He turned back toward me and ran his hand through his blond hair, cut ragged around his ears. Now that he stood by the fire, I saw what I had already heard in his voice. He was thin, much too thin. His face was hollowed out and shadowed in ways it hadn’t been before. His cheeks and chest had sunken in. The room was cold and damp despite the fire, but Will’s forehead shone with sweat. He coughed, pulling out a handkerchief as he did so and quickly hiding it away when the fit had passed. But I saw the streak of red in it that he was trying to conceal.
“Will—”
He met my eyes for the first time.
“Ah, Bee. Don’t look at me like that,” he said, managing a shadow of his old sly smile. “I won’t have it. I’ll send you right back out on the street.”
“But—is it—?”
“Just a touch of consumption,” he said. “It’s trying to kill me, but it will have to hurry if it wants to beat the Prussians.”
He let out a short laugh that quickly turned into another cough. When it had finished with him, he sat down by the fire. Not on a chair, as there were none in the room, but on the bare floorboards.
“Do make yourselves comfortable,” said Will, with a grand sweep of one hand while the other tucked his handkerchief away again. “That may seem a difficult thing to do, but you’ll find the floor quite pleasant once you’re very tired of standing.”
I went forward and sank down across from him. I untied my bonnet and pulled it off, holding it in front of me. I fiddled with the ribbons and forced back the panic flooding through me.
“Will—” I began again.
“So you didn’t know where else to go,” Will interrupted. “But last I knew you were still in France. It seems I’ve missed a few rather significant developments in the life of Theosebeia Hope. And you know that isn’t a story I like to fall behind on.”
I smiled, even though my heart was heavy as lead. I never could resist smiling when he set his mind to making me.
“I sent you a letter,” I said. “You didn’t get it?”
Will reached into his front pocket and took out a letter—my letter. My pulse quickened. He kept it in his pocket, just where I kept his.
“This one?” he asked. “I got it, Bee, but I hadn’t the faintest idea what to make of it! Your mother is mad? You’re leaving France? I thought it was some joke.”
“Not a joke,” I said, and my smile faltered at the thought of all the miserable things I had to relate. “I don’t know where to start.”
“You left France, it seems,” prompted Will. “Why? I thought we agreed you should stay and bring down the ancien régime.”
I smiled again, wryly this time. Will liked to joke as though I were even more a revolutionary than he, though in truth I was a great deal less. I’d never thought about politics carefully until Will came, and the seven months he’d been with us hadn’t been quite long enough for him to convince me.
“We never agreed on that,” I said. “And anyway, you left.”
“What an unfair way to put it,” said Will. “I didn’t leave, I was unceremoniously thrown out. And if you’ll recall, that was quite as much your fault as mine.”
A flush crept up my cheeks. Dominic watched me, a slight frown on his face.
“In any case,” I said, to change the subject. “The Revolution doesn’t seem to need our help.”
“That’s what Lafayette wants you to think. The Revolution’s all done, plebs, pack up your pitchforks and let the liberal aristocrats take it from here!” He coughed again, deep and painful, but kept talking afterward as if there had been no interruption. “But the people won’t have it, you know. A citizen king and a constitution written by rich men? The Revolution isn’t finished yet, not even close to it. You’ll see.”
“A Jacobin alchemist,” muttered Dominic. He sat down next to me.
“An excellent summary of me.” Will’s brilliant smile moved to Dominic, turning unfriendly. “It seems you know me completely now, but I know nothing about you except that you seem to have gotten my Bee into trouble.”
“Your Bee?” asked Dominic.
“He didn’t get me into trouble,” I said hastily. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“Don’t tell me it was yours, Bee,” said Will. “I won’t believe you.”
“No, it wasn’t my fault, either. If anything it was my father’s.”
“Your father?” Will asked. “You mean the Oxford fellow? I thought you’d never met.”
“We hadn’t,” I said. “The Comte sent me to Oxford after—well—”
The scent of sulfur came back to me, and my throat seemed to constrict like my mother’s hands were around it again. For a moment I couldn’t go on.
“How far are you?” asked Dominic abruptly, nodding toward the brazier over the fire.
“Far?” Will asked. “Do you even know what you’re asking?”
“I know what alchemy looks like. Have you made the White Elixir?” Dominic continued.
“The White Elixir?” repeated Will, incredulous. “The substance that turns all metals into silver? Do you think I would be hiding away in this hovel if I had?”
“We did,” said Dominic. “Or almost did. With Thea’s help.”
Will’s mouth fell open, and his hostility dropped with it.
“You—you made the White Elixir?” He turned to me. “Bee?”
I swallowed and drew a shaky breath. “They did.”
“But then—” Will seemed to grow taller, even as he sat. “But that’s the final step before the Philosopher’s Stone!”
“It is,” agreed Dominic. “And Thea got close—”
“Got close!” exclaimed Will. His eyes flashed with a brilliance almost like before. “My God! Do you mean you know how to make it?”
“I don’t,” Dominic said, glancing at me. “But…”
“Will, listen,” I said. “It isn’t as simple as that. There was a … a problem.”
A problem. I winced at the feebleness of the understatement. My mother was insane. Professore Bentivoglio was dead. Dominic and I were both fugitives from the law. It was more than a problem. It was a curse.
“The process causes madness,” said Dominic. “Thea’s mother went mad in France in the last stages. Then someone else, in Oxford—a colleague of Mr. Vellacott—he went mad as well.”
“Mad?” The avid light in Will’s eyes dimmed. “Truly mad? You said so in your letter, but I didn’t think…”
I swallowed hard, then nodded. “She was gone, Will, completely gone.”
“You don’t mean—”
“She attacked me,” I said. “She nearly killed me.”
“What?” Will’s eyes widened in horror. “My God, Bee!”
“But that isn’t all,” I said. “It wasn’t just her, it’s the work, the alchemy. A curse, or … a … a judgment on unworthy alchemists.” Will’s eyebrows lifted skeptically at this, so I hurried on. “Professore Bentivoglio, my father’s colleague, he did the same thing. He attacked Dominic, and then—and then—”
“I killed him,” Dominic finished for me. He looked at his hands.
“He didn’t mean to,” I said. “And he was only defending himself. But my father didn’t believe it. He went to the police. He was going to blame it all on Dominic. Bentivoglio is a powerful man, from a noble family, and Dominic … isn’t.”
Will nodded slowly, looking from Dominic to me.
“So you ran away. I sympathize. I’ve recently found myself on the wrong end of unfair accusations. Breach of contract, in my case, rather than murder, though strangely it carries the same sentence. But nevertheless.” He paused to cough, and when he was finished he looked straight at Dominic with undisguised hostility. “I have missed the part of the story that explains how it was not you who got my Bee into trouble.”
“And I missed the part where she belongs to you,” said Dominic. He didn’t raise his voice, exactly, but seemed close to it.
“I suppose you didn’t stop to think how bad this
could be for her now?” Will said. “Especially with those fools in Parliament making speeches about the dangers of the revolutionary French every night?”
Dominic’s eyes flitted to me and filled with guilt.
“I didn’t ask her to help me,” he said.
“He didn’t,” I agreed. “Don’t badger him, Will, please. He isn’t to blame for any of this.”
Will looked at me for a long moment. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He ran his long fingers through his messy hair. It was a familiar enough gesture to bring on another flash of memory: his hand taking mine while we talked.
“If you say so, of course,” he sighed. “But I don’t like seeing you here.”
“I was going to say the same of you,” I said. “Will, wouldn’t it be better to go back to your parents? They wouldn’t send you away, not when you’re sick like this.”
Will shook his head.
“I agreed not to badger your apprentice,” he said. “So I must ask you not to ask about my parents.”
“But—”
“No, Bee.”
His tone was final enough that I could not mistake it. I didn’t press, and he pushed himself laboriously to his feet.
“I suppose it’s been a while since you ate,” said Will, slightly out of breath from the effort. “I’ll go out and get some food, shall I?”
I was starving, and Dominic’s stomach rumbled at the suggestion. I handed Will my coin purse as he went to the door.
“It’s all I have left, I’m afraid,” I said. “But it should be enough to feed us for a while.”
Will gestured to a sad, rumpled pallet in the corner. It was the only piece of furniture in the room that wasn’t alchemical in nature.
“That’s the only bed, I’m afraid. One of you should probably take a turn on it, if you’ve been traveling all night. There’s another room.” Will pointed to a low door off the entryway. “Just a closet, really. It’s empty except for the rats. But you can take the bed in there if you want quiet.”
He slung a coat over his shoulders. I recognized it. It had been a fine coat once, a double-breasted dove-gray garment, cut slim and long. It was ragged and dirty now, but still he looked a bit more like himself as he buttoned it up. He caught me looking at him and smiled.
“This isn’t how I pictured our reunion,” he said. “But I am glad we’re having one, even so.”
He took my hand in his, and warmth spread through me that could not be explained by his hands, which were cold as lead.
“Don’t open the door while I’m gone,” he said as he left.
I locked the door behind him.
“You should sleep,” said Dominic. “I’m not sure I can.”
The shadows under his eyes, dark as bruises, said otherwise.
“You take the bed and I’ll sleep by the fire,” I said. This seemed to me a reasonable division of the scant comforts available. But he argued, and in the end I sank gratefully onto the pallet. The last image I saw before sleep took me was Dominic kneeling by the fire, looking into the brazier.
10
In my dream, someone was watching me.
I didn’t know who. I didn’t know why. My eyes were heavy, and it was a struggle to open them even a sliver. Whatever watched me was behind me, though I couldn’t see it. I kept turning; slowly, then suddenly. But it slipped away each time. I could not catch it. Then my eyes closed and I could not open them. From behind me, hands closed around my neck, slow but firm. Almost gentle. But all the same, I couldn’t draw breath. I choked, and woke up.
I threw myself upright and reached for my neck. I gasped, tried to scream. I tried to peel the hands off, and found there were none.
Someone was beside me, murmuring something. I threw up my hands, but realized at the same moment that he wasn’t trying to hurt me.
“Just a dream, Bee,” he said. “Just a dream.”
Will. I remembered. I started to breathe again, melting into his chest. It was thinner than before, hard like bone instead of muscle. But somehow his arms around me felt as they always had before. Even in this damp garret, it was the same. The only place that had ever felt like home.
“You’re all right. I’m here.”
“I know,” I said. “I know that.”
Something started to soften in my chest. Feelings I had sent into hiding started to creep out, feeling safe for the first time since he had left. I tried to stop them, but I couldn’t, not when he was holding me. I wanted to sob into his chest and see how he would comfort me. He would, I was sure of that, no matter how pitiful and messy my weeping made me. I should pull away, I told myself. But I didn’t. Then he started to cough.
It wasn’t bad at first. It could have been a normal cough. It started in his throat, but quickly went deeper. It took hold and shook him, tearing him from me. I pulled back in alarm as he folded, fumbling with his handkerchief, turning away. He wanted to hide it, but there was no hiding this.
When the coughing finally subsided, he did not look at me. He couldn’t meet my eyes, couldn’t make a joke. I understood then, though deep down I had known from the moment he opened the door. Will was dying.
It was worse than everything else. Worse than my mother’s madness, my father’s rejection, Dominic’s trouble, worse than fleeing from the law. The thought of Will had been enough when everything else had disappointed. I could face losing the rest when finding Will was still ahead of me.
“Have you seen a doctor?” I asked.
“I never met a doctor who could cure consumption.”
“If you got out of this horrible place—”
“I would still be dying.”
His flat tone sent a chill down my spine. I opened my mouth to protest, but Will cut me off.
“Your friend.” He nodded toward the wall. It took me a moment to realize that Dominic must be resting in the other room. “He went to work while you were sleeping and I was gone. I got back to find him melting something in my brazier.”
“What?”
Will nodded toward the fireplace, an oddly careful look on his face.
“See for yourself.”
I pulled myself to my feet, taking the hand Will offered for support, and took a deep breath to fight down a spell of dizziness. I recognized a sharp, fresh scent.
“The White Elixir?” I asked Will. “But I thought you said you hadn’t made it?”
“I haven’t. Your friend brought it with him. He was transmuting some of my lead, and it seems to have worked.”
I crossed the room and stared into the brazier. The White Elixir was pooled like quicksilver around a large lump of glittering metal that was distinctly not lead. I felt in my pockets for the vial I had brought, and found it missing. Will held out tongs to me. I reached in with them and pulled out the lump, which was about the size of a fist. The White Elixir released it, coming together again and losing its liquid shine. I touched the metal. It was warm and pleasant to the touch.
“You said this was lead?” I asked Will. “You’re quite certain it was lead?”
“Quite certain. I spent my last silver a long time ago,” he replied.
I knew this was what the White Elixir was supposed to do, but I had never seen the results before. Now I held them in my hand. Silver, made from alchemy. I passed it from one hand to the other, rubbed my thumb over its smooth, warm surface. I wanted more.
“Do you have any more lead?” I asked. “Or tin?”
Will went to the chest against the wall, full of a familiar array of instruments, vials, and metals. He took a dull gray block, pewter, and dropped it into the brazier. We watched, entranced, as the elixir parted around it, then slowly began to bubble and spread across its surface. The bubbles turned to steam, and a thick smoke rose into our faces. I fanned it away, entranced by the process I had only half believed was truly possible completing itself before my eyes.
I took Will’s hand without thinking. For a moment, it remained cold and unmoving in mine, and I panicked, imagining
he was about to draw away. Then, to my relief, his fingers closed around mine and squeezed. We watched wordlessly, hand in hand, until the steam slowly thinned and the elixir parted again. This time I lifted the newly created silver from the brazier and dropped it into Will’s outstretched hand. He stared at it for a very long moment.
“I had almost despaired,” he said quietly. “I had almost resigned myself to believing what they all said about us. That we were either fools, or frauds.”
“It is real.” I knew exactly how he felt. We had talked of it once. We were both young enough to abandon alchemy as a failed pursuit and choose something else. I had considered it, and so had he. I had met alchemists who had spent their whole lives looking for this and never found it. Talented men who could have done anything. But they had done this, and failed. The waste of it.
And now I held what they had died striving for in my hand. That meant we had been right not to abandon alchemy. But even more than that, they had all been right not to. Because this was not just silver that I held in my hand. This was proof that the basic elements of the world could be changed. Our detractors believed we sought this only for riches, and to be sure, most of us did. But the best alchemists, the ones I admired, who went the furthest—they saw past riches, past fame. They knew what it was to stand outside of society, to look at the world and wish it were different. Better. If we could turn pewter and lead into silver, then we didn’t simply have to take the world as it was given to us. We could change it. Lead into silver was only the beginning. Next was silver into gold. Sickness into health. Death into life.
“You said you had almost succeeded,” he said, not taking his eyes from the silver.
I didn’t know what he meant at first.
“The Philosopher’s Stone. You said you had almost completed the process to make it.”
I met Will’s eyes, and for a moment I felt the desperate need that I saw there inside myself. We both needed the Stone. There was so much we had to heal.
“What are you doing?”
A Golden Fury Page 11