A Golden Fury

by Samantha Cohoe

  “And Will,” I said. “Where is Will?”

  I looked around the room, as though he might be hidden in one of the dark corners. It occurred to me that this room was unfamiliar. Valentin had kept me out of his Ada’s room for my descent into hell.

  “He is as he was,” said Valentin. “Perhaps a little worse. I moved him to a warmer room, as you wished.”

  “Thea—” began my father again.

  “Enough begging,” I snapped. “I’ll tell Will. Not you.”

  My father and Valentin exchanged another glance. I wondered when they had become so cozy. When had they aligned themselves against me? But Valentin nodded and went out.

  Vellacott and I were alone in the room, and suddenly I wasn’t quite mad enough not to feel the awkwardness of his discomfort. He looked at his hands, then at me, then back at his hands.

  “Thea,” he said. Again.

  “Thea,” I mimicked in an unkindly nasal imitation of his voice. “Much more of that and you’ll make me hate the sound of my own name.”

  My father looked stricken for half a moment, then laughed. I watched him with curiosity. His face changed when he laughed, even when it was a wry laugh like this one, without much happiness in it. He was warmer. More sincere. Harder to hate. When he stopped, he smiled sadly and fondly at me, and something twisted deep in my belly.

  “If I ever doubted you were Meg’s daughter, five minutes’ conversation with you would be all the convincing I needed.”

  I had nothing to say to that. A wave of exhaustion crashed over me. I was dizzy with it.

  “Why are you here?” I whispered.

  “I came for you, Thea,” my father said. “I should have listened to you.”

  I heard his words, but not the meaning of them, not at first. I was slipping.

  No.

  I held on to his voice, the pleasant timbre, the possible sincerity.

  “I behaved terribly,” he was saying. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness. All I can hope is that I can somehow make amends to you. You were right. You were right about Bentivoglio, and you were right to protect Dominic as you did. I feel such shame when I think of my actions then, even my thoughts.”

  I hit my head against the headboard behind me, and the sharp pain cleared my mind.

  “Thea?” My father half rose from his chair at the foot of my bed. He came closer, along the side. “Stay, Thea,” he said. There was such desperation in his voice. Did he really want the Stone so much? He leaned over me, pressed a hand to my forehead.

  “I’m here,” I said.

  The door opened, and in a moment Will was at my side, pushing my father away.

  “Oh God, Bee,” said Will. There were tears in his deep, shadowed eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I should never have asked this of you.”

  “Leave us alone,” I said to my father and Valentin, standing at the foot of my bed. When they didn’t move, I threw myself forward, despite the pain that shot through my wrists. “Get out!”

  They obeyed, and Will sat beside me. His hands were on my face, pushing back my damp hair. I closed my eyes for a moment, letting his touch draw out the tension.

  “When it burns red,” I said, reciting my mother’s last line. “Apply three minims of stibnite. When it fuses, the Stone will be complete.”

  I opened my eyes, and saw Will staring into them. He nodded.

  “I can do that much,” he said very quietly.

  “Don’t trust them.” I was so tired. I wanted sleep, but didn’t know if I would ever wake.

  “I’ll fix this, Bee,” said Will. “Trust me.”

  16

  Valentin returned. He came to my side, peered closely at me. I knew, of course, what he looked for, and tried to show it to him. He touched my forehead.

  “Please let me help Will,” I said. “Please take me to the workroom. You need me there.”

  He stared at me a long moment, and then nodded. He produced a key and unshackled me. I slipped my wrist out as the manacle released, moaning. I pulled myself up and rolled my shoulder. Relief flooded me. Valentin rounded the bed and unchained my other wrist. I wrapped my arms around myself, then held my wrists up in front of me.

  “How long was it?” I asked.

  “Sixteen days,” said Valentin. “I am sorry.”

  I pushed myself to the edge of the bed and gripped the side. I dropped my head as a spell of dizziness overtook me. I shook it away and pushed myself to my feet. I grabbed Valentin’s arm when I almost fell, and felt him flinch away. A small, private smile twisted my mouth. I had become a thing that frightened a man twice my size. I did not want to think how dreadful I must look, after sixteen days of chained madness. The smell was appalling, even to me.

  I had a bath. Valentin summoned Rahel’s companion, Berit. She helped me into and out of it with a look of deep distaste for my dreadful state. I did not mind. I felt the same distaste, and an even deeper relief once I had bathed and dressed.

  I inspected my wrists. They were hideous. Scabbed over in patches, red and even bleeding in others. One of them oozed yellow pus. The pain was acute. I hadn’t felt it this strongly when I awoke. I decided to take this as an encouraging sign. The blur was still there. The confusion at the edge of my thoughts still pulsed, fingering its way to the center. But I was calmer. The bath helped.

  Valentin returned with bandages and an ointment that I could not imagine was strong enough for the job it was expected to do. He sat beside me and held my hand in his with a gentleness that surprised me. He spread the ointment into the wounds and wrapped them. There was something different about him. He looked sad.

  “I did warn you,” I said.

  “You did,” he agreed.

  “I warned my father, too, but he didn’t listen any better than you did,” I said. “Why is he here? Do you know?”

  “He is here for you,” said Valentin. “He wants to help you and take you home.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t believe that.”

  Valentin raised his eyebrows, but without his customary cold incredulity. “Why not?”

  “He doesn’t care about me,” I said.

  Valentin secured the bandage on my wrist and released my hand. He sat back and regarded me. “I do not know your father well,” he said. “But from what I have seen of him in these last weeks, I think you may be mistaken about that.”

  He helped me to my feet. It was slow going, down a hallway and then the stairway. Screams traveled down them. I looked up at Valentin, a painful question on my face. He nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “Dominic.”

  We made our way up the stairs, Dominic’s screams tormenting me at each step. My heart pounded and my vision blurred, but I forced myself on, clinging to Valentin’s thick arm. I would be there when the Stone was made. It was mine, my work. I would be there to be certain they used it as they had promised to.

  Dominic’s screams stopped, and in the sudden quiet I heard raised voices from the library. Valentin hesitated before the door, glancing at me. He knocked before I could make out what the voices were saying. They fell silent.

  “Komm herein,” said a woman with a low voice. Rahel. I straightened my spine to the best of my ability as we entered, pushing past a German who held the door open. I wished I could walk without clinging to Valentin’s arm.

  “Ah, Miss Hope,” said Rahel. She stood in the corner of the room farthest from the fire, her hand on the ledge of the open window and a chair behind her. An oil portrait of a man whose dour expression rather mirrored her own hung over her on the wall to her right. My father stood opposite her, shoulders squared against her.

  Will coughed. He was kneeling by the fire, which sent up thick yellow smoke. My throat tightened at the smell.

  “Come in,” said Rahel again in German. “Welcome. You are in time to help us settle a dispute.”

  My father crossed toward me, hands outstretched. I did not take them, but he held them out anyway, turning his palms up in dramatic appeal
.

  “Let me finish it, my dear,” he said. I winced at the endearment, which sounded false on his lips. He pointed at Will. “He’ll break it! His hand is barely healed and he coughs every second moment! If he was ever a competent adept, he most certainly is not now!”

  “Do it, then,” I said. “I cannot stop you.”

  Vellacott glared at Will. “He will not tell me the last step. He said you wouldn’t wish him to. But now that you are here, now that you are awake, you can tell me.”

  A smile curled my lips. I shook my head.

  “Thea, for heaven’s sake!” my father cried in exasperation. “What good are your secrets now? What does it matter who finishes it?”

  They were fair questions. And yet it did matter. The Stone was mine. I would finish it, even if I couldn’t keep it. Even if no one but those of us in this room ever saw, at least we would know who had made the Philosopher’s Stone. I would know.

  “If Will can’t do it—” I looked at Will, down at his trembling, blackened fingers, then into his despairing eyes. “I will.”

  “No, Thea,” said my father. “It is too dangerous for you. You’ve only just begun to heal. We don’t know what causes it—the smoke alone—” He stared at the fire, realization dawning. “You shouldn’t be here!”

  Vellacott reached for my arm. I jerked away, nearly losing my balance. Valentin pushed my father back with one hand.

  “Karl,” said Valentin to the German by the door. “Nimm ihn raus.” Take him out.

  Vellacott’s eyes widened in alarm as Karl advanced on him. “No. No. This is too dangerous!” Karl seized my father’s arm and dragged him easily to the door. “Thea, this boy is not worth—”

  Karl slammed the door shut, mercifully cutting short my father’s pleas. It came as no surprise to me that my father was also on the list of those who did not feel Will was worth my sacrifice. I turned to meet his eyes and found him looking uneasily at the woman in the corner.

  Rahel had resumed her seat. Her hands were folded neatly on her lap. She had fixed Will with a cold glare that put me in mind of a cobra mesmerizing its prey. The muscles of Valentin’s arm tensed against mine. Somehow the subtraction of my father and his protests had left the room more full, thick with unspoken but nonetheless obvious hatred. I thought of the reasons Rahel had to wish Will harm. Something she had said at dinner that first night came back to me with an ominous clarity.

  Some debts cannot be paid by anyone but the debtor.

  I took a step forward, pulling Valentin with me.

  “Why are you here?” I asked Rahel in German.

  “Why am I here?” She turned her head toward me. Her expression did not change. “Why am I here, in my own father’s house?”

  I met her cold gaze. “Yes.”

  “My dear,” she said in English, mimicking my father’s false tone. “I am only here to witness the making of history. The fulfillment of every alchemist’s hopes.”

  “You care nothing for alchemy,” I said.

  “That was when I thought it was charlatanry.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Now it seems it might be real.”

  I searched her eyes, wishing I could believe that was all she had in mind and wondering what I could do if it was something else. Rahel saw my hesitation and sighed.

  “You have made a bargain for something dear to me,” she said. “I am here to be certain you have delivered nothing less than was promised.”

  “Something dear to you,” I repeated. “Do you mean—”

  We both looked at Will.

  “You mean his life?” I finished.

  “Say rather, his death,” Rahel said. “Valentin says I must give up his death.”

  She gazed at Will, her cobra look growing more pronounced.

  “For the Philosopher’s Stone itself? It may be a fair trade. But believe me, my dear Miss Hope, I will accept nothing less.”

  She leaned back slightly in her chair and folded her hands on her knees. “You had better get to work.”

  Will stayed at my side, helping when he could. He held me steady when I shook. He put his hands on my face and called me back when I started to slip. Rahel watched us, coiled in the corner. Valentin stayed closer to hand, standing just far enough that he could still reach me in two or three quick steps. Will and I ground the stibnite. We knelt by the fire, and I carefully opened the glass egg. I brought the hot poker to its side and heated it through. Yellow smoke filled my mind, but I blinked it away again and again. Gently, so gently, I sprinkled the stibnite into the warmed ovum. I slumped back into Will’s arms and watched in an agony of expectation while the tiny grains sank into the now again white substance.

  Nothing happened. I closed my eyes, buried my head in Will’s chest. Darkness clawed at me. I had held it off as long as I could. His heart stuttering in my ear would be the last thing my sane mind comprehended. And then.

  It is time.

  “Bee.” Will’s voice was low, then sharp and loud. “Bee, look!”

  I came back. I opened my eyes to see the red sparks in the mustard smoke of the fire. The substance in the ovum had ignited. It burned through, the gold of fire, and then a dark, pure ruby red. Just as it had done when my mother attacked me.

  “Hold me,” I whispered. “Don’t let me hurt it.”

  But to my relief, I didn’t want to hurt it. I had an urge to seize it, to hold it close, but not to harm it. I loved it. I thought, with horror, of how my mother had thrown her own against the wall, shattering it. Murdering it. I would as soon murder my own child.

  But after all, she had tried to do that as well.

  The color deepened, and yet at the same time grew more luminous. I gazed at it, longing to touch it, but somehow certain that I had to wait.

  “It’s beautiful,” I breathed.

  A light flashed out of it, so bright it blinded. Will cried out, and so did Rahel and Valentin, as though in pain. But I felt no pain, only warmth, and something else. Something wonderful that wanted to come into me.

  “Is it finished?”

  Will rose, pulling me with him. I didn’t want to. I rose but kept my eyes on my Stone.

  “Is it finished?” Rahel demanded.

  It wasn’t. It should have been, but I could feel its incompletion in my body and on my breath. It was pulling me toward it, as the madness had done, but with a relentless light instead of darkness. It wanted me, to give me something, and to take something in return. And it knew, as certainly as I knew all this, that I must not tell Rahel. This was private, something between the Stone, and myself, and no one else.

  “Yes,” I lied. A sweat had broken out on my brow. I wanted to kneel before it and touch it, but I clung to Will and kept my hand locked by my side. “Yes, it’s finished.”

  “Good,” said Rahel. “Karl! Martin!”

  “No,” said Will. The fear in his voice pulled me back to his side, in the present. “You promised. Valentin, you swore!”

  Dimly, I understood. I forced myself to turn away from the Stone. Will’s arms were around me, holding me in front of him. The other Germans entered the room. There were knives in their hands. Will’s hand tightened on my arm.

  “Valentin,” said Rahel. “You may take the Stone now.”

  He took a step toward us. Panic flared in me. I had known this moment would arrive. Once the Stone was made, my leverage was gone. I had only Valentin’s word to rely on now.

  “Not yet,” I said. “You said I could cure him, and Dominic.”

  “Cure yourself,” said Rahel. “Valentin will want to know that it works, after all.”

  Help me, I said to the Stone. It wanted to. I felt its longing for me, just like I longed for it.

  “Will first,” I said. I summoned all my strength and turned my attention to Valentin. He was hesitant, I saw that. He didn’t think any better of Will than Rahel did, but unlike her he didn’t seem quite happy to go back on his word. “You promised. I did everything you wanted. Let me heal Will first.”

  Val
entin glanced at Rahel.

  “Certainly not,” she said. “I am not some Roman tyrant, to strengthen a man the better to torture him. He will die quickly, and with little pain.”

  Despair welled in me. I had made the Stone. Against the odds and at such a cost. To me, to Dominic, to my mother. It was a victory that rivaled any in history, and yet my triumph was to become a defeat so terrible, so total that I would not recover. To lose Will and the Stone?

  I would not.

  I twisted out of Will’s arms and dove for the fire. Before any of them could stop me, I smashed the top of the ovum and shook the Stone out onto my hand. My fingers screamed from burns where they had touched the ovum, but the Stone itself was warm and just a little soft. There were no instructions for this, but I knew exactly what to do. I pressed it to my skin, pushing down the neck of my dress so that the Stone was just over my breast. The Stone throbbed in time with my own heartbeat. I felt it reaching in, reaching for what it needed to make itself whole. Warmth and strength came with it, spreading through me in curling tendrils. This was the best feeling I had ever felt. Better than falling asleep in a warm, soft bed after a long day of work while rain pattered on the shutters, better than the pleasant blur of champagne and the scent of apple blossoms and Will’s mouth on mine. I wanted to close my eyes, to savor and sink into the sensation. But the others scurried about, weapons and voices raised. I forced myself to attend, in time to see Martin bearing down on Will while he backed into the wall.

  I was strong, I felt that. Not as strong as I would be soon, and even then not strong enough to take on all three of the Germans. Karl was steps away from me, knife out, not expecting resistance. I smiled.

  I seized his wrist with my free hand and squeezed. He cried out and released the knife. I let him go and caught the weapon before it hit the floor. He was surprisingly slow to react. I lashed out, slashing at his throat. He dropped, clutching his neck. There was blood, but not enough to make me think he would die. I dropped the Stone into my bodice where it continued to pulse, safe against my skin.

  Rahel stood in the corner, glaring at me but unafraid. “Valentin!” she cried. “Befasse Dich mit ihr!”