The Lady Alchemist

by Samantha Vitale

  She strode out of the washroom to see Ruhen rumpled and beaming. “Already done,” he said, gesturing at the now-bursting knapsack slung over his shoulder.

  Sepha raised her eyebrows. “Excited to leave?”

  “Gods, yes. Now, explain.”

  “Come on, I’ll explain while I pack,” Sepha said, grabbing his shirt and tugging him toward the door.

  Ruhen pulled her against him instead. Sepha grinned as he planted his hands on her hips. Her hands trailed up to his chest. He kissed her, morning breath and all.

  The kiss ended too early, and Sepha took a deep breath, trying to steady her heart and her contract alike. Ruhen smirked, dipped his head to touch his lips to hers once more, and prompted, “You were about to explain?”

  “Oh,” Sepha said stupidly. “Right.”

  She grabbed his shirt again and took him to her room next door, where she hastily jammed her belongings into her knapsack. “To use alchemy on a soul, you need to know the soul’s name.” Her bed wheezed as Ruhen propped himself on the edge. “And the necromancer’s name is—”

  “—still in Laboratory 151!” Ruhen finished for her, excited. But then he frowned. “What sort of alchemy can you do with his soul? I thought you said Spirit Alchemy doesn’t work.”

  “It doesn’t work if you’re trying to rip a soul into pieces,” Sepha said, holding up a rusted old axe head to show Ruhen before shoving it into her knapsack. “But it clearly works for summoning spirits. I’m not sure what I need to do exactly, but I know if I can just get that name, the rest will work itself out.”

  Ruhen made a noncommittal noise, which Sepha ignored. She looked around the room, a final sweep. She’d packed everything. “Did you get Seaside’s journal?” Ruhen nodded and pointed at his knapsack. “Good. Let’s go.”

  Ruhen stopped her again. “Knapsack,” he said, holding out his hand.

  Sepha frowned and handed it to him. He muttered something unintelligible, and a hole opened in the air. As calmly as if he’d done this a thousand times, he tossed both knapsacks through the hole, which then winked out of sight.

  Grinning at Sepha’s astonished expression, he said, “Now we don’t have to carry them.”

  “Brilliant,” Sepha said. “Now let’s go, before they can scrub away the alchem.”

  It was early yet, and the corridors were empty. Sepha and Ruhen sprinted to the hidden hall. It looked the same. Sepha had expected it to look different now that she knew the answer to her problem lay beyond it.

  “Unlock it,” Sepha said to her roiling beast, and the door swung open.

  Lightheaded from excitement and, for some reason, fear, Sepha strode into the room with Ruhen close behind. She stood off to the side while Ruhen read the names out loud. “Damen,” he said. The magician from Seaside’s journal. Sepha held her breath as Ruhen studied the next jumble of letters.

  “Dnias.”

  Sepha’s heart stuttered. There was a stitch in her side and a growing ache in her hand. Now she knew the name of the necromancer who’d stolen her future when he purchased her life with gold. “That’s his name?” she breathed. “Dnias?”

  Ruhen grinned. “That’s his name.”

  Relief flooded through Sepha’s limbs. She held her aching hand to her mouth and said, voice shaking, “Now I can send his soul away and void the contract! We can be rid of him without giving him a body at all! We’ll be free!”

  The ache in her hand increased to a scorching agony, and Sepha realized much too late what it meant.

  She turned to face Laboratory 151’s open doorway and saw the necromancer himself, haggard and tattered as a corpse, eyes flashing with fury.

  “Treachery!” he snarled, clenching his tiny hands into fists.

  “I didn’t break the contract!” Sepha cried automatically, but the word yet hung in the air. Planning to break a contract was as good as actually breaking it, and he’d heard her. He had to have heard her.

  Since he’d fulfilled his side of the bargain, he held all of the power with the contract. She was at his mercy.

  “You will,” Dnias wheezed. He propped an arm against the doorway, as if gathering his strength. “I can’t … allow that. You can’t … be trusted. I am,” he paused, catching his breath, “within my rights.”

  He hadn’t minded when she’d shot at him at the Institute, hadn’t minded when she’d shouted at him on the Dear Lady, because he knew she was harmless then. But if she had his name, she could kill him. And that made her a real threat.

  The necromancer muttered something, and Sepha felt her contract shift and harden beside her heart. He’d caught her trying to weasel out of the contract, caught her trying to kill him, and now he was changing the contract, and changing it fast. She could feel it strengthen, change its focus, become more forceful. Could feel him closing the loophole she’d bargained for, leaving her with only one way out of the contract.

  The contract’s altered power began to creep through her limbs, controlling her.

  If the contract was fully in control, it would never let her send Dnias to the Almost, never let her free herself from him for good. She would be a drone, and then she would be a mother.

  Which she could not allow.

  Sepha leapt at Dnias with a shout, but Ruhen got to him first. With a bellowed order to his own roiling beast, Ruhen blasted Dnias with his magic, sending the homunculus flying against the corridor’s wall. Dnias let out a bestial snarl and spat something unintelligible, hurling Ruhen farther into the laboratory while yanking Sepha into the corridor.

  Dnias shouted again, and a shockwave went straight through Sepha, like a clap of thunder when the storm is directly overhead.

  Laboratory 151’s ceiling began to cave in.

  Sepha screamed to her weakened beast, “Don’t let it crush him!” and the sound of her voice was nearly drowned out by the huge slabs of stone falling from the ceiling and crashing to the ground. Her beast’s power depleted almost entirely, but the stonefall slowed. There was a bellow from inside the laboratory, a pause, and then Ruhen burst into the corridor moments before the room caved in completely.

  Sepha only realized then, in the stillness after the stonefall, how loud the crashes had been. Her ears rang and her body shook from it. Everyone in the Sanctuary must have heard and felt what had just happened.

  There was a scuffle behind her. Ruhen had grabbed Dnias in a chokehold, pressing against the homunculus’s windpipe and squeezing his jaw so tight that he couldn’t invoke any more magic.

  Shaking with fury or relief, she wasn’t sure which, Sepha walked toward the struggling pair. The contract was still changing shape, and she knew if the necromancer escaped, her free will would vanish with him. “I’ll kill you, magician, rather than give you my firstborn,” she said, her voice harsh in the corridor’s stillness. “Give me more time to make you a body by alchemy, or I’ll kill you right now.”

  She wasn’t sure she shouldn’t kill him.

  But if she killed Dnias, the homunculus whose body he’d stolen would die, too. And she had never yet killed anyone on purpose.

  Dnias narrowed his eyes and lurched forward as if to attack. Ruhen jerked him back and gave his neck a cruel twist. Dnias flinched, the smallest movement. Glaring at Sepha, he gave as much of a nod as he could.

  Ruhen eased his hold on Dnias, who took one deep breath before croaking, “Until … sundown … then.”

  The contract seared so hot she doubled over in pain. There was a sound like a soft breeze and a shout from Ruhen. By the time she looked up, the magician was gone.

  What had just happened?

  Sepha and Ruhen gaped at each other in the dusty corridor.

  It was a disaster. That much she could work through, in her numb shock and the trembling emptiness that followed her complete depletion of magic. Even with Dnias’s name, it was a disaster.

  And, she realized as the rational part of her brain pierced through her numbness, not only
had she botched things with Dnias, she had also announced to the Spirit Alchemists that she did not trust them and they could not trust her. They would come for her, and she could hardly pretend she didn’t know why.

  Almost as soon as the thought occurred to her, it happened. She heard footsteps, fast and heavy, and harsh voices. Two huge Spirit Alchemists appeared around the corner, weapons first.

  Without magic and without a way out, Sepha and Ruhen exchanged glances, raised their hands, and followed the two men out of the secret corridor.

  Dnias had changed her contract. He’d given her until sundown to alchemically produce a body (which was impossible), so she only had until then to figure out how to kill Dnias without killing the homunculus whose body he’d stolen (which might also be impossible). If she failed, he would be free to alter her contract for good. He would be in complete control.

  And if that wasn’t bad enough, now they were trapped in the Sanctuary.

  The two men delivered Sepha and Ruhen to Isolde’s study, which was, for the moment, unoccupied. The door soon opened, and Fio eased into the room. “What happened?” he whispered as he approached the loveseat where Sepha and Ruhen sat.

  “Run-in with the necromancer,” she murmured. “I only have until sundown to get rid of him before my contract alters completely.”

  Fio went still. “What will you do?”

  The door opened. Isolde came in, followed by a smug-looking Rivers.

  “I hope we aren’t interrupting anything,” Isolde said, studying Sepha and Ruhen with a cruel glint in her eyes. Her gaze passed over Fio as if he wasn’t even there. “Explain yourself, alchemancer.”

  Sepha didn’t answer. She stood between Ruhen and the Spirit Alchemists, giving him what protection she could.

  “What are you after?” Rivers asked. “Why did you go back to Laboratory 151?”

  “Got lost,” Sepha said.

  Isolde approached and struck Sepha hard on the cheek. Ruhen leapt forward with something like a roar, but Sepha shoved him back.

  “My fight,” she said fiercely, dizzy from the pain in her cheek. She couldn’t let Ruhen hurt any of them; he couldn’t give them a reason to hurt him back.

  She was an aeromancer under stifling stone, and he was a hydromancer far from water. If the Spirit Alchemists decided to hurt them, they would have no magic to fight back.

  “Go wait with Fio. Please,” she added, not afraid to beg in front of Isolde. She rested her hands on Ruhen’s chest and pushed him backward. “She won’t hurt me,” Sepha whispered, and ignored Isolde’s laugh behind her.

  There was murder in Ruhen’s eyes, but he backed away. Sepha watched him retreat until he stood beside Fio, then turned to face Isolde.

  “Why have you repeatedly broken our rules and gone where you shouldn’t?” Isolde asked in a businesslike tone. As if this were a transaction. As if they were not all aware that this place was a prison, a place of human sacrifice, and Sepha and Ruhen were trapped here, and outnumbered.

  Sepha was so tired of lying. More than that, she wanted to see how Isolde would react if she told her what she knew.

  “I have a contract with a necromancer’s spirit housed inside a homunculus,” she said. “I came here to further my research in fulfilling my end of the contract.”

  By killing him.

  Rivers gaped.

  Seeming bored, Isolde lifted an eloquent hand. “And you needed to do this research here because …”

  A warlike shout from beyond the door. A clash. A man’s scream. The shuddering aftershock from an explosion.

  The door burst open, and Meadow stumbled in, clutching his stomach. Blood gushed between his fingers as he desperately tried to keep his insides from spilling out. Rivers rushed toward Meadow, her hands outstretched, her face an amalgamation of confusion and fear and heartbreak.

  Someone appeared beyond the door, a shadow that spread its own sort of darkness. Then Henric, splattered with blood, strode into the room. Behind him was his golden-haired Military Alchemist, grinning through the blood that dripped down his face.

  Sepha stumbled backward in surprise. Ruhen leapt forward and shoved her behind him.

  There was a tirenium-edged sword in the Military Alchemist’s hand, and Sepha knew what he was going to do before he did it. Meadow, who’d slumped against Rivers on an overstuffed chair, coughed up blood, unaware of the threat lurking behind him. If Rivers saw, she was too slow.

  After a nod from Henric, the Military Alchemist took Meadow by his long, brown hair and, with one efficient stroke, sliced his head clean off.

  Which left Rivers there, still holding Meadow’s body, a constellation of red droplets splattered across her face. The Military Alchemist dropped Meadow’s head onto the loveseat. It rolled off and thudded to the ground, eyes wide, mouth open.

  “Always wanted to do that,” the Military Alchemist said, shooting Henric a satisfied grin.

  The death toll climbs, sang the snide voice.

  “Henric!” cried Isolde, her mouth hanging open as several more Military Alchemists filtered in through the door. They were uninjured but were dripping blood all the same. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Henric’s eyes were bright green, alight with life and power. His long curls were wet with sweat or blood. He held himself tall. “Hand over the alchemancer, and we’ll leave.”

  “You think we should believe that?” Isolde cried. Rivers was still gaping at Meadow’s body, still holding him as his blood drained onto her.

  No response came from the Military Alchemists save the smirks that stretched their lips.

  Meadow’s blood was soaking the carpet, dyeing the white furniture bright red.

  Ruhen pushed Sepha farther behind him, anxiety rolling off him in waves. They were trapped. No matter who won, they were trapped.

  Isolde strode to the curtained alcove and ripped the curtain away, revealing a window—or a mirror—whose reflection didn’t show the room they were in. It showed gauzy, white curtains wafting in a breeze that made Sepha ache for the wind. Beyond the curtains, Sepha glimpsed the ocean and a wide blue sky. “Sister!” Isolde shrieked. “A word!”

  A familiar face appeared almost immediately: curly hair and light eyes framed by thick, round spectacles. The Magistrate surveyed the room, and her eyes landed on Henric. A grim smile appeared on her face, one of approval, and Henric seemed to stand straighter. “Yes, my dear Isolde?”

  “Your whelp has violated our agreement!” Isolde said, her voice rising to a screech.

  “Yes, I suppose he has,” the Magistrate said. Her voice vibrated through the room, as if it had been sliced into smaller pieces and flung into the air. “Nothing for it but to continue, Henric. All of this business, you giving refuge to that alchemancer there, has brought me to the end of my patience. Tirenia is reclaiming this land. It’s up to you how violent this needs to be.”

  Isolde seemed to age by decades. “I think, my dear Igraine,” she said slowly, shifting her darkening gaze from Meadow’s bloody corpse to Rivers’s face, “that it is time.”

  A barely perceptible shift rippled over Rivers’s face, and then her lips curled upward. “I agree, my dear Amra,” she said in a changed voice. Her gray eyes flooded with an inky black. “You get her,” she said, jerking her head toward Sepha. She released Meadow’s body and let it topple, unheeded, to the floor.

  Rivers stood and faced the Military Alchemists.

  She cried out something loud and garbled.

  Something powerful, something dark and smoky and wrong, erupted from her, blasting the Military Alchemists from their feet. At the same time, Isolde launched herself at Sepha, bellowing something unintelligible.

  Magic!

  With everything she had, Sepha shoved Ruhen out of the way. And because she’d pushed him, she didn’t have time to leap free of Isolde’s dark magic. It hit her, hard, in the arm, and she felt the bone snap. Before the pain even came, she heard Isold
e’s labored breath as she hissed, “If it’s you she wants, it’s you she can’t have! You will die here!”

  Sepha tried to release an answering blast of magic, but she couldn’t. Her roiling beast was there, but only just, too feeble to help her do anything.

  She ducked, rolled, and dodged, half a second away from being blasted to bits by Isolde’s relentless attacks. Isolde’s magic seemed dark and scattered, more like a swarm of bees than a roiling beast.

  On the other side of the room, Ruhen was locked in a duel with one of the Military Alchemists. His magic was feeble, and the Military Alchemist bellowed, “Another one! Another magician!”

  Rivers and Henric were battling fiercely, and Henric needed help from all of his soldiers to hold Rivers at bay. Isolde’s attacks were coming faster than ever. Ruhen was faltering, and Sepha was bound to trip up at any moment. Her arm ached, and the pain was distracting.

  Someone would win soon, and it wouldn’t be Sepha or Ruhen. They needed more power, or they’d die. But how? The door was blocked, and the only other way out was—

  The window.

  And they were very high up.

  Without stopping to think, Sepha sprinted to the window. She scooped up Fio, who’d been cowering under a table, and cried, “Ruhen! To me!”

  Before Sepha could stop, process, rethink, Ruhen was pushing her, and their momentum carried them out the room’s gaping window and into the emptiness beyond it.

  What if, just for a second, I forget that I’m not supposed to fly?

  Time slowed.

  Sepha twisted in the air as she fell and saw that the fight inside was as fierce as ever. The Magistrate bellowed, from the mirror, “Over there!”

  Time was speeding up. She was falling fast, the air pushing hard against her, the strongest wind she’d ever felt. Her roiling beast sniffed the air and rose and howled, alive with the sudden surfeit of power. Magic filled her to the top and beyond so that it streamed behind her, an iridescent banner for anyone to see, and she felt the possibilities of everything and nothing and whatever was in between, and After! This was power!

  Ruhen’s voice, afraid. “Sepha!”