“If you gave him another chance—” Dominic broke off when he looked up at me.
“I don’t have time to give more chances!” I cried. “I only have this one chance myself, and it’s halfway gone!”
He looked almost confused, as though he wasn’t precisely certain why I was angry. Then the confusion turned to alarm.
“Thea, what are you saying?” Dominic asked. “Have you—has it started?”
I couldn’t stand the fear on his face. I turned away.
“It is time for me to work,” I said to Valentin, who made no move to rise. “Shall I see myself out?”
“You haven’t finished your breakfast,” he said, glancing at my still full plate.
I picked it up—I had eaten enough that there was less danger of sausages rolling off—and marched out the door. Valentin had little choice but to follow.
14
The work went as it always did. There were long, grueling periods of waiting, watching, and coddling the substances, as one would especially temperamental infants. These were punctuated by short, sharp, and sometimes alarming bursts of activity. A fire would flare. Smoke would change color or fill with sparks. And the substance in the brazier would become something else.
It was all very familiar, and it wasn’t. The work was the same, the same grinding, measuring, mixing, and tending. But instead of working out Decknamen, breaking down figures of the planets and approximating quantities, I had my mother’s coded notes imprinted in my mind. There were no mysteries now. I followed a receipt I understood, whose outcome I had seen. Every step went straight toward my goal; everything was clear.
Everything except my own mind.
I knew it from the yellow blur at the edge of my thoughts, and from the way Valentin looked at me at the end of the day, when I spoke to him in garbled sentences that even I could not decode. He did not invite me to dine with Rahel again. He had begun to believe.
That night, I went to bed with the dark figure that was not there crouched beside me. This time, when I hurled a shoe through it, the figure did not vanish. When I screamed at it, only Valentin answered, from outside the door.
“What is it?” he demanded. “Why are you screaming?”
“It’s nothing,” I replied, staring at the dark, crouching form. “Nothing is there. It’s nothing.”
Valentin hesitated, apparently not reassured. Then the key turned in the lock, and he came in. He stood over me, next to the figure.
“You are shaking,” he observed.
I glanced down at my bare arms and noted that he was right.
“Should you be alone?” he asked.
“I’m not.” I shuddered, trying not to look in the corner.
“Miss Hope,” he said. “I am asking if I should stay.”
I looked up at him, not understanding at first.
“Stay?” I asked. “Where would you sleep?”
“On the floor,” said Valentin, gesturing to where the unreal thing huddled.
“No!” I exclaimed, panic sharpening my voice. “Not on the floor!”
“Then…?” He glanced back toward the door, and I found myself desperate that he not go.
“Here.” I patted the bed beside me, between me and the figure. Valentin looked at my hand and frowned. He started to shake his head.
“Please,” I said.
I pushed myself farther to the side under the covers, leaving him as much space as I could. Reluctantly, he sat down, then lay on his back, stiff as his starched blue jacket.
I couldn’t see the figure past Valentin’s sturdy bulk. I exhaled slowly, releasing some of my terror.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
Valentin didn’t respond.
I closed my eyes. Some sleep would help, surely. My mother hadn’t gone mad all at once. She’d had some time to fight it, to keep working. I only needed a few more days.
The memory of my mother’s face, mad eyes and bared teeth, forced my eyes open again. My heart raced.
“Valentin,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m afraid.”
He was quiet a moment. “I know,” he said.
He had not relaxed into the bed one inch, whether from concern over the impropriety, or discomfort with my strange, altered state, or both. He stayed only for my sake.
“Valentin.”
“Yes,” he said again.
“You should find another line of employment,” I said.
He exhaled sharply—a nearly soundless laugh.
“So should you, Miss Hope.”
But I could not agree with that, not even now. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep once more.
I succeeded. When I woke, dawn was breaking and Valentin was gone.
The dark figure wasn’t, but it didn’t move. It was so still, it almost seemed to be sleeping. Or perhaps it was simply waiting.
Still, I felt a little better this morning. Steadier. I went back to work.
The thing followed me into the library and settled itself in the far corner, opposite the German who’d been assigned to watch me work. I did my best not to look at either of them.
After a few hours, it was time to seal the blackened mass into the glass ovum. It was a delicate procedure, and I found to my dismay that my hands were shaking.
My hands never shook. Alchemy was a science of head and hand. Unlike my mother’s, unlike Will’s, my hands had always been as steady as my mind.
I went to the bronzed mirror by the door and peered at my reflection. I touched my face gently, alarmed at the cold trembling of my fingers. My eyes were bloodshot. My face was paler than usual, except for my cheeks and brow, which were a livid pink. I pressed the back of my hand to my forehead and drew it back at once. My face was very hot. In the mirror, the thing in the corner pulsed.
I stepped back. My vision blurred, and when it
