. “Ruhen?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I want to tell you what I am. Where my magic gets its power.”

  A half-beat of silence and a cautious smile. Then he whispered, “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Without a doubt. Are you—is it all right if I tell you?” She remembered how shocked he’d been when she’d asked what his source was on Our Dear Lady and added, hastily, “If you don’t want me to tell you, that’s fine, too.”

  Ruhen stared at her, looking at each eye in turn. Searching, maybe, for doubt or fear. He brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead, then snaked his fingers through her hair. Anchoring himself. His voice was a quiet rasp. “Tell me.”

  Feeling suddenly nervous, Sepha whispered, “I’m an aeromancer, Ruhen. I get my power from the wind.”

  Ruhen’s face broke into that wide, delighted smile, and he dipped his forehead to rest it against hers. He squeezed her closer. “My aeromancer,” he murmured, and a thrill went from Sepha’s head to her toes and back again. “Can I tell you what I am?”

  Too full to speak, Sepha only nodded.

  Ruhen brushed his lips against hers, the lightest caress, and murmured, “I’m a hydromancer, Sepha. I get my power from the water.”

  “A hydromancer,” Sepha whispered, and Ruhen shivered. “I thought so,” she said, and Ruhen breathed a laugh.

  “Of course you did,” he said, and closed the space between them.

  Their lips met in a soft, slow kiss. It was a different kiss from the first. That one had been fearful and desperate, a thing stolen before things went from bad to worse. This one was a joyful thing, unhurried and confident, and it felt like a promise. He held her tightly against him, as if he wanted to feel all of her at once.

  With a small dip, Ruhen picked her up and spun her around, then broke the kiss to hide his face against her neck. His breath was warm against her skin. Her face might shatter from smiling.

  They kissed each other once more, softly; then Ruhen nodded toward the bed. Together, they pushed the bed all the way against the wall, so Sepha would be directly beneath whatever wind would come in during the night, and Ruhen would be as near the cove as possible. They settled themselves under the covers and held each other. Only held each other, until they fell asleep.

  Sepha woke slowly the next morning. Ruhen was sprawled, crinkle-faced, on the bed beside her, one heavy arm draped across her abdomen. Even in sleep, Ruhen was making sure she couldn’t sneak away again.

  Sometime during the night, her sleeping mind had sifted through what they’d learned from the journal. She felt a teetering certainty, as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice, a breath away from falling straight into a solution.

  Seaside, that doomed Spirit Alchemist, had murdered magicians and called the necromancer back from the After, using only that alchem and the magicians’ names.

  The leader of the Necro Rebellion, he’d said. So Sepha’s suppositions had been correct. The leader of the Necro Rebellion, now that he was back, would certainly want his revenge more than ever, and her child was an essential part. He was already well on his way—Destry was dead, and his attacks spun Tirenia closer and closer to chaos every day.

  Now more than ever, she could not allow him to have her child. She’d planned on killing the undead magician, to rid herself of him. But after what Fio had told her last night, she realized she couldn’t do it. If she killed the magician, she wouldn’t just be killing the necromancer inside the homunculus; she’d be killing the homunculus himself, the being who was not a living automaton, but a real, whole person, one with his very own soul.

  But what other choice did she have? The only way out of a magical contract was to fulfill it or to die.

  To die.

  A memory from another lifetime seared across her mind: Henric laughing and reading a pamphlet. Destry frowning across the table at him. Ruhen, confused and trying to go unnoticed.

  The Spirit Alchemists defined death as the moment the soul left its vessel.

  Death meant that the soul had gone. But the vessel remained. And since this vessel was a homunculus, the vessel didn’t have to die once the soul departed.

  When the soul left the vessel, it went to the After to live with all of the other immortal souls and spirits.

  And what was the After, but some other plane of existence, as accessible by alchemy as any other?

  Sepha’s heartbeat quickened.

  Spirit Alchemy
required two things: a name and an alchem. If Sepha learned the magician’s name, she could …

  Sepha went still.

  The necromancer’s name was, even now, painted on the floor of Laboratory 151. If Sepha could get to Laboratory 151 and write the name down … Well, she could create an alchem to go with it, one that would send his soul away for good!

  And if she worked very, very hard, maybe she could do it before the contract forced her to create a human body in the usual way. By her rough reckoning, she had just over two weeks left.

  She could free herself from him forever. She really could.

  A thrill of excitement rushed through her. “Ruhen,” Sepha whispered, prodding his shoulder. Which did no good for anyone, because Ruhen didn’t stir, and all Sepha could think about was how smooth his skin was.

  “Ruhen,” she said, louder. “Wake up!”

  This time she prodded him with her foot. He took a sharp breath and cracked his eyes open. He squinted at her, smiled sleepily, and closed his eyes again.

  Sepha tried one more time. “Ruhen! Up!”

  With a groan, Ruhen wrenched his eyes open and pushed himself onto an elbow. “What?” he croaked.

  “How fast can you pack your things?” she asked, crawling over him and running into the washroom.

  “What?” he called from the bed. “Why? What do you mean?”

  “I mean I think we can leave. We just have to do one thing first,” she said, pulling on her clothes and running her fingers through her snarled hair. Ruhen muttered something unintelligible. “How long before you’ll be ready? My things won’t take long to—”