A Golden Fury Read online

  Certainly you’re a goddess, he had said. But you intimidate me enough without that particular reminder.

  “Thea. You don’t look like her.” He was staring now, pretense abandoned. “If my memory serves me,” he added, as an unconvincing afterthought.

  People often said that, and it was not a compliment. My mother was everyone’s idea of the perfect beauty. Petite, porcelain blond, and small-featured. I was her opposite: too tall, with wild dark hair, a long nose, and high color.

  “Mother always said I looked like my father.”

  And that had never been a compliment, either, though now that he was before me I didn’t mind it so much. Whatever else he might be, Vellacott was without doubt a handsome man.

  “Your father,” he repeated, and cleared his throat. “Ah. Yes. A Frenchman, I suppose?”

  I shook my head slowly, and his hopeful look died.

  “How—how old are you?”

  “Seventeen.” I looked him straight in the eye. He might be ashamed, but I refused to be. “My birthday is June the tenth, 1775.”

  Vellacott set down his cup very slowly.

  “This is a jest of Meg’s, I think,” he said with forced calm. “She found a dark-haired girl of the right age—”

  My jaw tightened as I swallowed my anger.

  “No,” I said.

  “But she said—she said she lost it—”

  Vellacott went very red, then very white, realizing, perhaps, that he was looking at it. He stood, his chair scraping the bare wood floor loudly, and crossed to the window. He gripped the sill, then turned back to me. He made a striking figure, tall and slim, with a profile well suited to dramatic poses. I assumed he was aware of this.

  “This couldn’t have come at a worse time,” he groaned, and put a hand to his high, pale forehead. “You cannot stay here, Miss Hope. I’m terribly sorry, but it is simply impossible! If anyone knew—”

  I couldn’t look at him anymore. I took a sip of my tea and swallowed resolutely, though my throat was attempting to close.

  “I’m close, very close to winning recognition for the official study of alchemy here,” he said, with a note of pleading now. “I have a contract, you know, with the Royal Navy. To do what your mother did for King Louis! And a very distinguished alchemist recently arrived, one who has his own department of alchemy at the University of Bologna! We are very close to making a discovery that could prove to everyone— We could have a whole department. A department of alchemy at Oxford, Miss Hope, the first in England!”

  I eyed my cup but couldn’t help nodding. I understood the significance perfectly. To most scholars in the academies and societies, we were counterfeiters, charlatans, or fools. Things had only grown worse in recent years, as scholars sought more and more to purge their fields of superstitions and unsupported traditions. Many scientists took the continued existence of alchemy as an offense against their discipline. The support of an institution of Oxford’s significance would be an enormous change—but not for me. I thought of the forbidding walls that I had been so briefly and begrudgingly allowed to enter. It was painfully clear to me that even if alchemy were allowed to make its home there, I would not be.

  “The scandal this would cause! It’s impossible— Your mother ought to know that much! What was she thinking of? Why did she send you?”

  “She did not send me.” My voice was brittle with cold. “And as for what she is thinking, I cannot tell you, for she has gone entirely mad.”

  “Mad?” My father turned to me, his pale face creasing with sudden, genuine concern. “Meg? What you do mean, mad?”

  “Mad,” I repeated. “Mad as mad can be. Violent. Her reason has deserted her. She doesn’t know herself, or anyone else.”

  Vellacott’s mouth worked some inaudible word as he stared at me. He lowered himself back into his chair, then in the same movement dropped his head into his hands.

  “My God,” he said after a moment. “My God.”

  Far from softening me toward him, this show of emotion irritated me. He had not seen her in seventeen years. He had not sought her out or showed concern for her welfare. He hadn’t been there when the madness took her. And it had not been him she tried to kill.

  “Where is she now?” he finally asked.

  “In Normandy, near Honfleur,” I said. “Her patron is caring for her. She could not be moved.”

  “But—there must be somewhere else you can go—some relative—”

  “Surely you know my mother is an orphan,” I said. “If I have other relatives, you will have to tell me who they are. I do not know them.”

  I stared coldly while my father’s mouth hung open, trembling with failed speech, and considered my options. There were no relatives, true, but there was somewhere else I could go, although not with any sort of propriety. I had Will’s letter in my pocket, with his latest address. My cheeks burned at the thought of showing up at his doorstep unannounced and unchaperoned. I could not bear to imagine what he would think it meant, what anyone would think it meant. And yet I wasn’t sure I could bear to stay here with my disappointing father. My mother had been right about him. That was almost the worst part.

  Still, he had a laboratory.

  “Perhaps you do not know that my mother continued to pursue alchemy after she left England.”

  “Of course. Everyone heard of her contract with King Louis.” He waved his hand. “The armor.”

  I nodded. The armor was what made Mother’s reputation. Astonishingly light yet strong and impervious to rust. It was the sort of thing monarchs hoped alchemists would make, when they weren’t calling us charlatans and passing laws against us. The armor gave her enough success that she could afford to scorn that kind of work now. We had focused all our energies on the Philosopher’s Stone for several years.

  “Yes, the armor. I helped her make it, you know.” Of course he didn’t know. His eyebrows lifted. I had his attention. “You said you were on the verge of some success. I assume you meant in your laboratory.” Think of him as a patron, I told myself. You do not have to like him. Indeed, when have you ever liked any of them, other than Adrien? “My mother and I were also on the verge of a great success when the madness took her. I think you would find me useful.”

  “You—you helped her with her work?”

  “Do you think my mother could have tolerated me for seventeen years if I did not?”

  Vellacott gave a short, surprised laugh, and for the first time he looked at me with interest and not merely with fear.

  “I can’t picture her as a mother at all,” he admitted. “But of course, she would train you, wouldn’t she? And are you an adept?”

  There was no way to answer this modestly. And anyway, this was no time for modesty.

  “I am as good as she ever was, and with time I will be better.”

  He raised his eyebrows, and a small smile pulled at his mouth. “You are more like her than you look, I think.”

  I didn’t smile back, though he clearly expected me to. Vellacott wasn’t the first to think that likening me to my mother was the highest compliment he could give me. In fact, it had never occurred to anyone but Will to give me any other kind.

  “You could say I am your niece,” I said. “If you are unwilling to acknowledge me.”

  Vellacott’s smile vanished.

  “What must you think of me,” he said quietly.

  If I had been less tired, less heartsick, I might have managed to restrain myself.

  “It’s quite all right, sir. You are just as I was led to expect,” I said. “You’ve spared me the inconvenience of revising my opinion.”

  The effect was immediate. His face crumpled and his head drooped. He looked as crushed as I could have hoped, though it gave me no satisfaction.

  “I am rather tired,” I said. “Do you have a place for me to sleep for the night? I would take my own rooms, but I don’t have very much money.”

  “Yes, of course,” said the professor, still downcast. There was
an unmade bed in the spare room. He produced sheets and took the quilt from his own bed. I thanked him, excused myself, and shut the door of the room. The wrung-out, hollow feeling in my chest betrayed me. Despite what I told my father, I had hoped for a better day than this turned out to be.

  5

  I slept badly on a hard little bed in the cramped spare room. Morning light from the single window illuminated the peeling, water-stained wallpaper. As a patron, Vellacott left something to be desired. I spread out the papers I had brought on the bed. There was my mother’s still-sealed letter to my father. I couldn’t be certain what she had said about me in it. Her opinion of me always seemed to vary so much from day to day. I once more considered sneaking a look at its contents, but decided against it. The thought of my father knowing I had invaded my mother’s confidences was more uncomfortable than not knowing what they were. I set it aside and picked up Will’s last letter. I stared at the London address for several minutes. Only a day away by coach. I tried to imagine what he would say if I came to him. It would be some joke, probably, to put me at ease.

  Fleeing war and revolution, are you, Bee? I knew you’d come find me once you had a good enough excuse.

  Cleverer than that, of course, but something of the kind. I smiled and slipped the letter back into my dress. I wore my simple gray round dress today, without all the awkward padding of fashionable gowns. It had seen me through many hours of work. As a concession to respectability, I wore my stays, which I usually did not bother with in the laboratory. I did not want to give the Oxonians another reason to stare, or my father another reason to find me an embarrassment.

  I smoothed the last set of papers, crumpled from being crushed in my pocket while I was held down and strangled. The memory sent my heart racing, and I put the papers down for a moment while I closed my eyes and waited for the sudden panic to pass. When it had, I forced myself to read my mother’s cramped, hasty handwriting once more. These were the last steps she had taken to prepare the Stone, after she had evicted me from our laboratory. These were the steps that had worked, and that made these papers a treasure map—a map to a treasure greater than any pirate’s. I had memorized them, of course, but I could not risk forgetting even the smallest step. I turned the first page over, almost against my will, and forced myself to look at the drawing on the back. The naked king stared at me with wild eyes. My mother wasn’t much of an artist, but she had copied this image faithfully, along with the heading. A cold shiver of fear crawled up my back again, just as it had when I saw the picture in our laboratory.

  “Cave Maledictionem Alchemistae,” I murmured. Beware the Alchemist’s Curse. The warning could mean many things, and there were many theories. I had read and translated stories of adepts selling their souls to demons for the secret knowledge necessary to make the Stone. There were other stories, sometimes overlapping, of adepts who produced the Stone and found that unlimited gold and immortality proved a burden they could not bear—a curse. Some went mad from their endless striving and countless failures to produce the Stone. But my mother had succeeded. That, at least, was not what had driven her mad.

  I looked closer. There was more Latin scribbled in the margins, in a cramped and hasty hand.

  Alchemistam ultimam lapis elegit. Vae illi, qui non accipit.

  The Stone chooses the last alchemist, but woe to whom it does not accept.

  The last alchemist? I had never heard of that, or seen anything like this sentiment before. It made no sense, on its face. How could the Stone choose anything? It had to be some kind of metaphor—perhaps another way of saying that it took virtue and determination to succeed at making the Stone. One must be worthy. That was a common idea.

  My eyes went from one warning to the other. If you put them together, it seemed to suggest that the Alchemist’s Curse would befall the one whom the Stone had rejected. I could not tell if they ought to be taken together. The smaller warning wasn’t in the text at all, just added by my mother. But perhaps she had a good reason to put them together. Foreboding stirred deep in my stomach.

  Perhaps my mother knew something was going to happen to her. Perhaps she even knew why. She had made some mistake, maybe, and therefore wasn’t “worthy” to be the last alchemist—whatever that was.

  Or perhaps she was simply scribbling nonsense in those last days.

  I pushed thoughts of my mother’s madness aside, folded the papers carefully, and slipped them into my dress next to Will’s letter. I looked doubtfully at the contents of my trunk, wishing there were some way to bring everything of value with me rather than leave anything here. I had brought as much as I could salvage from my mother’s workroom, all that would travel. There was none of the White Elixir left, and the Stone itself had been wrecked beyond repair. But I had vials of metals, and in particular one of the fine ruby-red transmuting agent. I thought of the months it had taken to prepare and decided to bring that with me as well.

  In the parlor, my father was staring at the breakfast tray. He jumped to his feet when I entered, and I handed him Mother’s letter.

  “I do not know what she wrote.” I tried to sound indifferent, and was aware I did not succeed.

  “Thank you.” He took the letter tentatively, and his gaze lingered on her handwriting. She had addressed it, simply, to Edward. “Sit down, Thea, please.”

  We both sat, and he stared at the letter. He was obviously as eager to read it as I was hesitant.

  “Read it. I don’t mind.”

  He did so at once, while I served myself a piece of toasted bread from the tray. I examined the greasy eggs and bacon, appetite mingling with suspicion. We ate almost nothing for breakfast at home. Mother said heavy food interfered with concentration. I glanced up at my father in time to catch him wiping at his misty eyes.

  “I want to apologize, Thea,” he said. “For my dreadful behavior yesterday.”

  I stared down at the breakfast tray. One of the eggs had burst, and the yolk had pooled around it and begun to harden. I was at a loss. I had very little practice at receiving apologies, and even less at attempting to forgive.

  “It is no excuse,” my father continued. “But I was shocked–I have never been so shocked. To suddenly find out that I have been a father for seventeen years without knowing it.”

  But this sounded like an excuse, and one that did not fit his behavior. Last night, all his concern had been for his reputation, for the damage an illegitimate daughter would do to his position at the university. My defenses tightened again, and I felt more sure of myself.

  “I hope you can forgive me,” said Vellacott.

  “You had every reason to be worried,” I said. “But I think you will agree that saying I am your niece resolves your concerns neatly. I look enough like you that no one will doubt we are related. Besides that, I will keep to the laboratory. I assume my mother assured you of my abilities there?”

  I could not restrain a nervous glance at him, and I was surprised to see him looking back at me with a bleak expression.

  “Oh yes,” he said, folding the letter. “I have no doubts at all on that score. But, Thea—”

  Whatever he wanted to say, I was certain I did not want to hear it. I cut him off. “I’d like to get to work, sir.”

  I pushed the congealing eggs away. My mother had the right idea about breakfast.

  My father nodded. We left the inn together, but very far apart.

  We walked farther into the town, away from the college. We did not go far, but the scenery changed remarkably in that short time. Streets narrowed, as did the houses and shops. There was less stone and more wood, fewer high towers, coats of arms, and paned windows. Down High Street, and away from Oriel, we had clearly entered the part of Oxford that was inhabited by those of the town rather than the gown. There were more women here, house- and shop-wives, and my father grew visibly more relaxed the farther we walked.

  Close to the edge of town, we passed down a narrow alley and into a wooden outbuilding, where a steady column of
opaque pure white smoke poured from the chimney. I paused on the threshold to examine it a moment and to take in its scent. Vellacott cocked his head and watched me, and when I looked at him he wore a small smile.

  “You know what it means, don’t you?” he asked.

  “The White Elixir.” I was impressed in spite of myself. “You’ve almost made it.”

  “Almost?” Vellacott’s high brow rose even higher. “You don’t mean to tell me you’ve seen the finished product?”

  I was tempted to tell him that I’d not only seen it, but watched it transform into the Philosopher’s Stone itself. But an alchemist’s instinct for secrecy held me back, and I merely nodded again.

  Vellacott unlocked the door and held it open for me. I entered my father’s laboratory. At once the familiar sights and scents filled me with assurance. Dominic was there, standing at a large table in the center and carefully measuring mercury into a glass vial. Against the wall was a large fireplace where another man stood over a brass brazier, which emitted the white smoke. The man was tall and broad, and he snapped bad-tempered instructions at Dominic in heavily accented English. Bookcases lined the farthest wall from the hearth, and several books lay open on the table. Dominic looked from one of them to his task, and back. Mr. Vellacott cleared his throat, and the alchemists looked up at me.

  I met Dominic’s gaze, and he smiled for half a second before dropping his eyes to his work again. The man by the brazier, however, scowled. I made a quick and careful study of him. He was middle aged, older than my father, also larger and less handsome. His eyes were a beady black and his strong-featured face had an unhealthily pale cast to it. His velvet waistcoat and feathered black hat were too fine for the laboratory, though he certainly moved and spoke like one who knew his business. As I watched him, his hand moved to a talisman that hung around his neck, a serpent staff of Hermes Trismegistus. My mother never wore talismans, nor let me wear one. It was the sort of thing that encouraged people to see alchemy as nothing more than an occult religion, a perception her sort of alchemists constantly fought. She scorned the whole legend of Hermes the Thrice-Great: the first alchemist, an Egyptian priest who became a god. But it never seemed contemptible to me. After all, it was the most honest account of the Great Work, no matter how we alchemists chose to describe it. The Philosopher’s Stone offered endless wealth, perfect health, and immortality, and we dared to seek it. Didn’t that mean we wanted to become gods, just as Hermes had?