Valentin stared at his plate with a small frown but said nothing. It seemed that the Graf’s daughter tolerated only so much disagreement, and Valentin had reached his quota. She changed the subject.
“I take it our young magician is much diminished since we saw him last.” My gaze was carefully lowered, but I felt her eyes on me.
“Consumption,” agreed Valentin. “He doesn’t have long. His young lady believes she can save him with alchemy, poor child.”
His pity held an edge of contempt. I felt my anger redden my cheeks.
“Be careful what you say, Valentin,” said Rahel. I looked up at her before I could stop myself, and found her smiling directly at me. “The young lady understands every word.”
I froze, with what I feared was a very foolish expression on my face. Rahel made a short, sharp laugh. The game was clearly up.
“How could you tell?” I asked in German.
“You have no skill at feigning stupidity, my dear,” said Rahel, in her own language.
I raised my chin and tried to will the blush from my cheeks.
“I feigned well enough to fool your captain,” I said with an angry glance at Valentin.
“That is no accomplishment!” cried Rahel with another bark of a laugh. “Men are always willing to believe in the stupidity of women. Though perhaps that is not their fault, when women are so quick to make themselves fools for men. Your mother, for instance.”
Valentin widened his eyes meaningfully at Rahel, the universal expression for Stop talking. She took no notice.
“I know of her, of course,” she said, nodding at my shocked look. “My father’s obsession with magic is impossible to avoid when one lives in the same house. I have learned the most famous names, your mother’s included. That armor of hers was quite useful, I recall. I know that she could be rich in her own right if she chose her patrons on the merits of their offers rather than the merits of their faces.”
“My mother is a scientist,” I said as coldly as I could. “Money is not what she cares for.”
“Perhaps not, though if that is true then it is strange indeed that she pursues the ‘science’ of turning everything into gold.”
I bit my tongue. I did not want to argue the value of alchemy with this woman, and still less did I want to defend my mother to her. I speared the last several pieces of veal in front of me with a force that made an unpleasant scraping noise on the china, and shoved them into my mouth. If I was chewing, I could not talk.
“Nothing is so disappointing to me as an intelligent woman who makes herself stupid for a man,” said Rahel. Her wry, even tone was beginning to falter. A flush rose under her carefully powdered face. I noted, with some surprise, that she was actually upset. “And it seems there is no end to the disappointment. Tell me, my dear, what is it about our young magician that earned your devotion?”
I chewed furiously. My mother, alchemy, Will. This woman seemed determined to probe everything and everyone who occupied a painful place in my heart, and I did not understand why.
“He is good-looking, of course, in that careless way that will not last,” she said. “And perhaps that much is over already?”
I thought of Will’s wasted body, his thin, hollow chest. The shadows under his eyes like purple bruises. He was still handsome, but she was certainly right that it could not last much longer. The meat stuck in my throat. I reached mechanically for the glass of wine in front of me.
“He had confidence, I saw that at once,” said Rahel. “He was used to charming women. He expects us to love him, to do anything for him, no matter how little he deserves it.”
“We must be grateful that Miss Hope feels he is deserving of her help,” said Valentin to Rahel through a very still jaw, “or we would not be able to give Burggraf Ludwig what he desires.”
“That is your concern, not mine,” Rahel snapped. “My father has promised me nothing, whatever he may have offered you.”
There was something strange here, some dynamic at play that I did not understand. Rahel hated Will, that much was clear. And yet somehow I could not believe the easiest explanation, that Will had spurned her.
“If you do not want your father to get the Philosopher’s Stone, then why are we here?” I asked Rahel.
“You have not answered my questions, Miss Hope,” said Rahel. “Why should I answer yours?”
“Will’s family is rich,” I said, seizing desperately at a slight chance. “They have a large estate in the north. If you don’t care about the Stone, send word to them. They would surely pay Will’s debt.”
Rahel shook her head and snorted. She reached for her glass and took a long drink of wine, her eyes never leaving me.
“We have appealed to the Percys,” she said when she had set down her cup. She was calmer now. “They have the measure of their son more than you do, Miss Hope.”
“You mean—” I thought of Will’s forbidding face when I had suggested he go to his parents. “They will do nothing for him?”
“Some debts cannot be paid by anyone but the debtor.”
I frowned at Valentin in mute appeal. There was danger here, danger in this woman’s anger. But I didn’t understand why, and I didn’t see what it might change.
“I am to make the Stone,” I said. “Valentin and I have an agreement. I will make the Stone and give it to Valentin. That will pay Will’s debt.”
Rahel fingered the stem of her wine glass, a smile playing at her lips.
“I have to know that our agreement
