Chantress Alchemy (15 page)

“I was . . . showing you . . . what a crucible is good for . . . how an acid won’t damage it,” Gabriel said, hacking and panting.

“That was an acid?” I choked out.

“Aqua fortis,” Gabriel said. “It’s strong stuff.”

“It certainly is.” Catching her breath, Sybil turned on Gabriel again. “It was very wrong of you. Lucy could have been hurt. We
all
could have been hurt—”

“You’re making too much of it,” Gabriel protested. “Why, I’ve done it dozens of times.”

“Dozens?” I said.

“Well, at least half a dozen.” Gabriel backed down. “Though usually with just a snip of copper, and the windows open.”

“They weren’t open today,” Sybil said.

Gabriel peeked through the keyhole into the other room. “The smoke looks to be clearing anyway. In a few minutes we can probably go back in.”

Sybil still looked outraged, but now that we were well away
from that plume of smoke, I found myself growing curious about what I’d just seen. “What is aqua fortis, exactly?” I asked.

Gabriel seized on the question with something like relief. “It’s Latin for ‘strong water,’ and it can dissolve almost any metal except gold. And you can use it to make aqua regia—‘royal water’—which
will
dissolve gold. So it’s tremendously useful stuff.”

“You mean you need it to make the Philosopher’s Stone?” I asked.

“That’s right. Did you see how it changed color when it started to react with the penny?”

“It went green?”

“Yes. And that’s important because—” Gabriel stopped himself. “Well, I suppose there’s no need to go into detail.”

“Not for my sake, anyhow,” Sybil put it. “I already know about the Green Lion, the Black Crow, and the rest of the menagerie.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up. “You surprise me.”

“Good,” Sybil said pleasantly.

“But what do they mean?” I asked. “Alchemists don’t really make animals, do they?”

Gabriel hesitated, but Sybil happily leaped into the gap. “They’re the colors you see as you make the Stone,” she explained. “The first stage is black, the next white, and so forth, until at last you reach the final transformation into the Stone itself, which is the fiery Phoenix.”

Gabriel eyed her warily. “Where did you learn all that?”

“Never you mind. But as to whether the Green Lion is aqua
fortis, or something quite different, I really couldn’t say,” Sybil admitted. “I’ve never actually seen an alchemist make the colors, and I’ve no idea how you’d go about doing it.”

Still looking disconcerted, Gabriel went to the door and opened it a crack. “Look: the smoke’s gone.”

We filed back into the room and circled around the crucible. The worst of the red-brown fumes had cleared away, but a faint, foul haze stained the air.

“Ugh.” Sybil covered her nose.

Gabriel cranked some winches on the wall, and the high windows opened.

Sybil glanced up at the haze. “It’s not going.”

“That’s because there’s no wind.” Gabriel grinned at me. “Maybe you could magic one up for us, Chantress.”

I felt a jolt of alarm. Was he serious?

Best to pretend he wasn’t. “Use magic, when time alone will do the trick?” I said with a smile. “I could never be so wasteful.”

Gabriel’s grin only widened. “Magic is never a waste. Go on. Sing us a song.”

“Oh, please do, Lucy,” Sybil begged, eyes alight. “I haven’t seen anyone work proper Chantress magic since Grandmama died. And heaven knows the air needs clearing.”

They looked at me, all expectation.

I stared back at them in panic. What was I to do? The only music I could hear was a faint whisper from the river, drifting through the open windows—an infuriating blur of cracked notes that faded out and led nowhere. Even if I could tease a song-spell
out of it, where would it lead me? Would it turn my bones to water? Dissolve my body into fumes?

As if she had heard my thoughts, Sybil lowered her eyes and blushed. She looked almost guilty. My skin prickled. What reason had Sybil to feel guilty? Did she know the truth of my situation? Had she, in fact,
caused
it?

Or was I misreading her completely?

A crack like a gunshot went off, and we all jerked around. The outer door had burst open. Sir Isaac stood there glowering, a metal box in his hands. “What are you doing here?” he thundered. “And what in Jove’s name is that smell?”

Under the Chief Alchemist’s furious gaze, Sybil and I froze.

Gabriel visibly deflated. “Er . . . I was merely showing the Chantress the laboratory.”

“Were you indeed?” Sir Isaac’s tone was biting. “A party tour for friends, with a few explosions thrown in gratis?”

Gabriel’s cheeks flushed. “Not exactly, Sir Isaac.”

I appreciated that he wasn’t trying to put the blame on me. But honesty demanded that I own up to my part in this.

“I asked him to help me,” I said to Sir Isaac. “I’m sorry. I thought if I understood more about alchemy, I might be able to help you find the crucible.”

Sir Isaac’s severe face softened just a little. “An honorable intention, Chantress, but we have rules here for a reason.” He contemplated the scorched crucible with disdain. “Lord Gabriel, what is the source of this unseemly mess?”

“I was, er . . . demonstrating how a crucible works.”

Sir Isaac’s dark frown deepened. “You know that is not allowed. We will speak of this later. You will shut the windows before the place freezes and then escort Miss Dashwood upstairs.”

Subdued, Gabriel winched the windows closed and offered Sybil his arm. Looking rather subdued herself, she took it.

“I should go too.” I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to question Sybil or avoid her, but in any case, I needed fresh air. My head ached, and I felt dizzy. The fumes of the place were wearing me down.

“No, Chantress.” Sir Isaac set down the metal box he’d been carrying. “Please remain here. I wish to speak with you.”

Was this good or bad? I wasn’t sure, but I stayed behind as the others went out.

“Chantress, I realize you meant well,” Sir Isaac said. “But if you wish to know more about alchemy, you would do better to speak to me, not Lord Gabriel. Indeed, had I known that you desired such instruction, I would have gladly made myself available. Anything that might help recover the crucible. . . .” He glanced at his pocket watch. “I am free now, if you have any questions?”

A handsome offer, indeed. No one knew more about alchemy than Sir Isaac did, not even Penebrygg. But what should I ask him? What would help me find the crucible? Hard questions to answer at any time, and even harder when I was still worrying about that look on Sybil’s face: Had it been guilt? And if so, over what?

Sir Isaac tapped impatiently on the lid of his metal box.

I forced myself to focus. At the very least, I should double-check
what Gabriel had told me. I pointed to the scorched crucible before me. “The Golden Crucible is about that size?”

“Roughly, yes. I can give you the exact measurements, if you like.” He scribbled them down on a sheet of paper. “There. What else do you want to know?”

“What is it made of?”

“An earthen compound of some sort. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise, but we haven’t dared subject it to experiments. They might ruin it.”

“Flamel didn’t say anything about how it was made?”

Sir Isaac’s long fingers drummed against the table. “Not about its composition, no. But as I believe I mentioned yesterday, he was certain it was fashioned by Hermes Trismegistus, the great originator of alchemy.”

I tried to recall what else he’d told me about the crucible yesterday. “You said you found it in France? Where exactly?”

Sir Isaac’s eyes narrowed. “Does it matter?”

“It might.” This was a shot in the dark; I truly had no idea if it did.

“Well, if you must know, I found it in a graveyard in a small village outside Paris. There was a cipher in Flamel’s papers”—he glanced at the metal box he’d set down earlier—“that revealed its location to me.”

“Are they in there?” I gestured toward the box. “The papers?”

“Er . . . yes. I have to consult them regularly. But Spain and France would give their eyeteeth for them, and so would many others. This keeps them safe from theft and prying.”

“May I see them?”

Sir Isaac thumbed the edge of the case. It had a combination lock, I saw—something Nat had taught me about last year, but that I had rarely seen. “No reason why you shouldn’t, I suppose,” he said reluctantly. “Don’t expect them to make any sense to you, though. Flamel’s cipher is almost impenetrable.”

He opened the box, revealing a battered, black-ribboned stack of papers that stank of must. As he had warned me, they were covered with strange squiggles and symbols, none of which I could decipher.

I turned the pages with a mix of excitement and trepidation, wondering if some kind of music or magic might inhere in them. But if so, it was dead to me. The vellum was stiff and unyielding between my fingers.

I didn’t protest when Sir Isaac took the papers back and closed the box.

“Is there anything else you wish to know?” he asked.

It took me a moment to recollect where we had been in our conversation. “You said you found the crucible in a graveyard?”

“Yes,” Sir Isaac said. “Not in a grave, I hasten to add. But buried under a wall, just as Flamel had indicated.”

“Could someone have seen you remove it? Someone who might have followed you to England?”

“I doubt it,” Sir Isaac said. “I dug it up by dark of night last November. No one else was around, and I saw no one trailing me afterward. And as soon as I reached the King, the crucible went straight into the Treasury.”

“Was it ever taken out again?”

“Never,” Sir Isaac said. “Until it was stolen.”

“And you and the King were the only ones who saw it there?”

“For the most part, yes. A week before it disappeared, I brought my assistants to see it: Dr. Penebrygg, Sir Samuel, and Lord Gabriel. I wanted them to get a feel for its weight and handling. But we left the crucible just as we found it.”

This wasn’t getting me anywhere.

Sir Isaac, too, appeared troubled. “Chantress, if I may say so: these seem very
mundane
questions for you to be asking.”

My heart thumped. Without recourse to magic, I’d been reduced to the plodding details of ordinary investigation. But Sir Isaac was right—that wasn’t the way Chantresses worked. If I didn’t want to give myself away, I would have to change tactics.

“You’d be surprised how often magic hinges on mundane details, Sir Isaac,” I said, trying to sound wise.

His lugubrious face continued to look doubtful.

Think like a Chantress
, I told myself.
If I could still work proper magic, what would I ask?
“I wonder: could I perhaps see the Treasury? If the theft was done by magic, I might perhaps hear something useful there.”

His face lit up. “Of course! If you think it would help, I would be only too happy to accompany you there.”

In remarkably short order, it was arranged: the King’s permission was requested and received, though he regretted he could not meet us there as he had other business to attend to. Thankful for his absence, I proceeded with Sir Isaac to the Treasury.

It was a relief to leave the stale, stinking air of the laboratory. By the time we reached the Treasury door—now guarded by four men, instead of two—my headache was gone. We were immediately admitted into the stronghold, and I was dazzled by the riches I saw there: glittering ingots, chests of jewels, shining candelabras with pearls hung thick as grapes. An entire shelf was given over to a colossal silver bowl almost big enough to bathe in. On another, a long line of gold ewers reflected my own distorted face.

I halted by a coffer studded with emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. Nat was right, I thought: there was more wealth at Court than I had imagined.

Beside me, Sir Isaac stopped too. “What is it, Chantress? Do you hear anything? Sense anything?”

Reminded why we had come, I shut my eyes, half-afraid of what I might hear. The place, however, was silent as a tomb. “No. There’s nothing here.”

“So you don’t think it was done by magic?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said, trying not to commit myself. “Tell me: Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary on the night the crucible was stolen?”

“When I went to inspect the crucible, you mean? Or later, when they told me about the theft, and I came down to see what had happened?”

“Either. Both.”

“No, there was nothing unusual.” He wrinkled his high forehead. “Well, except perhaps for one thing . . .”

“What was that?”

“The smoke in the rooms near the Treasury,” he said. “It had thinned out by the time I arrived, but a haze remained in the air. And it didn’t smell quite like ordinary smoke. Or so I thought.”

“What
did
it smell like?”

“That’s hard for me to say, I’m afraid.” He spoke with a tinge of melancholy. “When I was your age, I could have told you exactly. But I’ve spent so much time in alchemical fumes since then that I no longer have real acuity of smell. I know when something smells foul or fair, but not much more than that. My sense of taste has gone too.” He held out his hands, which shook slightly. “And it seems the fumes have damaged my hands, also. A terrible taskmaster, alchemy.” He let his hands fall. “In any case, all I can tell you is that the smoke that night didn’t smell quite
right
.”

Magic? I wondered. Or something else?

“Vague, I know, but it is the best I can do,” Sir Isaac said. “Does it help?”

Much as I wanted and needed to act like a Chantress, I knew it was dangerous to pretend to know much more than I did. “I’m not sure it does,” I admitted.

Sir Isaac looked directly at me. For a bare instant his cool, rational mask slipped, and I glimpsed the frantic anxiety that lay beneath.

“We are almost out of time,” he said. “The planets align in just over forty-two hours. We must have the crucible back by then. We
must
.”

Even in the worst days under Scargrave, Sir Isaac had not looked like this. But, of course, back then he had been merely
one cog—if a brilliant one—in the Invisible College’s machine of resistance. Now he was Chief Alchemist, in sole charge of rescuing a kingdom from starvation. The responsibility must be crushing.