It was Bentivoglio. I gasped against his hand over my mouth while his other delved in my clothes. I couldn’t scream, but I pulled my head up just enough to bite down on his fingers. He cried out and pushed my head back into the wall. Pain exploded everything into whiteness, and I screamed until his hand clamped onto my mouth and nose, stifling sound and breath. I grabbed his hand with both of mine and managed to pull it down enough to gulp down air. His other hand fumbled against my thigh, but I was too much occupied with keeping my lungs filled to interfere. His face was inches from mine, and as I gasped I caught his breath full in my face. It smelled of sulfur.
“Professore!”
Dominic’s voice sliced through the mist, sharp and commanding.
“Holy mother, what are you doing? Let her go!”
The professor let me go at once and ran. Without his body pressing me against the wall I slid to the ground. My legs had turned to liquid and pain blackened my sight. I put my hand to the back of my head and drew it away damp with blood. Dominic was shouting. I hardly heard, felt, or saw anything. The smell of sulfurous breath, real or remembered, blocked out everything else.
“Thea? Did he hurt you? I heard you scream—”
Dominic was beside me, crouched on his heels. I shook my head, then looked down at the blood on my hand.
“My head.”
The pain was starting to come on in sharp, stabbing flashes. Dominic turned my head slightly to look, then frowned.
“We should get you inside. My mother’s house is close by. Can you walk?”
It turned out that I could. I took his arm and walked without knowing where. The pain was beginning to fade to a dull ache, but without its immediate distraction my fear grew. Bentivoglio’s attack was too much like another one.
We went down a flight of steps off the street to a below-ground door. Dominic unlocked it and helped me to the first chair inside. It was dark, the only light from the door and a narrow, high window that peeked out onto the street level. Dominic lit a kerosene lamp, illuminating a small but very tidy little home. There was a basket of knitting beside my chair, an emblem of domesticity that was as strange and fascinating to me as an alchemist’s crucible might be to another girl.
Dominic brought a pitcher and cloth, and pulled a chair beside me.
“Do you knit?” I asked.
“What?”
I pointed to the knitting basket, and Dominic’s face cleared.
“My mother’s,” he said. “May I?”
I looked at him. Part of my mind was racing, faraway. The part left in the room was stunned and lagging.
“Your head,” he said. “I’d like to clean it and make sure the bleeding has stopped.”
I nodded. The cool cloth on the back of my head stung, bringing me back to myself.
“The scrape isn’t so bad,” said Dominic. “The scalp bleeds a lot, but the wound is small. As long as you aren’t concussed…”
“Cave Maledictionem Alchemistae,” I muttered.
Dominic drew back.
“Sorry?”
“I thought you had enough Latin to keep up,” I said.
“Beware—?”
“Beware the Alchemist’s Curse,” I said. Goose pimples pricked at my arms, and the chill fear I’d been pushing down washed over me.
“I’m a fool,” I whispered. “I should have seen it.”
“You aren’t a fool,” said Dominic. But he didn’t know. He didn’t understand any of this, and his face showed it plainly.
“This morning, Vellacott said Bentivoglio wasn’t himself,” I said.
“Yes,” agreed Dominic, and his face flashed anger. “I wouldn’t have believed him capable— But I was wrong.”
“You were right,” I said. “He isn’t himself. And soon he will be even less so. It will get worse. I’ve seen how the Alchemist’s Curse ends.”
“The Alchemist’s Curse?” Dominic looked from my face to the wound on my head, clearly concluding I was concussed after all.
“My mother,” I said, closing my eyes against the memory. “She is mad now, completely mad. Her breath smelled like sulfur, and so did Professore Bentivoglio’s. She tried to kill me.”
Dominic’s eyes widened even farther.
“But—but Bentivoglio wasn’t trying to kill you.”
“I told you, it will get worse. Look.”
I reached into my pocket to show him the text with the Jābiran warning, and my mother’s notes. But they were gone. The vial of transmuting agent was as well. All at once I understood why Bentivoglio had been rifling through my clothes.
“He took it! He has my mother’s notes!”
I tried to stand up, but Dominic put a hand on my shoulder to keep me seated. Panic rose as I imagined Bentivoglio, red-eyed, copying down everything my mother had written, copying the text and my translation of it, taking all our work for himself. My head spun, and I doubled over.
“We can get them back,” he said. “Please, don’t fret.”
“I have to get them back now, right now!”
Another thought occurred to me, making me gasp.
“It will make him worse! Vae illi, qui non accipit—woe to whom the Stone doesn’t accept…”
I fell silent, working it through. If the same affliction had befallen Bentivoglio and my mother, then I could no longer brush aside the warnings in my mother’s notes. It seemed they had both been rejected by the Stone—whatever that meant. Perhaps they had made the same mistake in their steps, or they were both unworthy …
Unworthy. My mind seized the thought with hope. Yes, that could certainly be the case. I thought of my mother, with her hot anger and cold contempt. Not so different from Bentivoglio and his insults. Both had benefitted from my work without acknowledgment or gratitude. And if it was that, then perhaps I was not unworthy, and needn’t worry about falling victim to their fate.
“We have to go,” I said, coming back to myself. “We have to get my papers.”
Dominic’s brow knitted, and he seemed to be considering his next words carefully. I jumped to my feet, and this time threw off Dominic’s hand.
“We should get Mr. Vellacott,” he said. “I can’t force Professore Bentivoglio to do anything on my own.”
I hesitated, and my heart sank as my mind worked it through. We needed my father to get back my papers. My secret was over. He would see the papers, and if he broke the code they would show him how to follow the path to the Stone without my help. Even if he could not break the code, he would surely try to force me to translate for him. I would either have to flee or help him, and if I helped him, the best I could hope for then was that he might let me use it to cure my mother. My father would be the Stone’s creator and discoverer, even if he did none of the work himself and thus avoided the curse. I would become a footnote, mentioned as an apprentice if at all. And yet I could not take on Bentivoglio on my own. He had already overpowered me thoroughly once.
“Yes, yes, all right,” I said bitterly. “Let’s go.”
We walked quickly through the town, back to High Street and the forbidding walls of Oriel College. Spells of dizziness assailed me more than once, but adrenaline and Dominic’s arm kept me upright. At the porter’s gate, Dominic looked me over, uncertain.
“Maybe you should wait here,” he said.
And indeed, if I had drawn stares yesterday with my French clothes, I would draw still more with blood all over them. I knotted my hands into my skirts, but the blood was dry now and didn’t come off.
“No.” I hadn’t done this. A furious pressure in my chest was staring to release. I hadn’t shoved my own head into a wall, any more than I had conceived myself out of wedlock. Let the right people feel shame. I wouldn’t bear it for them.
I followed Dominic across the quad again. It was midafternoon now, and students wandered through it holding their books and staring openly at me. We went into a hall, up a stairway, and through a library. The library was gorgeous: wood-paneled, stain-glassed, and smellin
g of good leather and old paper. I forced down a pang of longing as we left it and stopped in front of my father’s office. I heard voices inside. Dominic hesitated, his hand raised to knock on the door. He looked at me, wide-eyed and alarmed.
“Bentivoglio,” he whispered. “He’s inside with Mr. Vellacott.”
My pulse rose, and I pounded my fist against the door. Inside, the voices stopped. My father opened the door. His eyes widened, then he stuck his head out the doorway to look up and down the hall. He pulled us inside and closed the door firmly behind him.
“Did anyone see you?” he gasped. He kneaded his hands together.
“Yes. A good many people,” I said coldly. But I had no time to spare for irritation with my father. I fixed my narrowed eyes on Bentivoglio, who held my papers in his thieving hands.
“Those are mine,” I said. “Give them back.”
I stepped forward and tried to grab them, but Bentivoglio held them away. I examined his face, keeping my anger at bay. His eyes were red, but he was not quite mad yet. There was a trace of shame on his face. He hadn’t yet left his own mind entirely.
“He attacked me.” I said it to Bentivoglio’s face. “He threw me against a wall and stole those papers out of my clothes.”
“I am terribly sorry, Thea. I’m afraid there has been some … some misunderstanding,” said my father. “But please, sit down, my dear. You shouldn’t tax yourself—you’ve been hurt—”
“By him!” I exclaimed, whirling on my father. “I was hurt by your guest while he robbed me! I insist you make him give me back my papers!”
“Do not presume to order me around in my own study!” My father took my arm and conveyed me forcibly into a chair. Shock silenced me, and I stared up at him with hatred.
“You must calm yourself, Thea.” My father looked abashed as he attempted to slow his breathing. “There is nothing to be gained by this shouting.”
“Give me back my papers,” I repeated.
Vellacott ignored this. He took his own seat, behind his desk, and rubbed his face with his hands.
“Miss Hope. I was rough with you, not like a gentleman. For that, my apologies.” Bentivoglio inclined his head, then turned to my father. “But, Professore Vellacott, she may be a spy, perhaps of her mother’s. These notes prove she lies to you.”
“What?” I cried.
“No, no,” demurred my father. He folded his hands in front of him on the desk. “I should not like to think you a spy, Thea. But clearly there is something to what Professore Bentivoglio says. It does at least seem you have not been telling me the whole truth.”
Heat rushed to my face. My mind thrummed with outraged retorts. I wanted to scream at him, but I clenched my jaw shut until I was in control again.
“I am not the liar here,” I said.
My father flushed.
“Sir,” Dominic began. He was still standing by the door. I did not have to look at him to sense his unease. “Sir, I saw what happened. Professore Bentivoglio attacked her. Don’t you see the blood, Professor? He did that—”
“Yes, thank you, Dominic,” said my father, shooting him a forbidding look. “I am quite aware of what has happened.”
“But—how can you be, sir, when you’ve only had his word—”
“Enough, Dominic,” said my father. “Thank you for assisting Miss Hope. You may go.”
Dominic hesitated. I felt his eyes on me, but I stared ahead, stone-faced.
“Miss Hope—” Dominic said to me, but then my father was on his feet.
“Are you Miss Hope’s apprentice or mine?” he demanded. “Get out!”
The door opened and closed, and I knew he was gone. Vellacott held out his hand to Bentivoglio, who handed him the papers with evident reluctance. I saw my letter from Will, removed from its envelope and unfolded. My stomach plunged.
“Where did you get this text, Thea? And the notes?” asked my father.
I ground my teeth together and said nothing.
“I assume the notes are your mother’s? It looks as though—” He stared intently at the bottom of the paper with my incomplete decryptions. “It can’t be, of course, but it seems as though Meg thought she had reached the final stage for making the Philosopher’s Stone itself.”
“She did,” I said. “Right before she went mad.”
“Mad? Oh yes. Do you mean that her notes are unreliable? The steps she took seem clear enough. Fascinating, in fact. She was operating under the mercury-sulfur theory of the elements—though in a form with which I am not quite familiar—and seems to believe that it worked.”
I remembered the shining, ruby-red substance. It was exactly as every famous alchemist had said it should be. In another minute or two it would have hardened into the Stone, just as Jābir described.
“That’s not what I mean.” I sounded faint to myself, as if I were speaking from under a blanket. “She went mad after the notes. And he will, too,” I said, looking up at Bentivoglio. My anger was draining out of me. “You can tell it’s happening, can’t you?”
The light from the stained-glass window behind him made Bentivoglio’s dark hair glow orange. His eyes narrowed, but there was fear there, mixed with anger and hatred. No, he wasn’t worthy to make the Stone. If it had rejected my mother, of course it would reject him.
“You need help,” I said to Bentivoglio. “You do not want what is coming next. Believe me. I’ve seen it.”
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about, Thea?” Vellacott demanded.
“The curse,” I said. “The madness. Cave Maledictionem Alchemistae, Professor.”
6
Professore Bentivoglio’s face twisted into an expression of rage that was too familiar. I did not smell the sulfur, but I could imagine it. My hands tightened on the arms of the chair. But it was only an instant, and then the lines of rage twisted again into an expression of terror.
He knew. He could feel it. But he stormed from the room, throwing the door open with a violence that made my father wince. Bentivoglio pushed past Dominic, who was standing just outside.
“Keep him out of your laboratory,” I said to my father without looking at him.
“He needs rest.” Vellacott sat heavily in his chair. “A good night’s sleep will set him right.”
“No, it won’t,” I said, but without energy. I was suddenly tired, too tired to fight a doomed battle to convince my father of things he refused to believe. He shifted in his chair and glanced at the door.
“Dominic—shut the door, will you?” he said.
Dominic stepped back inside the office and closed the door behind him.
“Miss Hope,” my father began, twisting his hands together on the desk in front of him. “I have been thinking about your position here…”
I knew at once. He was going to try to send me away. My low spirits sank further.
“It’s difficult, very difficult.” Vellacott glanced up at Dominic and frowned. He seemed to consider sending him out again, but perhaps concluded that having a witness to the shameful things he was about to say was better than being left alone with me. “Even though you are my niece, there is a certain lack of propriety to your staying in my rooms. And there are no rooms to be spared at the Tackley for you to have your own, for the moment. And in any case, I find myself somewhat low on funds…”
I felt weightless, floating above myself. I belonged nowhere. I could drift away from the earth, into the void, and leave no mark behind. Merely some uncompleted work that my father would finish if he could, and take the credit for. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at Dominic, whose pity I felt from across the room. I looked out through the arched diamond window that looked over the grassy quadrangle below. What a lovely view my father had from his comfortable study. What a lovely life. Naturally, he didn’t want me here, complicating it. Ruining it.
“I’ll go,” I said. “If you give me my papers, I’ll go now.”
“Ah,” he said. “Yes. Well…”
I stared him down. He had no decent response to this. He simply would not do it. And I would not leave without them.
“But—” Dominic broke in, casting a wary glance at my father. “But where would you go?”
It was a good question. I knew only one person who might have me in England, and going to him would be a shameful impropriety. But he would at least be glad to see me. I pictured his face breaking into a smile of surprise and delight. My heart seized with homesickness for him at the thought. I would get the papers back, somehow, and then I would go.
“London,” I said with decision.
I would bear the unseemliness. I needed Will more than I needed an intact reputation. He would help me. If he did not have a laboratory of his own, then he would know someone who could help me set one up. I needed a patron, someone to provide the funds and equipment. I did not need a father. And even if I did, I would not find one here.
“London?” repeated Vellacott hopefully. “You—you have family there?”
“You know I don’t,” I snapped.
“Then … perhaps … friends?”
I settled back into my chair and glared at him. Friends? No. I did not have more than one friend in London. If I had more than one friend in the world, I did not know who he was. He certainly wasn’t Edward Vellacott.
“Sir…” said Dominic. “Maybe … maybe Miss Hope would be willing to stay at my mother’s house. With my mother and me. Just until something else can be arranged.”
Dominic stared at the floor, glancing at my father and then back down, like he was ashamed. Not of himself, I realized. Or of me, either.
“That’s a fine idea, Dominic, yes,” said my father, seizing gratefully on it. “Why don’t you take her there at once. Miss Hope, you need rest. We will talk about … other matters … later.”
I considered making an undignified scramble for my papers, but he had shut them in his desk. It was pointless. I stood.
“Give me back the letter, at least,” I said, blushing. “It is personal. And nothing to do with alchemy.”
A Golden Fury Page 7