In my desperate mind, I screamed for the Stone to release me. It did not answer. It did not even attend. It did not need to convince me now. It had what it wanted from me.
I was a prisoner in my own body.
Something happened then. My eyes moved, of the Stone’s volition, to my father. He had something in his hand. He had taken it from me. He was running toward the ship’s rail, to where Valentin was about to make another attempt to board the ship. My eyes went down to my hand, where a moment ago the physical Stone had been clutched. It was empty now.
My body rose. Its movements were awkward and slow, but the Stone would learn to control it better soon, no doubt.
My father had reached the ship’s rail and held out the Stone to Valentin. He thought he could help me this way, by giving the Stone away. He did not know it was too late. We were joined.
Still, my body ran after him. The Stone made my hand seize my father’s arm, but he tore free, staggering away. He cried out again to Valentin, whose second grappling hook caught the rigging once more. He swung. A musket shot missed him, but a quick-thinking sailor in the Ariadne’s rigging cut the rope. Valentin fell into the water.
My father cried out as Valentin went down. Then he stared out at the privateer, perhaps assessing the distance. My body lurched toward him at the Stone’s command. He met my eyes, then staggered back, staring in horror. I wondered what he saw. It certainly wasn’t me.
He drew back his arm to throw the Stone.
My body hurled itself at him, but it was too late. Vellacott hurled the Stone toward the privateer and watched as it fell short, into the water.
My body climbed the rail and, before my horrified father could stop it, hurled itself into the water after the Stone.
I felt the cold and, as the pull of my arms dragged me down, the emptiness of my lungs.
I saw it, a flash of red sinking faster than I was. My arms pulled harder. My body gained on it, then caught it in its hand. My body clutched the Stone tightly.
But even if it had been lost, I would not have been free. The Stone had not wanted to lose a part of itself, but it was not terrified. Losing the physical Stone in the channel would have been like losing an arm or a leg for it. It would still have lived in me. Even destroying the physical Stone wouldn’t change that.
I felt my lungs burning, my senses blackening. My body had swum deep. The Stone turned it and made it swim up. I felt the Stone’s haste, and something else.
Fear.
It was afraid my body had been underwater too long. It was afraid I would drown.
Destroying the physical Stone would not free me from its grip. No.
But freeing me would destroy it.
And there was only one way for me to be free.
I summoned every bit of power I had left over my body. It wasn’t much, but the Stone was focusing its strength on propelling me upward with my arms and legs.
I forced my mouth open.
Terror had gripped me when the Stone took me. But this was another terror. The terror of death. The fear of what came next, especially if it was nothing. To live like this would be a torment, but a part of me would have chosen it over nothing at all.
But. To be a slave to a wicked thing was its own death. To be the vessel it used to do its evil will. I had brought it into the world. All the havoc it had wreaked along the way—what it had done to my mother and Dominic, and whatever it might do next—all of it was my responsibility.
Dominic would destroy it.
The thought came into my mind unbidden, but at once it hardened my resolve.
I would kill it. And perhaps that might undo its works. Might even free my mother and Dominic.
This was the only way we might all be free.
I forced my lungs open. I breathed in water. I sucked it down, filling my mouth, my throat, my airways. I felt my body shutting down, but from a distance. There was little pain. That was a mercy.
I thought of Dominic. He had said he didn’t fear death, because he’d confessed.
God forgive me, I thought, just in case.
My flooded lungs stopped working. Then, not much later, my heart.
The last thing I felt was the terror and fury of the Stone.
I died knowing it died, too.
22
A rhythmic pulse.
The beat of a heart.
Mine.
A mouth on my mouth. Then, a rush of water and the flow of air.
They had brought me back.
I cast about in a blind panic for the Stone’s presence in my mind. I did not feel it.
I was coughing. Then I was sitting upright. Someone had pulled me. But not from within me, from outside.
I looked up, my eyes following my mind’s command, and saw Valentin hovering over me and behind him my father. We were on the deck of a ship, but it was not the Ariadne.
“Is it you, Thea?” my father asked. “Are you yourself?”
I looked down at my clenched fist. I opened it slowly, finger by finger, savoring each one’s instant obedience. Inside was a fistful of wet black ash.
“Is that…?” Valentin asked.
I traced a finger through the ash. I did not quite know what I was feeling for. Some spark of life, perhaps. Some sign of what it had once been. There was none.
I had drowned myself to destroy this thing. Naturally I was relieved to find that I had succeeded.
And yet.
I had also spent my life trying to create it. Before Will, and then after him, every hope for my future had come from the prospect of its success. Until, like Will, it betrayed me.
The heartbreak was familiar, but no less painful for it.
“What happened, Thea?” my father asked.
I didn’t want to tell him.
Valentin stood, his eyes on the black mess in my hand. I was not the only one whose hopes were dashed by the Stone’s destruction.
“It’s clear enough, isn’t it?” Valentin asked. “She destroyed it somehow. What I wish to know is why?”
Valentin stepped back from me. He stared across the water at the swiftly departing Ariadne. His still face twitched. That and a hot gleam in his eyes were the only signs of his anger.
“I saw him,” he said. “Will. You healed him. Is that it? You healed him, so you were finished with the Stone? What about Dominic? What about your mad mother?”
“Dominic,” I said. Fear quickened my pulse. “Did you hurt him?”
“Very little, though it was no thanks to you that we did not kill him.” Valentin’s voice was rising. His eyes flitted from me to the Ariadne. A muscle worked in his jaw. It was killing him to watch Will get away, even with a bullet in his shoulder. “And all for nothing. I should go belowdecks and kill him now. He would be better off.”
“Dominic is here?” I asked. “He is on board?”
I climbed laboriously to my feet without waiting for Valentin’s answer. I tried to run, but my legs failed me. My vision blurred. I would have fallen if not for my father’s arm around me.
“A few moments ago your heart wasn’t beating,” my father said. “You need rest.”
I shook my head, though my body screamed its agreement. “I need to see Dominic,” I said. “You do not understand. He might … he might be…”
But I couldn’t say it. The hope was too fragile to be spoken out loud. Mercifully, my father did not press. He made some silent plea with his eyes to Valentin, who was just interested enough to lead us down the companionway stairs to a cabin much smaller and fouler smelling than mine on the Ariadne. The cabin had no window. The only light was what filtered faintly in behind and above us. I squinted as my eyes adjusted.
Dominic lay on the ground in the corner, completely still. My father and I crossed the cabin in two shaky steps and knelt beside him. He was bound hand and foot, and the strap was still in his mouth. He might have still been mad, but unconscious. Or he might have been dead. It occurred to me then, for the first time, that killing the Stone might
have killed him, too. And if it had killed him, then it had also killed my mother.
Then I had killed my mother.
I hesitated long enough that my father felt for the pulse for me.
“He’s alive,” he said. “I think he’s sleeping.”
Dominic opened his eyes.
Even in the dim light, there was no mistaking the difference. Before, they had been burning coals, wells of fury and hatred toward every object. Now, they were just Dominic’s. Warm brown, bloodshot, intelligent. And at the moment, very confused.
My father untied the strap in Dominic’s mouth first of all, then set about freeing his hands.
“How…?” came Valentin’s voice from behind me.
I sat back on my heels and stared at Dominic. Relief battled the empty ache in my heart. He was free. My mother was free. My great achievement amounted to this—that I had managed to undo the devastation I had inadvertently caused.
“You did it.” Dominic’s voice was hoarse and as raw as an open wound. “You made the Stone. You saved me with it.”
“I made the Stone.” The memory of longing I had felt for it was like a phantom pain in a lost limb. “And then I destroyed it. I saved you from it.”
My father finished untying Dominic’s feet and looked up at me.
“It was taking you,” he said. “I saw it. I looked in your eyes and you weren’t there.”
Valentin heaved a deep sigh of frustration and stalked to the door. Martin stepped into the doorway, blocking his way.
“We should tell the captain to turn around, go north,” Martin said in German.
“The ship carrying William Percy is going to Caen,” said Valentin. “So we go to Caen.”
Martin cast an unfriendly eye on me. “The Graf will want her more than he wants Percy. She made the Stone once, she could do it again.”
I met Valentin’s eyes as he turned them on me and shook my head.
“I can’t do it again, Valentin. I destroyed the Stone itself, the true Stone, not just its corporeal form. It had a kind of shadow existence apart from its body.” I cast about in my mind, trying to make enough sense of what I had experienced when I was one with the Stone to put it into words. “When it fused with me, it was vulnerable. It was afraid I might drown. I thought … if I died, it would die, truly die, forever. It can’t be made anymore. It doesn’t exist anymore.”
“You did not die,” said Valentin.
“Near enough,” said my father.
“Das ist lächerlich,” Martin told Valentin. “She is a liar. The Graf will want you to take her to him. You know this.”
Valentin’s face did not show the conflict I knew must be in his mind. It would be bad enough to go back to his master without the Stone. But to have let the last alchemist go as well, when she had been within his power?
The last alchemist. A sour laugh curdled in my throat at the thought. I was doubly the last alchemist now. I had been chosen to make the Stone, to be taken by it. That was what the Stone had meant by the name. And then I had destroyed it forever. I had made myself the last alchemist in a different way—by preventing anyone from coming after me.
“We go to Caen,” Valentin repeated.
“I will keep her aboard, then,” said Martin. “You find Percy, and return. Then we all go north.”
Fear tightened my chest. I closed my eyes. This was exactly what Valentin ought to do. It was the only way to fulfill his orders. It was the only way to win his prize. And once I was there, would the Graf accept my explanation? What would he do to me when I could not give him what he wanted?
Valentin said nothing.
“Sir,” said Martin. “We will all suffer if you let her go.”
I looked up once more and found Valentin’s eyes on mine. He nodded once. I breathed a deep sigh of relief. He was going to let me go.
“I will tell the Graf you disagreed with my decision, Martin,” said Valentin. “In fact I have no doubt you will tell him yourself. Perhaps he will give you my place when I have gone.”
“Gone?” asked Martin. “What about Ada?”
Valentin’s carefully contained rage slipped free. He seized Martin by the neck of his jacket and shoved him against the wall.
“If you wish to remain aboard this ship until we reach land, you will keep her name out of your vicious mouth.”
Before Martin could do more than gasp with shock, Valentin threw him out the door and followed, shutting it behind him.
I turned back to Dominic and my father. Despite the dramatic scene that had just unfolded before them, they were both staring at me as though they had seen nothing more interesting than my face. After a moment, I looked down. They were too shocked, it seemed, to remember it was rude to stare.
Dominic cleared his throat, a painful sound.
“You need water,” I said. “Food, too, I don’t doubt. I’ll see if I can find anything.”
I stood, but my head spun, and I staggered. My father took my arm and helped me sit again.
“I’ll get it, Thea,” said my father. “You rest, please.”
He left, and Dominic cleared his throat again, then winced.
“We’re not in London anymore, I take it.” His voice was a rough whisper, but despite the circumstances, there was humor in it.
“No,” I said with a small smile. “We’re going to France.”
“I gathered that much,” said Dominic. “And … how long has it been?”
I swallowed. I didn’t want to tell him how long it had taken me, how long I had failed him and left him in torment. “A few weeks. I am sorry it took me so long.”
“So long,” he echoed. “Yes, it felt so long. Years. Ages.”
I knew what the look on his face meant. I knew that terror.
“It’s over,” I said. “You’re free.”
“We both are,” said Dominic.
I couldn’t argue. I had been a prisoner first in my mind and then in my body. I wasn’t any longer, and yet I did not feel free. All I felt was the ache of loss, and the gray bleakness of the future. But perhaps it was common for freed prisoners to feel this way.
“Thank you, Thea,” said Dominic. “You’ve been a good friend to me.”
“Not as good as you were to me,” I replied, and meant it.
He shook his head and smiled. It was a comfort to sit next to a good and selfless man who was entirely convinced that I was just like him, so I let him go on smiling and believing in me.
Someday I might have to tell him everything I did wrong. But not now. Less than an hour ago I had been dead and Dominic even worse. We deserved this moment, when loyalties were pure and rewarded, and debts were paid. We had saved each other, and we were friends.
23
We disembarked in Caen. I said goodbye to Valentin. I thanked him.
Perhaps it was strange to thank him. He’d been my captor. He had forced me to risk my mind, intending to steal the product of my labor. He had tortured Will.
All that must have been on his mind when he stared at me in surprise.
“You are welcome,” he said, then frowned as though he had said the wrong thing.
“Why—” I was almost afraid to ask, lest he change his mind. “Why are you letting me go?”
I didn’t ask about the price he would pay for it, but we both knew what it was. The pain of loss was already etched in the lines of his face. Valentin shifted his weight and looked over his shoulder, back toward the sea.
“Even if you are wrong that the Stone is truly dead,” he said after a moment. “Even if you could make it again … I could not make you do it. Once was too many times. And I am…”
He broke off again, still staring at the sea. He sighed. “I am sorry,” he said. “For ever having done it at all.”
“Oh,” I said. “And … and I’m sorry, too. About Ada.”
He nodded his acceptance, as I nodded mine.
“I wasn’t fair to her, in my mind,” I said. “She’ll never know it. But I still feel I sho
uld apologize to someone for it. To you, I suppose.”
The ghost of a smile flitted across Valentin’s face. “She would like you,” he said. “The two of you aren’t as different as you think.”
I smiled back at him and didn’t argue. I found, to my surprise, that I believed him.
We left each other that way. Both quieted from the shock of finding friendly feelings under the skin of enemies.
My father hired a carriage to Honfleur, and I described the Comte’s estate to Dominic. The apple orchards, the pond, the neat little cottages where the farmers lived. I talked too fast. He noticed my fingers drumming against the carriage bench before I did.
“She’ll be fine, Thea,” said Dominic.
He had so mistaken the cause of my anxiety that I didn’t understand him at first.
I glanced at my father, whose long fingers were beating a similar staccato. He stared out the window. His face was tight, but his eyes gleamed with eagerness. I did not like to see that. She was sure to disappoint him.
“Father,” I began carefully, “you understand that the Comte isn’t merely my mother’s patron?”
“Yes, yes,” he murmured. He gave a little jerk of his head, as though shaking off the thought. “But she burns through them quickly, does she not? She could be done with this Comte already.”
That was entirely true, but my father should have seen it was no help to him. He was one of them, and she had been done with him seventeen years ago.
“Father—” I began slowly, but he cut me off.
“Oh, I know, Thea, I know,” he said. “I know I’ll be lucky if I get so much as a smile from her. You forget, I knew her.”
“And that was before she spent two months in madness,” I said. “I doubt it improved her disposition.”
It was a glorious day. The sky was the truest blue, and a light breeze stirred the trees just enough to waft the scent of their blossoms toward us. We turned off the road and up the drive to the chateau. Poplars arched gracefully over our path, and the green roadside was blanketed in flowering astrantia and foxgloves. The chateau was small, as chateaux went, but its facade was a lovely, many-windowed vision of white stone and elegant Norman spires.
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