A far wilder magic, p.18
A Far Wilder Magic, page 18
Is that…?
Her mind goes blank, and she lands a knee in his ribs. He rolls off her and doubles over with a wheeze, at last relinquishing his hold on her book. Margaret snatches it from the ground and scrabbles to her feet. If she stays near him another moment, she’ll catch fire. She’ll do or say something regrettable, and it’ll jeopardize all the tentative trust they have built together. She cannot, will not, risk that when the exposition is tomorrow.
Wes props himself up on his elbows and gives her a look that makes her feel oddly powerful. It’s not a weapon she wants or one she knows exactly how to wield. “Alright, alright. I yield.”
A bright silver light sparks in the corner of her eye. Unease crosses Wes’s face. Then, the array he’s drawn on the desk begins to smolder—not with the telltale smell of alchemy but with ignition.
“Um.” He coughs. “I need to check on that.”
She nods mutely, too afraid of what her voice may betray if she speaks.
For the rest of the day, as Margaret practices her shot, as she runs Shimmer and drills Trouble’s commands, a slick, horrible knot of tension sits in her gut. Between Wes and the looming exposition, she’s wound tight and ready to snap. But when night enfolds the manor and she’s alone and safe in her bed, she succumbs to the desire to relieve it. Normally, when she lets her hands slide between her thighs, she thinks of nothing and no one in particular.
Tonight, she thinks of Wes.
She thinks of what might have happened if she had canted her hips against his instead of shutting down. She thinks of his tousled hair and bared forearms and their hands rough on each other. She thinks of the expression he wore when they lay tangled together. He looked the same as he did when she fired that dud prototype bullet. Like realization dawned on him, and he could see everything clearly for the first time. Hidden beneath the confusion was something else, burning hotter than an alchemical reaction. Hunger.
17
The exposition arrives the next day, whether Wes is ready or not.
It’s another typical Wickdon afternoon, cold and thick with the promise of rain. Silvery mist wends through the base of the redwoods and veils the forest in swirling gray. Wes keeps his gaze fixed straight ahead as he walks toward town, breathing steadily through his growing unease. Everywhere he turns, he swears he sees the hala’s blank white eyes boring into him.
He woke at dawn and spent the morning watching Margaret test his new designs. He lurked bleary-eyed on the porch with his coffee, pointedly trying not to make eye contact or notice the way the early morning light burnished her hair. Each bullet she fired embedded itself soundly in a felled tree. The trunk shattered on impact, spewing sap and wood splinters like a lanced boil. It worked more or less as he hoped, but it lacked pyrotechnics. He alchemized a perfectly deadly bullet but not a dazzling one.
“I know it’s not enough to get first flight,” he told her. “I know. I’ll figure it out.”
Margaret didn’t answer him. At least her defeated expression made it easier not to look at her. He can’t bear the combined weight of their anxieties any more than he can bear the siren wail of his thoughts whenever she’s near him—which is exactly why he left for Wickdon without her.
God, he needs to clear his head. He’s anxious and miserable and sexually frustrated, which is the exact cocktail of emotions that usually lands him in trouble. How did she catch him so off guard yesterday?
When he had her pinned beneath him, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He always has something to say. But in that moment, his wit abandoned him; all his mind could hold were the words in that infernal book and the warmth of her breath against his lips and that furious glint in her eyes before she kneed him in the ribs. Thank God she did. It worked as well as dousing him with cold water. He prays she didn’t get the wrong idea about where his head was at. Maybe she’ll assume it was nothing deeper than their proximity.
What does any of this matter? He doesn’t have time to deal with his confused feelings or fantasize about—no, simply consider the abstract concept of kissing Margaret Welty senseless on the floor of her mother’s lab. He needs to focus on alchemy, on winning, on figuring out what the hell keeps going wrong in his transmutation.
Everything depends on that. His future. His mother’s health. His family’s security. He can’t afford to blow this chance like all the others.
The thing is, his transmutation works. If it did that much damage to a tree, he dreads to imagine what it’d do to a fox. But it’s too simple, too obvious, and he doesn’t see a point in trying to do something showy if he can’t go full-out. He wants more than shattering; he wants sparks. Fire requires a combination of heat, fuel, and oxygen. Oxygen and fuel, he has plenty of. Which means he still hasn’t generated the eight hundred degrees he needs to kindle a flame.
As towering trees give way to golden hills, he runs through his formulas again. Margaret’s preferred rifle bullet weighs approximately ten grams, which means he can enchant it with ten grams of coincidentia oppositorum. He’s calculated the mass of each substance involved in this alchemic reaction a thousand times over and tried nearly every combination of them. His most successful brew is composed of six grams of sand, two grams of osmium, and two grams of camphor. It results in a bullet that’s lightweight enough to increase the total momentum in the system but dense enough to retain the heat from the camphor essence and the gunpowder’s ignition. While he could have tried distilling something different, he doubts it would make a considerable difference when he’s working with such small quantities …
He’s startled from his thoughts when a group of hunters on horseback nearly trample him. Wes lets out a shout of surprise that’s swallowed up by the thunderous four-count beat of their hooves. In their wake, the ground is torn up and muddied, and on the other side of a pasture fence, he can see the telltale blackening on yet another field of crops.
It’s getting worse, as promised. It’s only a matter of time before it moves onto something more substantive than horses and vineyards.
By the time he reaches Wickdon proper, he’s nearly drowning in people. The streets are lined with market stalls, where vendors hawk gun polish and hunting jackets in a hundred gem-bright colors. Wes wields his carrying case like a battering ram to maneuver through the crowds. They cram into the perimeter of the town square and throng on balconies, straining to peer over each other and into the center, where the hunt officials have arranged tables in efficient, geometric lines like an alchemical array. The wind cutting through the alleyways smells of tobacco and sweat and liquor. Between his own dread and the heady charge in the air, he can’t help feeling he’s about to attend a public execution.
When he at last stumbles into the square, a man in a scarlet coat directs him to his workstation. Wes sets his carrying case on the table, and as he carefully unloads his instruments, he watches the other alchemists filter in. They move in packs like well-dressed wolves, all of them self-assured and easy, like they’ve done this many times before. Some of them stop to chat and shake hands with the judges. Their wristwatches and cuff links glitter gold beneath the streetlamps, and Wes is struck with a pang of bitter longing. Who is he kidding by being here? Even if he wins, even if he gets accepted to the finest university in the country, he’ll never truly be like them.
“You nervous, kid?”
Wes startles. A short, stocky woman in her midtwenties stands at the work station beside his. Her accent is from Dunway—subtle but distinct—and so is her gown, a ruffled knee-length number stitched with sparkling glass beads. The ends of her ash-brown hair escape from her felt hat and curl gently against her jawline.
Wes offers her the most genuine smile he can muster. He feels it wobble. “Nervous? No, not at all.”
“It’s alright. I was nervous for my first hunt, too. Judith Harlan.”
Deflated, he says, “Weston Winters.”
Harlan scans him from head to toe, and he’s painfully aware of his father’s worn jacket draped over his shoulders. It detracts from the overall effect of his suit, but the overlong sleeves would look worse than the alternative. Besides, it’s cold—and the familiar weight of it soothes him. He resists the urge to fidget with the knot on his tie. “Fifth Ward, huh?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“Thought so,” she says wistfully. “Anyway, what’s eating you? You look like you’re about to faint.”
Wes isn’t naive enough to trust her, even if she seems well-meaning. Fumbling to recover his cool, he drawls, “Nothing. Beautiful women frazzle me, is all.”
“Lord.” She wheezes a laugh. “I think you’re a little young for me. What are you, seventeen?”
He feels the tips of his ears burn with humiliation, but he manages to keep the defensive edge out of his voice when he says, “Eighteen, actually.”
“All the same. I’m not trying to trick you.”
“I…” He rakes his hands through his hair and immediately regrets it. A few stubborn strands escape from the gel he slicked on this morning and fall into his face. There’s nothing to be done for it now. “I can’t seem to get enough energy in the system. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
Harlan hums sympathetically. “Have you checked your math?”
“Of course I have.”
“Have you tested the transmutation more than once?” She throws up her hands when he scowls. “Alright, alright, enough with the scary look. I’m just asking. Listen, if the system is alchemically sound, the problem’s you.”
“Me?” he sputters. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You can be a brilliant chemist but a mediocre alchemist, and—well, are you a good chemist?”
“Passable.”
“Good. If we were brilliant chemists, we’d be in a pharmaceutical lab somewhere. But alchemy is about intuition, too, right? It’s not hard science. It’s … well, it’s magic. You’re the one channeling and controlling the energy circulating in the reaction. It’s not only the laws of matter governing what happens—it’s you.” Harlan taps the center of her chest, exactly where he feels the spark within him when he transmutes. “Maybe you’re holding back, or maybe you’re thinking too much. Either way, somewhere down the line, you’re losing too much energy to entropy. So relax. You know it works in theory, so why shouldn’t it in practice?”
Relax. If only it were that simple.
Once, before all of the rejections and disappointment, Wes believed in himself. He believed that determination and good intentions and natural aptitude could carry him through. But when he’s staring down the gulf between him and all these other alchemists, it’s hard to stay positive. “I appreciate the pep talk and all, but why are you telling me this? Isn’t this a competition?”
She winks. “Just some advice from one Fifth Ward kid to another.”
Before he can reply, a voice on a microphone cuts through the din of conversation. “Good afternoon, everyone.”
Standing at a podium draped in New Albion’s red-and-gold flag is a man who looks disconcertingly like Jaime, blond and sharp-smiled and decidedly evil. “As the mayor of Wickdon, I want to welcome each of you to the one hundred and seventy-fourth annual alchemy exposition, one of our most cherished traditions in the lead-up to the hunt. This event is a cornerstone of New Albian culture, a monument to our country’s imagination and industry. Alchemy is God’s gift to mankind, and it continues to pave the way to a brighter, more equitable future.”
Wes swallows down his bitterness at those empty words. One day, if he survives this, he’ll stand on a podium exactly like that one and mean every word.
“I’m pleased to introduce our panel of judges this year, all of whom are renowned scholars in their fields.”
Beside him are three middle-aged folks whose faces he can’t make out from a distance. The first, whom the mayor introduces as Abigail Crain, wears a fur coat and jewels that glister cold as stars around her neck. The second, Oliver Kent, is a man so tall and thin it looks as though he’s been stretched like saltwater taffy. The third, Elizabeth Law, has a feather headpiece nestled into her fair ringlets.
“Our judges will assess each competitor on technique and innovation,” the mayor continues. “After a short recess, they will test each design and score them on both showmanship and functionality. It’s my honor to declare this alchemy exposition—Wickdon’s first since 1898—open!”
With a smattering of applause and cheers, it begins.
Wes does his best to watch the first two competitors with a queasy, masochistic fascination. From here, there’s not much to look at but the silver flash of alchemic fire and the twist of smoke as it rises into the darkening sky. Maybe it’s the thickening smell of sulfur or maybe it’s his nerves, but he thinks he’s going to be sick.
As the judges make their way down the line, the sound of chalk scratching against wood grows louder and the drone of conversations duller. Wes can’t be sure if he’s been waiting for seconds or hours when the panel finally stops in front of his table.
Crain speaks first. “Name?”
He’s transfixed by the string of diamonds resting above her collarbones; they must be alchemically modified to have that kind of brilliance. “Uh, Winters. Weston Winters, ma’am.”
She purses her lips but scribbles something on her notepad. “Very well, Mr. Winters. You may proceed.”
Wes fishes the chalk he’s brought out of his pocket. Although his hand is trembling, he draws the transmutation circle for nigredo with the ease of having done it literally hundreds of times this week. He arranges the components of the reaction in the center, then places his hands over the array to activate the magic circulating within it. It ignites, and as it burns the sand and osmium to blackened caput mortuum, Wes watches the judges take notes and confer from beneath his eyelashes. One step down. Two to go.
“When you’re ready,” Crain says.
His confidence wavers.
It’s not only the laws of matter governing what happens. It’s you.
Alchemy is a science far stranger and less precise than any other he knows. Maybe what fuels it is the divine or chaos or magic, but whatever it is, the missing piece in this reaction is within him. It is him. Maybe all he needs to do is concentrate harder. To bend the universe with the force of his will.
But as he puzzles over heat and friction, his thoughts go slack—and then, as panic sets in, they carry him soundly back to Margaret. God, no, he can’t think about her right now. It will derail him entirely when every thought of her forces him to confront an emotion he can’t bear to look at head-on. He focuses more intently on drawing the alchemic array. He corrals his mind by concentrating on the facts of what he is doing, on infusing each stroke with purpose. A circle to embody the unity of all things and the cyclical flow of energy. Runes to harness that energy and shape it to his own ends. Heat and friction. The heat of Margaret’s mouth if he kissed her, the friction he desperately wanted between them, and good Lord, he is going to lose his mind if he can’t rein himself in.
Maybe you’re holding back. Or maybe you’re thinking too much.
Maybe Harlan’s right. Maybe he has been holding back. For so long, he’s been terrified of what would happen if he sat quietly with himself for too long, if he let himself grieve, if he let his family see that he was hurting. But Margaret has a way of finding every crack in his armor. As he holds onto the thought of her, he feels the spark of divine magic at the core of him leap.
Wes activates the array.
The coincidentia oppositorum condenses in the alembic drop by drop. It shines as bright as the diamonds on Crain’s neck and illuminates the table with a glow like moonlight. Although he can’t know if it worked until they fire that bullet, his heart races at the sight of it. He knows, deep down, it’s the best work he’s done. Once he binds the essence to the bullet with rubedo, he places it into Crain’s waiting hand.
“Thank you, Mr. Winters.”
“Oh, no. Thank you.”
As soon as the judges move on, Wes slumps over until he can rest his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. Through the wayward strands of his hair, he sees Harlan smiling at him slyly. “Now that’s how it’s done.”
“Th-thanks.”
He thinks he needs a shower.
* * *
As the technical evaluation winds down, the sun dips into the sea and afternoon melts into evening. In thirty minutes, the second round of judging will begin. It’s a brief respite while the judges and spectators move from the town square to the field outside Wickdon. No one wants to risk a misfire in the crowds—or accidentally blow one of the darling storefronts sky high.
Technically, now that he’s done his job for the night, Wes is free. He entertains the idea of slinking back to the manor or persuading someone to buy him a drink, but he supposes he ought to soberly bear witness to it if his career ends tonight. Stronger than any other temptation, however, is finding Margaret. It buzzes insistently in the back of his skull and makes his skin crawl with a restless energy he doesn’t care for.
But assuming she’s even here, he’s not sure he can face her. Wanting her, even her company, makes him feel small and pathetic and vulnerable. Now that the rush of alchemy and adrenaline has drained from him, he’s painfully aware of just how raw he is. Performing that transmutation opened a floodgate within him—one he’s all too eager to slam shut again. He doesn’t want to want Margaret. He doesn’t want to want someone who consumes his thoughts this way, who expects anything of him, who would wound him if she denied him.
He wants something easier. Someone who doesn’t make him pine or reconsider his worldview or feel. He wants …
“Wes!”
Never has Annette Wallace’s voice sounded sweeter.
Wes turns on his heel to face her. Her hair is carefully gelled in spirals around her temples, so crisp and glossy it’s all he can do to not tug one loose. “Fancy meeting you here. You off work?”
