A hideous noise escaped from my throat. It was a sob, but it might have been vomit from the mortifying sound. I clapped my hands over my mouth and turned aside, shaking, desperately blinking back tears and swallowing down weeping. My father put a hand on my shoulder and said something I could not hear over the noise of my efforts not to fall apart. When I could, I looked at him.
“Thank you, Father,” I said, wiping my eyes. “I’d like to go with you.”
A smile lit his face like daybreak. I nearly burst into tears again at the sight of his happiness. It was more than I had expected him to feel at the prospect of so much time to spend with me.
“Good, good!” he said. He took my arm, and we walked back toward the kitchen. “I was thinking I could give you private chymistry lessons, if you like. It’s not as thrilling as alchemy, of course, but you have such a gift for it, and there is much good work to be done in the field. Or perhaps philology? I know several scholars who would be happy to work with someone of your talents. Alchemy isn’t the only field where you could make a contribution, Thea.”
“Make a contribution,” I said. I liked the sound of that. It was the sort of thing dependable people with good hearts and clear minds did. The sort of thing Dominic would do.
“Oh, I know it doesn’t sound very exciting—not compared to, well…”
“No, I’d like that,” I said.
We walked back toward the kitchen, but very slowly. My father kept glancing at me, as if trying to guess my thoughts from the look on my face. I nearly asked him what he had gathered, so unsure was I of what was occurring in my own heart. It felt pitifully weak, like a newly hatched bird, featherless and blind. So much of what my heart had long loved had been uprooted. The only things left were young and tender. They were fresh green sprouts in newly turned earth, where before there had been weeds.
I could salt the earth, as Mother did. Refuse to tend new loves when the old had failed.
But I would not. They would grow. I would see to it.
“I don’t know how to be a daughter, you know,” I said to my father. “But I would like to learn.”
“We will learn together,” he said.
And I believed him.
Dominic wasn’t in the kitchen. I went to look for him outside and found him sitting in the sunshine by the stream, sinking his fingers into the grass, his eyes closed.
“It’s such relief,” he said. “Like coming back from hell.”
I sat beside him. I turned my face to the sun and closed my eyes as well.
It was a relief, when I let myself feel it. The torments were over. The task was done. Nothing hung over me now, except the rest of my life.
“Your father says the Comte will take me to Austria. Sponsor my medical training.”
“Yes,” I said. “You will have to learn German.”
“Will you come with us?” he asked.
“No.”
He looked at me then. “You’re going with your father.”
“I am taking your advice. You kept telling me to give him a chance.”
Dominic smiled. “I suppose that’s true.”
The stream was fast moving and deep with summer rain, yet clear enough that we could see straight to the bottom. Fish swept past. One jumped through the surface and fell back again with a small splash. The sunlight caught the rippling surface and gleamed like jewels.
It was such a beautiful day.
“I shall write to you,” I said. “And I shall visit.”
“Good,” said Dominic. “Thank you. I hope—”
He broke off, then turned his face toward the sun again. I knew what he hoped. It was what I hoped for him. The sunlight, the babble of the stream, the summer air was full of what we hoped for each other.
“I know,” I said. I thought of my father and the house he would find for us to live in as a family. I thought of the work I would do, and the work Dominic would do across the sea. There had to be a place in the world for someone like Dominic. It was a test of the world, more than a test of him. “So do I.”
Dominic nodded, then stood.
“Take care of my mother, if you can,” he said. “I’ll do what I can for yours.”
I laughed a little at this as I rose to my feet, and so did he.
“I think I have the better end of that bargain,” I said.
“She can’t be all bad.” He shrugged and turned to me. “She raised you.”
And today, with the sun on my face and a new chance at hope in my heart, I could let myself believe even that.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When you’re a practical person whose insubordinate heart gives you a highly impractical dream, it takes a lot of people believing in you to make it happen. I am incredibly lucky to have those people in my life and it’s because of them that A Golden Fury exists. Here are my heartfelt thanks to you all, in no particular order:
To Caleb, thank you for not only supporting me, but also for always assuring me that you wouldn’t have if you weren’t sure my writing was really good. You weren’t nearly so enthusiastic when I wanted to get into sewing, for instance. To Leslie Weinzettel, my first friend and also my first “reader,” thank you for listening to my dumb Tolkien-rip-off stories so avidly when we were kids. Good thing my writing and your taste have improved since then! To Dad, for all the very early writing advice, some of which I don’t ignore! And for the beta
