I shook his hand off my arm. I wheeled on him, an angry outburst on my lips. His usually hooded eyes were wide with surprise.
“I’m sorry!” he exclaimed. “I wasn’t trying to— I only meant— You can’t use the Elixir. It isn’t safe.”
“But you’re the one who started it going,” said Will. Dominic made a confused noise, but Will pressed on. “No, don’t deny it. Where did it come from if you didn’t bring it with you? I didn’t have it. The White Elixir was in the brazier working on the lead when I came back from the shop.”
Dominic’s eyes widened farther, and his slumped shoulders drew back, pulling him upright and defensive.
“He didn’t bring it,” I said, an edge of accusation in my voice. “I did. It was in my pocket. You took it from me while I was sleeping.”
“I didn’t!” he said. “I don’t think…”
He reached into his coat pockets and dug around for a moment before pulling out an empty vial. He stared at it, then at the brazier.
“I didn’t,” he repeated, but with less certainty this time. He looked back at me in appeal. “Was it— You didn’t put it there?”
“Of course not. But I’m glad you thought to get it going. Our money troubles are solved, at least.”
“No, no, no, no,” muttered Dominic. He angled past Will and stood between him and the brazier. “We can’t use it. We can’t.”
“Why not? It’s the next part of the process that causes madness. Making the Philosopher’s Stone.” But as soon as I said it, I knew it was wrong.
“No,” said Dominic. “We hadn’t started on the Stone when Bentivoglio attacked you in the alley. And I…”
He put a hand to his forehead, and his head dropped. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.
“Dominic?” I asked. I glanced at Will in alarm. He caught my look, and his fingers tightened on the heavy silver in his hand.
“I don’t remember burning the elixir,” Dominic said without raising his head.
“You’re tired,” I said. “We were up all night. You had a terrible shock.”
“No,” he said. “No, Thea.”
“Then—” I thought as quickly as my sleep-starved mind would work. “Then we’ll keep you away from the work. We’ll stop. We have enough silver for now. Mother and Bentivoglio—neither of them lost control right away.”
“But if I’ve started to do things without knowing it—”
“We will watch you,” I said. “We will keep an eye on you. You might get better without more exposure.”
“He was so strong, Thea,” Dominic said in a low voice. “It wasn’t natural, how strong he was.”
I started toward him on some instinct to offer comfort, but Will took my arm and held me back.
“I can lock you inside the other room,” said Will. Dominic looked up at him with a glimmer of hope.
“If I get worse, I don’t know if the lock will hold,” he said.
“If you get worse we will know, won’t we?” said Will. “Oughtn’t we have some warning?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Professore Bentivoglio wasn’t himself for days before he became violent. You said that, remember?”
Dominic nodded slowly. He glanced behind him at the brazier.
“You won’t make any more? You won’t go further?”
I met Dominic’s earnest gaze. I had not known him long, but I had seen enough of his goodness to know that if the Stone had rejected even him as unworthy, then the standard was too high for me to meet. My last hope that I could finish the Philosopher’s Stone without falling prey to the madness crumbled.
“Thea,” he said. “You’ve seen it. You know what will happen to you.”
I thought of my mother’s empty eyes and her feral scream. I thought of Bentivoglio throwing me into the wall, then lying in a pool of his own blood, his head smashed in.
“I won’t.” The words tasted like poison in my mouth. Like a curse I was putting on myself, almost as bad as the one I sought to avoid. “I know we can’t.”
Dominic nodded and pushed past us, his head down. He went into the side room and shut the door firmly behind him. While Will fished the key out of his chest and locked him in, I took down the brazier from the fire. The steam was a faint mist now, but I tried not to breathe it in all the same. I put the brazier in the corner and covered it with a filthy rag from Will’s alchemy chest. I didn’t want to touch the elixir. I thought, for a moment, of taking it out and throwing it in the trash, but an involuntary spasm of horror at the idea prevented me.
Will and I sat by the fire, sharing a loaf of bread between us. The elixir hovered between us, though I had banished it to the corner. The second time I caught him gazing in its direction, I shook my head.
“We can’t, Will,” I said with as much certainty as I could muster. “You haven’t seen what it does. Death is better than what happened to my mother.”
“I don’t agree,” said Will quietly. “There isn’t a cure for death, but there may be one for your mother.”
I grasped in my mind for some comfort to offer him. But there was none: only the Stone, which had slipped through my fingers. My mother had made it. She had succeeded. If only I had seized it and run.
“If only she hadn’t destroyed it,” I groaned. The memory of the glass ovum shattering where she had thrown it was suddenly as fresh and wrenching as it had been then. Will set down his bread, barely touched, and took my hand. He ran his thumb over mine, staring down at it. Pricks of pleasure ran up my arm, but with the pleasure was some alarm. Will hadn’t touched me like this before, so casually. Some boundary seemed to have
