The Alchemist's Illusion

by Gigi Pandian

  A gasp escaped my lips. His wings beat again. My short hair blew upward in the wind. The wings beat faster. Dorian rose higher and disappeared over the fence.

  I ran to the fence and searched for a place where I could see through the wooden slats. A few yards away I found a piece of rain-warped wood that allowed us to peek inside the estate. It wasn’t a perfect view, but it shielded us from sight as well.

  In the space between the slats, I saw Dorian standing on the ground, his wings tucked onto his back and the hooded gray cape covering his body. He scampered away and disappeared from sight.

  “It’ll be all right,” Tobias whispered. “The little guy’s got it covered.”

  “I know he comes across like he can do anything, but his ego—”

  “Is probably justified in this case. The son of the father of modern magic? Damn, Zoe. If Dorian can’t make himself invisible and pick an intricate lock, nobody can.”

  In spite of Tobias’s words, as the minutes stretched on he grew nervous as well. We paced along the fence, taking turns at the opening where we could see inside.

  “This is taking too long,” I said. I sat on the soft dirt, but jumped up as something came crashing through trees beyond the fence. The sound of branches snapping filled the air.

  Tobias was the one looking through the slats. He swore, then pulled me to the spot in his place. I saw a half-running, half-flying blur of gray bobbing up and down, coming closer to the fence.

  “He can’t balance with the painting,” I said. Because Dorian was so new to flying, I doubted he’d ever practiced while holding anything.

  The gargoyle took flight, the bag with the painting gripped tightly in his outstretched arms. The air whoomped as he beat his wings more frenetically than he had earlier.

  Whoomp.

  “I can’t watch,” I whispered, backing away.

  Whoomp.

  “He can do it,” Tobias said, taking my place. “He’s a smart little guy. I’m sure he’ll—”

  I jumped as Dorian crashed into the fence. Tobias stumbled backward.

  “Are you all right?” I called out.

  A string of French curses rang out from the other side of the fence.

  “It’s too high,” Tobias said, jumping in an attempt to reach the top of the fence.

  “Give me a boost,” I said.

  “Even if you can reach the top and get over, you’ll never get back out. Especially with your ankle.”

  “We can’t leave him in there,” I hissed.

  “We’ll find another—”

  “Will you two please stop arguing so we may go home?”

  Tobias and I whipped around.

  Dorian stood before us, on the outside of the fence. He clutched the bag containing the painting. His left wing hung at an unnatural angle.

  “It is done,” he said, wincing in pain. “I have obtained the painting. I have done my part to rescue Nicolas.” He handed the bag to me. “The rest is up to you.” He faltered.

  “Your wing,” I said. “Are you all right?”

  “Bien. Je vais très bien … ”

  He proceeded to fall to the ground, unconscious.

  forty-six

  I hoped the neighbors were asleep as we supported a limping gargoyle and carried a centuries-old painting into the house in the middle of the night. We draped sheets over both, but I can imagine what we must have looked like.

  We were unable to safely carry Dorian up the steep stairs leading to the attic, and Tobias insisted that he not climb the precarious stairs on his own until he was examined.

  “You do not wish me to be in comfort in my attic?” Dorian sniffed.

  “Soon,” Tobias promised. “Let me check out this wing first.”

  Instead of folding into a natural arc, Dorian’s left wing hung at two jagged angles, like a ragged bolt of lightning. We made him as comfortable as possible in the living room.

  “Can you move the wing?” Tobias asked.

  Dorian’s right wing extended fully and knocked a detective novel off the coffee table. The motion was powerful, and the hefty hardback book skidded across the floor. His left wing didn’t leave his side. Dorian’s black eyes blinked in horror.

  “It’s okay.” Tobias’s deep voice was calm and soothing. “We’ll get you fixed right up. You’ll be good as new in no time at all.”

  Dorian’s nostrils flared and he clenched his gray teeth. “Why, then, does it feel as if a poker of molten lead were being poured over my wing?”

  “Let me go get some supplies with Zoe,” Tobias said. “We’ll be right back.”

  “Is that true he’ll be fine?” I whispered as we hurried down the stairs to the basement.

  “I can set a bone. But a gargoyle wing? I doubt there’s an anatomy book for that.”

  “But he’s stable?”

  “I think so.”

  “You think so?”

  “See above: gargoyle.”

  “We can’t very well take him to a hospital.”

  Tobias ran his hand across his face and looked up at the ceiling. “You should go examine the painting. I’ll attend to Dorian.”

  “I can help you with Dorian. The painting is safe. You—”

  “It’s not for my benefit, Zoe. Why do you think doctors make loved ones leave the room before they get to work? You care too much for the little guy. I’m going to cause him more pain to help him.”

  I nodded, but reluctantly. “I can give you a relaxing tincture and a salve for aches. That’ll help him get more comfortable once you’re done.”

  “Show me where the wine is too.”

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “I’m about to set the badly broken wing of a petulant gargoyle. The wine is for me.”

  After helping Tobias gather supplies, I removed the painting from the bag and carried it to my basement alchemy lab—but immediately thought better of it. I needed to study the old canvas as I would approach any alchemical problem, which first meant taking it to a space that wasn’t infused with my own alchemy.

  I carried the painting to the attic and rested the canvas against a wooden shelf as I tore down the web of conspiracy theorist papers that plastered the attic walls. Once that was done, I looked over the warm colors that had been lovingly painted into the portrait of Nicolas, the details in the glass bottles behind him, and the anamorphosis perspective that made the walking stick say Alchemia when viewed from the proper angle.

  Alchemical transformations can be shifted back and forth through stages—beginning with calcination, the process of heating a substance until it turns to ashes, and ending with coagulation, in which an element that has been reduced to its core is again reconstituted into a solid substance. It’s the same process as turning pigments into paint. When Perenelle created her paints, she must have infused her particular energy into the colors she used to paint this image.

  What separates true alchemy from modern chemistry is how alchemy requires a connection between the person performing the experiments and the materials they’re using—and, of course, intent. In addition to the pure paints Perenelle had created for this masterpiece, she would have had to put her heart and soul into her efforts as she used the rough brush that transformed color into life. How could I undo the alchemy Perenelle had infused into the painting?

  I thought about the medicines I’d sold in my apothecary shop, back when artists purchased chunks of earth and powders to create paints, before they forgot their roots and became dependent on colormen. When artists stepped into my shop, they weren’t looking to find a color on my shelf. Instead, they anticipated the painstaking process of following a recipe that would turn an element found deep under the earth into a brilliant cobalt to capture the sky, or transform dull lead into a bright white that showed the sparkle in a person’s eye.

  I drew closer
to the painting and lifted my hands within inches of the canvas.

  A burst of lightning lit up the sky above us, causing a bright explosion of light to shine through the skylight. The skin on my hands looked nearly translucent in the blinding light, but the painting thrived. Though it didn’t physically move, the pigments came alive, their colors intensified.

  A reflection in Nicolas’s eye caught my attention … I looked closer. It wasn’t just an illusion from the lightning. A reflection had been painted into his eye—a mirror image of the artist. Perenelle.

  Perenelle Flamel was trapped inside the painting with her beloved Nicolas.

  Perenelle saw me too. I was sure of it. And it gave me the true purity of intent I needed.

  I took a deep breath and reached forward. My fingertips brushed against the rough surface. I didn’t hesitate. My hand tingled like a thousand mini lighting bolts as my fingers pierced the surface of the canvas. Instead of breaking the flax fibers, my hand disappeared from view. This was really happening. I didn’t think my heart had ever beat so furiously. I felt it pulsing through every inch of me, down to my fingers that were now inside the world of the painting.

  A hand gripped mine. A scent overwhelmed my senses. Spicy frankincense, metallic mercury, and sweet honey.

  Nicolas.

  I pulled with all my might, cajoling the painting to give up her inhabitants. It felt like I was lifting the weight of someone who’d fallen into quicksand.

  I held my locket for a moment, then pressed my other hand into the painting. A second hand gripped my arm. My balance shifted. I felt it a moment too late. I was falling into the painting.

  I slipped on the hardwood attic floor and fell closer. My heart thudded. My ears rang. My feet cramped as I struggled to grip the floor. What would it be like to live in the world of the painting?

  I fell further. My head banged into the frame. I cried out more in astonishment than pain. My arms were still inside the painting, now well past my elbows. The colors of the painting swirled and shifted before my eyes. I heaved with as much strength as my body allowed. The muscles in my arms quivered. My rubber-soled boots screeched as they slid on the hardwood floor.

  The hands that gripped mine from inside the painting were warm. Living. The fingers that grasped my right hand were large and calloused. The hand that clutched my left was stronger than its small size would suggest. They both clung to me as if I were a lifeboat. I could feel that they didn’t mean to pull me into the painting, yet I knew I was losing.

  My muscles gave out. I slipped further into the rich sunset colors.

  Two of them. Two against my one. We were out of balance.

  “Tobias!” I called out.

  Alchemy isn’t magic. It doesn’t create something out of nothing. Its transformation requires equal parts of matter. My solo intent hadn’t been enough to transform two people. I needed another alchemist.

  “Tobias!”

  I was too far inside the painting to turn around when I heard the sound of the floor creaking behind me, but I knew the sound of his footsteps.

  Wordlessly, Tobias wrapped his arm around my waist and tugged. I fell backward—along with two people I hadn’t seen in centuries. Nicolas and Perenelle. And a pool of blood that was quickly spreading across the attic floor.

  forty-seven

  1597, Bohemia

  Edward Kelley’s recovery was slow and painful. But the gold Perenelle had smuggled to him in her painting had served its purpose, allowing him to bribe his way out of prison to recover with his family.

  His servant wasn’t so lucky. He insisted on telling stories of his ordeal at taverns. Edward couldn’t have that. He convinced the sniveling man, who already knew alchemy was real, that to know the true immortality of alchemy all he had to do was swallow the paints Edward provided him. The stupid man was dead within an hour.

  The man was taken care of, but Edward had no money and no prospects. Except one. He was more intelligent than anyone he’d ever met, so he’d learned enough from Perenelle Flamel to find the Elixir of Life.

  But at what cost? He had never been able to transform lead into gold in more than minute increments. He had never been able to paint gold into a painting. And as the years and decades passed, he lived on while his family died. It was watching his young daughter grow old and perish that transformed his curiosity into rage.

  All he had was his intelligence and his charm. It was enough to get by, but over the years, he grew more and more bitter. He knew what he would do if he ever found the Flamels.

  1700s, France

  Many years passed, yet Edward Kelley’s anger did not abate.

  He caught up with them on the first day of winter. The darkest day of the year; how fitting! The coincidence gave him hope that his vengeance would be realized at last.

  Edward had followed the directions of a bookseller and found Nicolas in the pub of a small town in southern France. The alchemist had never been painted, nor had Edward ever met him, but Edward knew immediately who he was looking at in the smoky room. Although the man at the bar looked to be in his forties, there was an aura of old age surrounding him, with his wild hair and crystal blue eyes. Or perhaps Edward was simply being fanciful. It was possible the bookseller had simply given him a good description.

  The alchemist appeared cautious when the stranger approached, but Edward’s charm won him over. Nicolas didn’t notice when Edward slipped a powdery substance into his beer.

  “Edward Kelley, is it not?” Nicolas asked as he woke up in the barn Edward had taken him to. The snowstorm raged outside, and wisps of wind pushed their way into the barn.

  “I’m impressed,” Edward said. He didn’t like how the alchemist was studying him like a specimen with his crystal-blue eyes. “Our encounter can be brief. I only need you to tell me where I can find Perenelle.”

  The alchemist refused, even after Edward used his most persuasive techniques. Edward couldn’t contain his anger. He hadn’t meant to hurt the alchemist as much as he did. He’d only wanted to scare him with the knife. But when Nicolas calmly chuckled at the idea of betraying his wife, Edward brought the hilt of an axe down on Nicolas’s head.

  The crunch of bone was only satisfying for a fraction of a second before Edward realized the gravity of what he’d done. Nicolas Flamel crumpled to the floor and lay at an unnatural angel. Edward had seen death, and he knew the alchemist would not be moving again in this mortal life.

  It took half the night and nearly all of his strength to walk the two kilometers to his home. It was only his need to warn Perenelle that kept him alive, he was sure.

  Nicolas stumbled through the door of the house and fell into Perenelle’s arms.

  “The backward alchemists?” Perenelle asked gently as she peeled off his snow-covered clothing and looked for his wounds. “They found us?” Her voice shook, but her healing hands remained strong.

  Nicolas laughed. Blood escaped his lips. “No. They are not clever enough. They never were.”

  “Then who?”

  “Edward Kelley,” he said, feeling himself choking on a sulfurous substance. “He has found you. You must flee while there’s time. He will find the house in the light of day.”

  “I’m not leaving you. I’m helping you.” But when she saw the knife wound and felt the crack on his skull, Perenelle knew Nicolas needed more help than she could give. She wasn’t sure how he was still alive. He needed a doctor. But it was the dead of night with a fierce winter snowstorm. There was no way she could get him help as soon as he needed it. Unless …

  She’d seen how a wilting flower’s ultimate death was suspended when she painted it into a painting with alchemical paint, and she’d once painted a man into a painting. Would Nicolas’s wound hold constant inside a painting while she took the time to escape and travel to summon a doctor?

  She found a painting of an alchemy lab s
he’d been working on. One that she loved, with the dawn rays of the sun showing through the window. It looked like a room where Nicolas would be happy. Perenelle began to paint the love of her life into the foreground.

  “What are you writing?” she asked. “Don’t use your energy.”

  “If I don’t survive, you’ll need help. I want you to find Zoe.”

  “She’s long-dead, Nicolas. She didn’t find the Elixir—”

  “You weren’t watching the experiments she did for Thomas. I believe she did.”

  In spite of her torment, the idea that Zoe might be alive filled Perenelle with joy. “I’ll look for her. I promise.”

  As she painted, the yellow rays of dawn crept through the windows. She had been concentrating so intensely that she hadn’t realized how long it had taken her.

  “I’m ready,” Perenelle whispered, taking Nicolas’s hand. “Once I paint the color into your eyes, you’ll be one with the painting.”

  “I love you more than the heavens above and all the earth below,” he said to her. “Whatever happens. Always.”

  Nicolas disappeared in the same way the guard had—silently yet jarringly, as if the universe had skipped a heartbeat.

  But … this time there was also a crashing bang.

  No, it wasn’t Nicolas entering the realm of the painting that had made the sound. Fists pounded on the door.

  Edward. She was too late.

  Hastily she hid the painting behind the drapes as Edward burst through the door.

  “He’s dead, Perenelle. Just as you took my family from me by withholding your secrets, I have taken yours from you. I want you to know that before you die.”

  She stood to her full height and faced the man whose life she’d saved all those years ago. His once-charming face was contorted with rage. Perenelle didn’t fear for her own life, but she couldn’t leave Nicolas inside the painting with no means of escape.

  Edward gave her the choice of a quick death by stabbing or a slow death by swallowing her toxic pigments. She chose the pigments. That way, there might be time …