A hole seemed to open in my chest. I could either fall into it, or I could stay back. Keep doubting Will, or trust what he told me. This was dangerous ground. If I refused to believe Will, then what? How could I do what I needed to do? My doubt could kill him, quite literally. I put it aside. I stepped back from the chasm.
“She must have died,” I said. “If she had lived, surely she would have told her father the truth.”
Will’s forehead crinkled quizzically. “The truth?”
“The truth about you,” I said. “That you didn’t seduce her.”
His face cleared. His shoulders sagged with relief that I had decided to believe him.
“I don’t know that she would have,” he said. “I think she may well have lied about me. She wanted to punish me. That much I know.”
I nodded slowly. It made sense. It explained everything. And it fit with what I knew about Will, good and bad. He would have charmed her. Whatever he said, I was certain of that. He would have enjoyed her attention at first, until she began to get in the way of his work. Until she started to make him nervous and threatened his place as the Graf’s alchemist. He was like me. Quick to turn, like mercury. Ada would have been shocked. She would have been hurt. Then furious.
“You shouldn’t have gone to Germany,” I concluded. “That was stupid, Will.”
“It was stupid,” he agreed. “But it wasn’t so easy to find a patron once your mother turned me out and started spreading stories. I considered myself lucky that Graf Ludwig hadn’t heard them yet.”
“Perhaps if he had, he would have kept a closer eye on his daughter.”
Will looked at me. He was still waiting. Waiting for a sign of my forgiveness, my acceptance. I didn’t want to meet his eyes, but the chasm still beckoned. I couldn’t stand on the edge any longer, and I wouldn’t jump.
I took his hand in mine. I traced the long, calloused fingers and the scars from fire and metal. I had the same scars. No one who didn’t have them could understand us, how hard and long and dangerously we worked, with only a slender hope of success. How much trust we had to give to something so uncertain that it would look like madness to anyone not like us.
“We have to be good to each other,” I said.
“Yes,” agreed Will. “If we aren’t, no one else will be.”
He understood. Tears pricked at my eyes.
“When this is over, we’ll go wherever you want,” said Will. “We can give up alchemy if you like. There are other things you could do. With your mind, your abilities. I’ll make all of this up to you, Bee, I swear I will.”
“Where would we go?”
“What about the New World? New Spain, perhaps? Florida? You speak lovely Spanish, and mine is passable. You could improve it on the voyage.”
“The New World,” I repeated. The words conjured up a jumble of fevered images. Steaming jungles mixed confusedly with the names of the battles of the American Revolution, the plantations of the English settlers and the fabled gold of the Aztecs.
“France isn’t the only place for revolution,” said Will. “And alchemy isn’t the only way to pursue it.”
His eyes had begun to kindle again, and I was brought back to our long talks about the philosophers over coffee or champagne. My mother was so impatient with us. She wanted alchemy for its own sake, but Will had always seen more possibilities. After all, wealth was an invention men used to deprive one another, and gold was just the glitter of legitimacy they gave to their theft. The fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody, Will had quoted. Make gold as abundant as lead, and it would be just as valueless. Revolution.
He began to cough again, pulling me back to the present. None of that was to be if he wasn’t. I put my arms around him and laid my head against his heaving chest. His heart, stuttering alarmingly fast, was the only one on earth that truly knew mine. I would not let it stop beating.
Not much later, Valentin knocked. I rose, resolute. Reluctant as I was to leave Will, I had what I came for.
“If he is dead before I can cure him, the deal is off,” I snapped at Valentin. “Put him somewhere warmer. You know how sick he is.”
“And would you also like me to wipe his brow and spoon him hot soup?” Valentin asked.
“Yes, indeed. That is a fine idea.”
Valentin glowered and again forced his mouth shut. I knew the tale he wanted to tell me now, the one he thought would make me turn on Will if I knew, something Valentin both wanted and could not want. We descended the stairs, first the cramped, hidden ones, then the broad, elegantly banistered set.
“Did she live?” I asked, when we stood in front of Ada’s bedroom.
Valentin started, then stared at me in open shock.
“Yes, he told me,” I said. “But he didn’t know if Ada survived her attempt on her own life.”
Valentin’s brow furrowed in deep consternation. “You know,” he said. “And you still defend him?”
I could have told him that his precious Ada was a flirt and a liar, but I did not. Let him think I believed Will a reprobate, and still loved him. Nothing else would still his desire to denounce Will to me.
“Does she live?” I repeated. I sounded calm, though my heart had sped up in fear of the answer.
“She lives,” said Valentin.
“And you love her,” I said. Feeling flickered on his face, and I connected it to something Rahel had said at dinner about his reward. “You love her, and Burggraf Ludwig has promised her to you, hasn’t he, if you bring him the Stone. I suppose he thinks you are an acceptable choice now that her reputation
