Outside the castle, the sheep were grazing.

Andrew wanted to ignore them, like he’d always done in the past. But this time, he forced himself to stop and stare into the slanted gaze of these creatures.

He now knew why he never wanted to look at them. It wasn’t what they were, but what these homunculus represented. Each was a person once. A person like Victoria, Constantia, even him and the Doctor. And each one fell into Andrew’s trap, ended up on the Doctor’s table, and was now on all fours in the grass, pulling at roots with the front of their teeth.

Andrew carried on through the castle gates and into the courtyard. There were more sheep here, some still in their maid dresses, broken sleeves dragging through the mud under their hooved feet.

Andrew made his way through, carrying Victoria in his arms. No one stopped him. No one looked his way. He felt like a ghost drifting through his own home, carrying the dead to be buried.

Except, he wasn’t burying her, but his guilt.

The castle was dark. Not a lantern was lit along the walls. Andrew could see only what the dim light through the narrow windows showed. All along the walls were blood stains, bits of clothing and smashed plates. It looked like before the sheep turned feral, they suffered the same madness as Ignar.

Andrew’s feet landed softly on the carpet. It was red, stained darker with what he could only hope was water.

It was noon still, but it was cold. Andrew made his way deeper into the silence. His heartbeat seemed to echo through the walls, marking the passage of the only living being through the ancient fortress.

The steps leading to the laboratory were still dripping when Andrew made it to the bottom. He traced it with his eyes, winding it along the hallway and down into the kitchen. The door was hanging off its hinge, claw marks scratched deep into the wood.

Andrew didn’t want to check if the cook was still here. He barely fought one homunculus when he was well. He didn’t want to fight another, not when he wasn’t sure if his insides were still intact.

Everything above the first step was lost to the shadows, but looking up, Andrew knew it was a straight shot into the laboratory. He placed one foot onto the first step, then the second, then one more.

Victoria was heavy. Every foot climbed was becoming more difficult than the last. Soon, Andrew’s breath came in labored gasps. His chest throbbed where his ribs broke from the wolf’s attack. His head pounded and every time he blinked, Ignar’s fangs closed in on him.

Andrew’s foot missed the step and thudded heavily on the landing.

He was there. And the door was ajar. Through the gap in the iron, Andrew saw light.

He nudged it open with his shoulder.

Cold flooded through as light spilled from the broken windows. Ash swirled around the blackened room, perching like butterflies on the burned shelves, peeling walls, and the shoulders of Doctor Davis Von Boldstein.

Andrew stopped, his foot hovering by the door.

“Doctor?”

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Doctor Davis turned his head, and his thin lips stretched into a smile. “Ah, Andrew. It has been a while, my friend.”

Andrew was too taken back by the doctor calling him a friend, but when Davis turned the rest of the way and held out his arms for a hug, Andrew realized he was much too naive to be shocked by so little, for stretched out on either side of the doctor, were the arms of Bartholomeu the lizard.

Andrew took an involuntary step back. “Doctor Davis,” he said. “I didn’t think you…” His eyes fell from the doctor to the table behind him. Laid out across it was the lizard cook, head tilted back, tail curled around the edge of the marble transmutation table.

A trail of blood ran from the ends of the table, running all the way across the room, behind Andrew and down the stairs.

The doctor laughed. “You thought I’d die by the hands of these, monsters?” He held up his new hands, wicked claws attached to the end of two winding limbs. “You think I’d let my own creations destroy me?”

He laughed again, the sound laced with insanity, which stopped all too suddenly. “Ah, Andrew. I see you’ve already brought me a new subject. Good, good. I have waited for you.” He pushed off from the table and went to one corner of the room. There, sat a cage, its steel bars blackened from the fire. The doctor reached down, his claws curling around the handle. “Seeing as Ignar is probably off into the woods somewhere, I’ll let you catch the next animal.”

Andrew shook his head. “Enough, Doctor Davis. We need to stop this. We have to put an end to this madness."

The doctor’s steps haltered. His eyes widened like Andrew had just stabbed him. “What?” he said, his voice choking up. “You want to… to stop? But… look at this, Andrew!” Doctor Davis waved his arms around. “Look at this progress!” The cage slipped from the doctor’s claws, crashing into the wall with an ear-splitting shriek.

Doctor Davis froze. Slowly, he raised his claws up to his face. His eyes were round, misty marbles, and Andrew suddenly wasn’t sure if the doctor he knew was still in this room, or if that man who had once challenged the gods of creation themselves was already died.

Doctor Davis dropped his hands to his side. His head swiveled to look at Andrew. “Then why did you bring her here? If not to further the evolution of science?”

Andrew glanced down at Victoria. Her cheeks were colorless, and her lips white as the marble of the transmutation table. And yet, her hair was still that same shade of fire he had grown to know and love.

“She is my last sin, and I am here to pay my dues.” Andrew walked towards the table, towards the man he had once worshiped and said, “Now, please. Get out of the way.”

Doctor Davis’s misty eyes turned from Andrew, then Victoria, then back. Then, the doctor smiled. He reached over the table, grabbed the dead lizard by the neck and hauled it to the side of the room. There, he dumped the carcass among the burned debris, then made for the exit, brushing by Andrew without another word.

Andrew placed Victoria onto the table. He turned, watching the doctor’s back disappearing down the stairs.

And the doctor was gone.

Andrew almost wanted to believe that was the last he’d seen of the doctor. But he knew that was not the case, because the doctor would never stop his experiments. Even without help, he would be capable of continuing his demonic magic. The only way to put an end to alchemy was to destroy those who used it.

Including Andrew himself.

“One last time,” Andrew whispered, taking place beside Victoria. “One last time and I will never use it again.” He placed both hands on the cold marble, and said the words he had heard the doctor utter a hundred times already.

“Illud non moritur, quod polleat usque morari. Temporibus miris, Mors, potes ipsa mori.”

The circles on the table lit up as words jumped from the diagrams. Lightning crackled through the room, leaping into the walls. Wind began to blow, throwing a cyclone of dust around Andrew and Victoria.

Andrew kept his eyes glued onto Victoria’s face. Even as the light began to blind him, he forced them to stay open. All the while, the spell streamed unbreaking from his lips, those terrifying words that kept him up each night, always accompanied by the screams of his victims.

But this time, there were no screams.

Andrew’s voice built to a crescendo. The skies outside the empty windows grew black. Tendrils of ephemeral darkness reached out from below the table, grasping around Andrew and Victoria. They writhed to the rhythm of his voice, adding their own sounds to the howling cacophony.

Material, they ask.

Offering.

Sacrifice.

“My life,” Andrew answered. “For hers.”

The tendrils hissed. More burst from the ground, wriggling up to Andrew’s face. They covered his eyes, went into his nose and mouth. Andrew didn’t cry out, didn’t say anything. He simply gave in to the energy and let it take whatever it wanted from him. In exchange for Victoria to live.