The Alchemist's Flame (28 page)

Anything was possible.

“James tells me that my soul is as bright as a necromancer’s.”

Gavin stopped gazing at the Elements who stood quietly watching us, and focused on me once more. His pupils shrank to pinpricks in his red eyes.

“It is,” he agreed. “Why?”

“My blood. He says it’s the sweetest he’s ever tasted.”

“He’s had the necromancer. Nothing can beat that.”

“He says I do.” I held up my arm. “Want a taste?”

“Addie,” Rowan whispered.

Gavin didn’t even glance at him this time, his eyes focused on the beating pulse point in my wrist.

I closed my eyes. I must banish him. In a sense, I must kill him. I couldn’t let myself consider that he had never truly had a chance to be something other than what he was. His own family had entombed him. Necromancers treated him as an object, a tool to be used. His experiences had left him an insane monster. He couldn’t be redeemed. I must harden my heart.

Gavin seized my arm and brought it to his mouth so quickly I almost lost focus. His sharp teeth bit into my wrist, biting deep. He covered the wound with his mouth and sucked noisily.

I pictured my life force, my Quintessence. It burned within me, igniting my blood. Gavin drew that life within himself, the true magic of the mortal world. The flame of life burned away the bonds of death.

Gavin snarled and jerked my wrist from his mouth. I opened my eyes, and he pulled his bloody lips back from his equally bloody teeth.

“Alchemist bitch,” he whispered. “Did you think you could make me mortal?”

He slammed his other hand into my stomach, claws first.

I screamed. It was more than physical pain. Something tore away inside me. Deep, deep inside me. My soul?

Gavin fisted his hand, then he started to pull. “You cannot defeat death.”

I had failed. Donovan was wrong. I couldn’t wield the fifth essence without a lab.

The moment seemed to freeze in time. I was aware of all of it: the physical pain, the loss of things left undone. I stared up into Gavin’s insane eyes, my mind still trying to formulate a way to salvage it all.

Suddenly, it seemed I was staring into the sun. For an instant, I thought it might be the next life, then I realized the blue-white light was Gavin burning. His claws vanished from my stomach, but the fire didn’t burn me. In the next breath, he was gone.

I stumbled back, my hands going to my stomach. They came away slicked in blood. The world darkened around the edges.

“Addie!” Rowan stepped into view. His hands came to rest on my shoulders, his eyes on full glow. “Oh God,” he whispered.

The world swung around me as he lifted me from my feet.

“You ashed him,” I said, understanding now. “How?”

“Shh. We’ll figure it out later.” He carried me somewhere, but I lost all sense of direction. It was darker, wherever it was. Someone should turn on some lights.

“There’s so much blood.” Era sounded panicked.

I struggled to focus. Who was hurt?

“Cora, help her!” Rowan sounded just as alarmed.

“Lay her flat.” Ian’s voice joined the confusion.

“Ian,” I breathed. Thanks goodness he was here. “Liches.” He could stop Megan…and Colby. Not Gavin, though. We had to make more of my necromancy solvent. “Need you to—” Pain laced my middle, and I lost the little focus I had found.

“…artery. Here.” Ian’s tone was brisk, authoritative. “Do it now. She’s bleeding out.”

Cold fingers probed my stomach, then went deeper. I tried to scream again.

Chapter
28

“A
ddie.”

I blinked, then focused on James’s glowing green eyes. It was about time he got here—but I didn’t say that. I didn’t want to make him feel bad.

“Don’t go,” he said.

I smiled. Where would I go?

He looked down, and I followed his gaze.

Whoa. A wave of vertigo washed over me, and I discovered that I was a lot higher off the floor than I expected. I recognized the banquet room that overlooked the pool, except I must be on a balcony, because the room was spread out below me. The Elements were gathered around something on the floor. Ian and Elysia were there, too, bending over…a body.

I moved closer to see what they were doing. What the hell? The body was me.

“It’s still leaking,” Ian said. He leaned over me, blocking my view. Oddly, Rowan sat at his elbow, holding my head in his lap.

“Hold it there,” Cora snapped from Ian’s other side. “I can’t stop it leaking if you don’t hold still.”

“This isn’t working.” Ian’s words were just as sharp. “Rowan, can you cauterize it?”

Rowan kept his head bowed and remained silent.

“Let him focus,” Cora said. “And he doesn’t cauterize, he vaporizes.”

“Elysia.”

“I can’t,” Elysia whispered. She sat shoulder to shoulder with Era, who was holding my hand.

Ian leaned back, and I saw what he was doing. His hands were literally inside me, holding something together. Blood coated his hands and forearms, yet it didn’t bother me. None of this seemed to matter. It was like I was watching it happen to someone else.

“You must,” Ian said.

“No, she’s going to make it.” Elysia looked up. “Right, James?”

“She’s still here,” he answered.

“She’s here, but not
here
.” Ian dipped his head toward the body between them—my body. “It’s on the edge of perception, but I feel it. You feel it, too.”

Elysia bowed her head, her shoulders shaking.

“Your blood, Elysia.”

“Wait,” James said. “Her blood.” He spoke to them, but his eyes remained locked with mine. “You can heal with your blood, Elysia.”

“I can
heal
the dead.”

“That could work.” Something other than anger now colored Ian’s tone, but I didn’t care to puzzle out what it was. “Tether her, begin the binding and at that moment, heal her.”

I glanced down. Elysia was staring at Ian in wide-eyed horror. “So I let her die, then heal her? What does that accomplish?”

“There’s a space of time when a soul can come back.”

“I’ve read about that happening,” Era spoke up. “They’re called near-death experiences.”

Elysia didn’t look convinced.

Era gripped her shoulder. “Come on. You have to try. Addie wouldn’t give up.”

“And I’m here to help you,” Ian said.

Elysia rubbed a hand over her face. “Okay.” She held up her hand to James. “Cut me?”

“Left ring finger,” Ian said.

“Isn’t that a superstition?” She flinched as James raked a claw across the pad of her finger.

“It’s all in what you believe.”

Something about that sounded familiar, but again, I couldn’t summon the interest to figure it out.

“Tether her,” Ian said. “Begin the binding.”

Elysia nodded, then slipped her bleeding finger into the mouth of the body on the floor. “Addie.”

I gasped as an invisible hand grabbed my ankle and pulled me downward. A searing pain shot across my midsection.

“Easy,” Ian said. “Tether. A light touch.”

“Right,” Elysia muttered. “Like that?”

The pain faded and my cares floated away once more. The people below me were like familiar actors in a play. A way to pass the time while I waited for what happened next.

James still watched me, but he didn’t speak.

Warmth touched my back, reminding me of the warm chest that had been pressed against me not so long ago—or was it a lifetime ago? I looked over my shoulder and saw that the sun had risen. No, it wasn’t the sun, it was a wide tunnel bathed in white light. The structure bright and inviting.

A voice called my name, except it wasn’t Addie, or even Amelia. It was—

“Addie! Hey Ad, come back to us.”

I turned back and James smiled at me. There were tears on his cheeks, and even in my carefree state, that concerned me. I longed to wipe them away, and yet the warmth against my back grew stronger. My lingering aches and worries faded in that warm glow. I looked over my shoulder.

“Don’t leave us, Addie,” James said. “What’s so great about the light? I bet they don’t even have decent labs over there.”

A lab? I faced him once more.

“All the mysteries are here, in the mortal plane.”

I drew closer, listening to his words, and the heat on my back faded.

I glanced down at the scene below me. Elysia was now the one with her hands inside the body—no, my body. Her cheeks were damp, but her brow was scrunched in determination.

“Everyone who loves you is here,” James continued, “and everyone you love. Without you, who’s going to stop me from ripping out Ian’s soul?”

I smiled. Ian was barking commands at Elysia who silently obeyed, the pair of them working together to seal a severed artery in my abdomen.

“Without you, who will stop Neil from going after New Magic again?” James asked.

Donovan had moved to my shoulder, his large hands pushing against my sternum with a rhythmic motion. He spoke to Era, encouraging her to keep the air moving in and out of my lungs, then he turned to Cora and nodded. I followed his gaze. She knelt beside Ian, her hands out and palms toward the ceiling. Above them, a thick red liquid swirled in the air. Blood. My blood. I watched it spiral downward, back into my body on the floor.

“Without you,” James whispered to me, “who will save Rowan?”

Beneath me, Rowan was the only one who hadn’t moved. He still held my head in his lap, his head bowed and his body tense as he struggled to control his emotions. I pictured him slumped over in my bathtub, his skin pale and blood running over his lips to his chin. The price he paid when he didn’t maintain control. How close was he to losing control now?

Fear for him washed away my indifference and suddenly, I was falling.

“I lost her,” Elysia said, her voice above me.

“What?” Era cried.

“She lost her grip on the dead,” James said. “Addie’s back where she belongs.”

By sheer force of will, I opened my eyes and looked up into orange irises flickering with golden light.

“Release the Fire,” I whispered, “before you hurt yourself.”

A tear fell from Rowan’s cheek and landed on mine. “Always with the commands.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead.

Relieved that he wasn’t going to burn himself up, I let my eyes close and slid into darkness.

“Can’t I spend a few minutes in the lab?” I looked over James’s shoulder, eyeing my clean, well-organized lab. “Hey, wasn’t that a new—”

“Staying off your feet means no lab work.” James carried me into the back hall and climbed the stairs.

“I could sit on a stool and watch. Maybe take a few notes.”

“You would be on your feet in under two minutes and would become so absorbed that you wouldn’t know you had overdone it until you woke up on the floor.”

“Unlikely.”

“Addie, you promised.”

I sighed, but didn’t answer. He was right—on both counts. I wasn’t certain how long I could remain upright, even on a stool. I didn’t admit it, but the ride home from the hospital had wiped me out. But after eight days confined to a hospital bed, it was great to get out again. They had wanted to keep me one more day, but I had talked them into an early release, promising to take it easy.

James carried me into my living room and stopped a few feet past the threshold.

“Welcome home!” Era and Donovan shouted in unison.

I grinned, taking in the
Welcome Home
banner stretched across the wall behind the kitchen table. Flowers and bunches of balloons seemed to cover every horizontal surface—much as they had in the hospital.

“Set her on the couch, James,” Cora commanded. “Carefully,” she added as he walked over to do as told.

I schooled my features as the shift of position awakened the pain.

“Okay?” James asked me. He no doubt felt my fingers tighten on his shoulders.

“Just sore.” I gave him a reassuring smile.

The glow kindled in his green eyes. I had noticed him doing that frequently over the last week.

“I’m still here,” I whispered.

He held my gaze for one long moment, then kissed my cheek. “Good, because I would hunt you beyond death to bring you back.”

I smiled. It was hazy, but I still remembered those moments in the banquet room when I lay dying and how he had called me back. In a quiet moment not long after I had returned to consciousness in my hospital bed, I had asked him if he had seen the light. He had told me yes and that every time he witnessed a death, it called to him a little stronger. For the first time since I learned that he was dead, I fully understood.

I kissed his cheek in turn and let him rise to his feet.

“I still don’t know why she couldn’t stay at the manor,” Cora said.

“There’s no lab at the manor,” I said.

Cora crossed her arms and gave me a glare.

“She will not set a foot in the lab until the doctor declares her able,” Ian said. He picked up the folded afghan off the end of the couch and draped it across my lap.

“We won’t let her do anything she’s not supposed to,” Elysia added. She set a plate of cookies on the coffee table before me. “Would you like a glass of milk?” she asked me.

“I’m good.”

“You have to try the snicker doodles,” Era said. “They’re amazing. Who knew a necromancer could cook like that?”

“You should try her breakfasts—or her grandmother’s cooking.” I gave Elysia a wink.

She smiled, letting Era’s comment go. The two of them were getting along better, but they weren’t the best of friends, yet.

“I can imagine,” Donovan said, defusing the tension, as always. “I think I’ve had a dozen of her chocolate chip cookies since I got here.”

“I’m glad,” Elysia said. “Otherwise, I have a feeling I’ll be eating them all myself.” She eyed me.

“I’ll help,” I said. “It’s just, the painkillers sap my appetite.” It was more than that, but no one called me on it. Gavin’s claws had made a mess of my digestive system. It had taken a while to get it working again and things still weren’t quite right.

“You need to get better and get off those things,” Elysia said. “Grams wants to come cook for you. I was able to talk her down to a pot of potato soup, but that’s not going to cut it with her.”

“That’s certainly an incentive to get better,” I said.

Footsteps echoed from the stairwell, and even suspecting it was he, my heart still surged in my chest as Rowan stepped through the door.

“Get lost?” Era asked him.

“There was an accident on I-71. It slowed us down.”

“Until he ashed the debris in the roadway,” David said as he and Sebastien followed Rowan into the room. They were flying out today, but apparently, not yet.

Rowan ignored the comment, coming over to join me on the couch. He sat down slowly, careful not to jostle me. “How are you?” He took my hand in his.

“Tired, sore, but otherwise fine. I’m so glad to be home.”

He touched my cheek. “You’re pale.”

“And it was two days before the scabs fell off the scratch on your shoulder.” The wounds Gavin had inflicted on each of us hadn’t been natural. “It’ll take time.”

The others had moved off, engaged in their own conversations or praising Elysia’s cookies.

“Have you eaten anything since those two bites of cereal this morning?” Rowan asked.

“Please don’t nag. I’ll have a protein drink in a little bit.”

He rubbed his thumb along my cheekbone. “You’ve lost so much weight. It worries me.”

“I’ll gain it back.”

His brow wrinkled, orange encircling his pupils as the Fire rode his frustration. “Why did I have to have such a destructive power? I couldn’t help you then, and I can’t help you now.”

“You could kiss me.”

He studied me a moment, then leaned down and kissed me. It wasn’t a chaste kiss, but it wasn’t a long one, either.

“You could hold me,” I said.

He scooted a little closer and eased an arm around my shoulders. I chewed the inside of my jaw and shifted until I leaned comfortably against him.

“See, that helps,” I said. “Being near you always helps.”

“Good, because I had that twin bed removed from your room and put in a double. I’m staying here.”

I had to make an effort not to snort. Snorting hurt. “So, you just tell me that you’re sleeping with me.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch if you prefer.”

“Rowan.” Laughing hurt, too, so I chewed my lip. “I don’t mind sharing my bed. Much the opposite, but you need your rest. You’re pale and down a few pounds, as well.”

“I’ll gain it back.” He kissed my forehead. “I’m staying.”

Maybe I should have let Cora take me to the manor. I might still if he didn’t rest. It wasn’t like Ian was going to let me in the lab, anyway.

“Hello, Addie.” David squatted beside the couch, briefly touching my knee. He and the other Elements had stuck around, even after their shortened summit had ended. None of them had returned home until I was declared out of danger.

“Hey, Ice Man.” I smiled. During one of his visits to my hospital bed, I had slipped up and used the moniker the other Elements used when talking about him. I thought it would anger him. Instead, it became a joke between us. “I hear you two are going home today.”

“At long last,” Sebastien said, sitting on the arm of the couch. “Though I shall miss your company.”

“And I’ll miss that sexy French accent.”

“Ah, mademoiselle. Do not flirt with me in front of the Lord of Flames. It makes me nervous.” He smiled when he spoke, but I had noticed that all the world’s Elements had begun to address Rowan by title more often than not. The Fire Elements took the lead, and he had been senior among them, but this respect was new. When Colby attacked them all in the conference room, Rowan had stopped him and drawn him away from the others. Donovan had once told me that Rowan was a Fire Element like no other. Apparently, he was right.

I offered Sebastien a hand. “Come now, mon ami. You know who really commands the Fire.”

“Indeed.” He gave Rowan a knowing grin, then leaned over and lightly kissed the back of my hand. “Get well, Addie.” His expression sobered. “We are all in your debt.” He released my hand and moved off to bid his farewells to the others.

“My brother is right,” David said. “We owe you our lives.”

“Rowan ultimately vanquished Gavin,” I reminded him.

“But you made it possible, did you not?”

I still didn’t understand how that had worked. “I’m glad no one else had to die.” The world had lost two Elements: Colby and the older Air Element from Brazil he had ashed in the lobby.