The room was some sort of servants’ quarters, not as large or prettily decorated as the others in the house that I had seen. Dominic sat on the floor, back against the wall, hands chained to each other through a pipe that stood out from the floorboards. He looked up at me as I came in, and to my surprise, he smiled. I went to him and knelt by his side.
“I don’t know for certain,” he said to me. “But I think the fever broke.”
I felt his forehead with the back of my hand. He wasn’t hot. He wasn’t sweating as he had been before. There was no scent of sulfur on his breath. The heavy weight of my dread lightened. The fever had broken.
“What about your mind? Do you still feel…”
“I feel like myself. I didn’t, last night. There were moments…” He shuddered. “But this morning I woke up myself. I must not have gone far enough into it. Whatever it was. I haven’t heard the voice all morning.”
I sat back and gazed at him with relief.
“Although I admit I still feel a bit like hurting that friend of yours,” he said. “But I don’t think that’s anything to do with the Alchemist’s Curse.”
“Not you, too,” I sighed. “Poor Will certainly has a knack for making enemies.”
“You aren’t going to do it,” said Dominic. His chains clinked against each other as he leaned toward me. “Tell me you’re not going to make the Stone. Whatever they threaten us with. I’m not afraid to die, not now.”
“You don’t mean that,” I said. “Everyone is afraid to die.”
“Maybe I am. But I can face it. I’ve confessed.”
I stared at the manacles on his wrists. They were tight, and I could see red marks where they had rubbed the skin raw. I thought about lying to him. But I waited too long.
“Thea, no!” His clear eyes widened. “Whatever they do to Will or me, or even you, none of it is worse than the curse! It was like … it was like hell, Thea. It was torment. There were other souls there. Like the souls of the damned.”
I stared. “Like hell? But … surely you don’t mean…”
“I mean it, Thea!” he exclaimed. “There were other minds there, other victims. It couldn’t truly have been hell, but it was as bad as I could imagine. I only felt the edge of it, but that’s enough to know I’d face anything else first!”
I jumped to my feet. My heart felt as if it were punching a hole in my chest. I had to get out. I couldn’t listen to more, or my courage would fail.
“He’ll cure me,” I said from the doorway without turning around. “With the Stone. When I’ve made it. You know I don’t really have a choice. They have you, they have Will. They have all the means they need to force me.”
“Don’t do this for me,” cried Dominic to my turned back. “Do you hear me, Thea? I don’t want it. Don’t do this for me!”
“I won’t, then,” I said. “Not for you.”
I shut the door before he could reply. I turned to Valentin, still waiting in the hallway.
“When I have done as your Graf requires, I want you to take Dominic to Germany. He will need to be kept from the attention of the law here. And he will need money for training. He wants to be a medical doctor.”
“You ask a great deal,” said Valentin.
“Not at all,” I said. “I will give your Graf unlimited wealth and immortal life. In return I ask only a few paltry favors.”
And paltry favors they were; my mind, Will’s life, Dominic’s freedom restored. Small things indeed, when set against the value of the Philosopher’s Stone.
Valentin grunted again. He seemed more prone to it this morning than he had yesterday.
“If it is not merely a fantasy, what you promise,” he said.
“If it is, the deal is off.” I was out of patience. “But I tell you, I’ve seen it. It is no fantasy.”
Even now the thought of the deep red mass, hardening into the stone in the ovum, stirred something like lust in me. Despite the cost, a part of me wanted nothing else but to make it, and only hoped that I would not lose my mind before I could see it done.
“You have seen it,” repeated Valentin. “But have you seen it do what you say? Have you seen it turn all metals into gold, heal all ills?”
All I had seen it do was smash against the wall, but I couldn’t dwell on that. It would work. Everything I had ever done pointed to it. The same book promised it that warned of the Alchemist’s Curse. And I had certainly seen the curse. Why would something so dreadful guard the Stone if it wasn’t all that the writings said it was? No, the Philosopher’s Stone was real. It had to be.
I pushed past Valentin, making sure to brush his arm with the fabric of my dress, and went into the library. I gathered my tools, arranged my metals, stoked the fire. I uncovered the White Elixir and found it unharmed.
It was time to get to work.
I kept my mind on the tasks in front of me. Carefully heating the Elixir, preparing the gold tincture and the antimony sulfate. Even with my heart stuttering and my body pulsating with anxiety, I ground and mixed the metals with the steady hand my mother always envied. I knew she envied it because she never mentioned it, neither to praise nor disparage, except indirectly. The thought of her reedy, resonant voice pushed away the image of the mad thing she had become.
Thea. This anger of yours is growing tiresome.
It was my mother’s voice, so vivid I looked over my shoulder to see if she was behind me. She wasn’t.
It is weakness to dwell so on the faults of others. And you cannot afford to be weak, my darling.
I stood and spun around, more for something
