Chantress Alchemy (18 page)

“Did you see his face? White as a flounder. He’ll never survive.”

“Someone’s trying to stop him from making the Philosopher’s Stone, you mark my words.”

“A woman’s trick, poison.”

“God’s vengeance, for aiming so high.”

“No, no. He’s doing God’s work, can’t you see? He’s trying to save the kingdom.”

I looked around, trying to identify who had said what.

A fist closed around my arm.

“Chantress.” Wrexham pulled me close. “You will come with me.”

He marched me to a far alcove, where we were alone.

“You have failed us again.” Wrexham’s face was flushed and angry, and he did not release me. “God’s blood, but you have failed us most miserably. You have not found the crucible. And now you have allowed harm to come to our Chief Alchemist.”

“Not for the world would I have seen him harmed—”

“No? And yet he was. Which makes me wonder, Chantress.” Above his wide cheekbones, his flat eyes narrowed, and he tightened his grip on my arm. “Whose side are you on?”

“The King’s side,” I said as steadily as I could. “Always the King’s.”

“Then prove it,” Wrexham growled. “Find the crucible. Guard the King and his alchemists from harm.” His iron hand was like a vise on my arm, pressing so hard that I feared the bone would break. “Do it, I tell you—or by God, I will deal with you myself, as you deserve.”

Just as I thought my arm would snap, he thrust me away.

“As you deserve,” he repeated. Hand on his dagger, he stalked off.

†    †    †

After he left, I stood very still in the shadowy alcove, fingering my throbbing arm. Fear churned my stomach, and yet I felt fury, too.
How dare he lay hands on me? How dare he make threats?
If I had my powers, I would make him pay. . . .

My arm throbbed again, reminding me that such vengeful thoughts were pure fantasy. The reality was this: I was a seventeen-year-old girl with a sore arm, and few friends, and no magic to speak of.

I could reason, however; I could try to think things through. I sat down on a bench in the deepest recesses of the alcove. What did it mean that Wrexham had dared hurt me like that? Was it merely that he was so used to meting out violence that he thought nothing of it? Or did he know that there was no way for me to get back at him—know it because he had crippled my magic?

Much as I knew him to be my enemy, I wasn’t convinced of that last charge. He had appeared truly enraged that I wasn’t helping the King. If he had known I had no magic to offer, he wouldn’t have acted that way. Unless, of course, he was playing a much more devious game than I would have thought possible. . . .

But perhaps Wrexham was quite good at deception. He would have to be if Gabriel’s suspicions were right, and he was secretly aiming at the throne.

How was I to protect myself against such a man?

Oh, if only my magic would come back!

As if by a miracle, silvery notes cascaded around me, the clearest music I’d heard in days. Magic? I shot up from the bench.

Even before the notes broke up, however, I realized the truth: it was only a flute player out in the anteroom—probably here to provide music for the banquet. I sank back onto the bench.

Such a stupid mistake to have made. How could I have thought, even for a moment, that a flute was magic? How could my ear have failed me so? How could I have lost so much in a matter of days?

Magic, where are you? I need you!

“Lucy, are you all right?” Sybil advanced on me, looking worried. “I waited outside for you, but you didn’t come. Someone said Wrexham was with you—”

“He was, but that’s done.”
Until he chooses to come after me
. “Thank you for looking for me.”

“Of course,” she said simply. “I was worried.” She lowered her voice. “He’s a vicious man, Lucy. He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

The concern in her face decided me. It was time to set aside the small doubts that still niggled at me—time to trust her and ask for her help.

“Sybil?”

“Yes?” She looked at me, still worried.

“That other magic you talked about,” I whispered. “Can we try it?”

Midnight, Sybil said. I was to meet her at midnight, in a small chamber not far from my rooms, where I could attempt the new magic without being disturbed.

Now, having waited for what felt like forever for Margery to fall asleep, I was here in the appointed chamber, with only a single candle to illuminate the gloom. By the frail light of its wick, I watched the glimmering face of the golden clock on the mantel.

Ten past midnight—and Sybil was nowhere to be seen. I pulled my nightgown tighter around me, wishing I had more than my thin shift underneath it. I had been waiting here in the cold and dark for twenty minutes. Should I give up and go back to bed?

The door creaked open. Another candle gleamed in the gap, with Sybil’s bright eyes above it. Spying me, she slipped in. Dressed in a nightgown far more elaborate than mine, she pushed the door shut.

“Oh my dear! I’m sorry I took so long. I gave Aunt Goring a bromide in her tea—”

“You put
what
in her tea?”

“A bromide,” Sybil said calmly, “to make her sleep. I’ve done it before, especially after any great excitement or distress. And having a poisoner in our midst has certainly distressed her.”

It distressed me, too, even though it seemed likely now that Sir Isaac would survive. Before I’d gone to bed, I’d heard that the Royal Physician’s purgatives had proved effective. Sir Isaac was too weak to leave his bed, or even to sit up in it, but he was holding his own. He’d fallen into what everyone hoped would be a healing sleep.

Sybil was still talking about her aunt. “She was having hysterics until the bromide took effect, and then she nodded off quite easily. But Joan was another story entirely. She wanted to stay up half the night sewing. I finally had to send her to bed, then wait till she slept.”

“I had to wait a long time for Margery, too.”

“Yes, she has sharp eyes and ears, that girl. Joan does too, more’s the pity. I was so afraid I’d wake her, especially carrying all this.” She hefted a pillowcase onto the table. “I wrapped everything in a spare petticoat to muffle the sound, but it’s an awkward bundle.”

The pillowcase fell on its side, and I heard a soft clank.

I reached out for it. “What’s in there?”

With a crooked smile, she waved me away. “That’s my secret.” When I didn’t withdraw my hand, she frowned and pulled the case toward her. “Seriously, Lucy, you shouldn’t look. It will only
ruin your concentration. One kind of magic at a time, that’s all you should be thinking about.”

What she said about concentration made some sort of sense, but I didn’t like secrets at the best of times, and I liked them even less in a strange room at midnight, coming from someone I still wasn’t absolutely certain I should be trusting. “You’re not going to have me reading the stars or calling up spirits, are you? All I want to do is find the crucible.” Well, perhaps not
all
. But locating the crucible would go a long way toward improving matters.

“We’ll only do magic for finding things, I promise.” I must have looked doubtful, because Sybil leaned forward earnestly. “Cross my heart, Lucy.
Three
times.”

That childhood vow again—and she sounded sincere. “All right, then. What do we start with?”

“This.” From the linen case, Sybil drew out a crystal pendant on a cord.

I set my candle down and took it from her. “What is it?”

“A dowsing pendulum. It’s used to find water, especially, but if you have the gift, you can use it to find almost anything. I’ve already buried it in earth and passed it through flame, so it’s ready for you to use.”

I threaded the cord through my fingers.

“No, not like that.” She looped the cord so that I grasped it between my thumb and forefinger. “Don’t grip it so tightly. You need a little looseness there, so you can feel the vibrations.”

“The vibrations?”

“Well, some say it’s more of a pull, really. You walk about, concentrating on the object you want to find, and as you get close to it, the pendulum twitches in your hand. When you’re very close, the pendulum might even dive straight down. I saw it do that once in France, in the hands of a man dowsing for water. It turned out he was standing over an underground river.”

I circled the small, dim chamber, trying not to stumble against any furniture. The table was easy to see, but there were cane-backed chairs, too, and an elaborate high cabinet at the end of the room. “I don’t feel anything.”

“Are you thinking about the crucible?”

“As hard as I can. But I still don’t feel anything.”

“Perhaps that just means the crucible isn’t anywhere near us,” Sybil said. “If you were closer to it, the pendulum might work.”

I let my hand fall. “I can’t walk all over the palace like this, Sybil. Not in the dark. And not by daylight, either.”

“No, I suppose not. Well, never mind.” She took the pendulum from me and rummaged in the case again. “I have other kinds of magic we can try.”

“Such as?”

She frowned. “I’d try a dowsing rod if I had one, but I don’t. And there are cards, but I’ve never heard of a Chantress being good at reading those. Anyway, they’re not the best way to find things. Palm-reading isn’t likely to help us find the crucible, either. I did bring something else, though.” From the case, she pulled out a luminous glass sphere no bigger than a cooking apple. “Here, take this.”

I cupped it in my hands. It was beautiful, but what made it magic? “What does it do?”

“You can scry with it,” Sybil said.

“Scry?”

“It means
see
. It’s for seeing the future, or the past, or another place entirely. Some people can even use it to spy on others—”

Spying by proxy? It was an intriguing idea.

“And, of course, you can also use it to find things,” Sybil went on. “You look into the crystal, and you ask it to show you what you seek. And the glass will reveal where it is. If you have the gift, that is.”

“Let’s hope I do.” I rolled the ball from my left hand to my right. “How do I start?”

She pulled a chair out from the table. “Sit down first. You can keep it steadier that way.”

Once we were both seated, she adjusted my hands so that they loosely cupped the bottom of the sphere, then tilted them toward the candle. “It shouldn’t be too bright, but you want to have enough light to see by,” she explained.

Cool against my fingers, the ball glowed in the flickering light.

“Now look past its surface and into its depths,” Sybil said. “Look into the heart of it. And when you have gone as deep as you can, then ask, ‘Where is the crucible?’ ”

I fixed my eyes on the crystal. Deep inside it, I could see tiny flecks of light. As I stared at them, bright constellations jumped out at me. A single bright spot like the North Star, a glowing cluster like the Pleiades. The lights multiplied, until it was like
looking out into the heavens, with stars upon stars upon stars, as far as one could see.

“Now ask,” Sybil prompted.

Her voice jarred me. What was it I was supposed to ask? Oh yes . . .

“Where is the crucible?” My voice echoed in the dark night sky of the ball.

“Now relax and clear your mind of everything,” Sybil whispered. “Gaze into the ball, and breathe, and visions may come to you.”

Clear your mind. Breathe. Wait for what may come.
A familiar litany, for this was how one listened for song-spells. It felt odd to approach scrying the same way, yet it was comforting, too—as if I were merely translating what I already knew into some other language.

I let myself fall deeper into the glass, just as I would let myself fall into a song, and something shimmered inside the ball. For a bare instant it blossomed: a red-gold circle against a night-black sky.

My fingers tightened, and the ball shook in my hand. The vision vanished.

“Oh,” I said in disappointment.

“What is it?” Sybil’s excitement was plain to see. “What did you see?”

I described the red circle.

“The rim of the crucible,” Sybil said. “Surely that’s what it was.”

“Perhaps,” I said doubtfully.

“Do it again,” Sybil urged. “You might see more this time.”

Try as I might, however, the magic wouldn’t work for me again. My eyes kept tracing the surface of the glass and the curving flame reflected in it. I couldn’t see the stars at all.

“Still,
something
happened,” Sybil said, taking the ball from me. “That’s a good sign. You have some kind of ability here; it’s just a matter of drawing it out.”

“Draw it out how?” I glanced at the lumpy case. “Do you have another ball?”

“No, but I have something that might serve you just as well. Perhaps even better.” Rising from her chair, she put the ball back in the case and drew out a shallow copper bowl. “Not everyone scries with a ball. Some find that mirrors work better—and some use water.”

Water.
Hope flared inside me. The element I best understood. The magic that came most easily to me.

But that was Chantress magic, I reminded myself. Scrying magic—that was something else altogether. Water might not make any difference there.

Sybil handed me the bowl and plunged her hand back into the case again.

“Now, where . . . ah yes, there it is.” Looking quite pleased with herself, she pulled out a glass vessel.

I looked askance at it. “A perfume bottle?”

“Not anymore,” Sybil said, “I finished the last of it the other day, and I dunked the bottle into my handbasin when Joan wasn’t looking.”

When Sybil poured the water into the bowl, the faint scent of lilies splashed out too. “Oh dear. I thought it would be more.”

The water only just covered the bottom of the bowl. “Does it matter?” I asked.

“Perhaps not,” Sybil said after a moment. “There’s still something to catch the light, and something for you to gaze at. Give it a try, won’t you?”

She slid the bowl across the glossy table toward me. “It’s just like the ball, you see,” she said. “You look, and then you ask, and then you wait for the answer.”