> “They drank in the adulation, something that has been severely lacking in their hardscrabble life to date. That is all about to change.”
Of everything I had experienced so far in the last year, few things quite compared to the thrill of speeding down Manhattan’s streets hopped up on a piece of Beatrice’s speed buff. I had circled the lower part of the island with ease, my body and mind shifting into overdrive, trying to unlock the mysteries of Frankie’s tattoo. And it had worked, although at a cost. The aftermath had temporarily turned my mind to mush, and I had nearly forgotten the revelations discovered during my run. I neglected to disclose that to D.C. as I explained what I was offering him in exchange for the memory ink.
“This all sounds too fantastical to be true, which is saying something,” he said. “Such alchemy would not have gone unnoticed by us.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “It was noticed. Ask Ty about it the next time you see her. I’m sure she’ll tell you all about the woman she stalked for years as Gilbert, trying to find out her secrets. The woman she tried to kill.”
“The Guild tries to kill lots of people. Sometimes successfully,” said D.C. “Did you bring a sample of this ‘buff’ with you, or am I going to have to take your word for it?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then we’re done. Show yourselves out. I need to get back to work.”
“But-”
A sudden blast of steam filled my field of vision as D.C. plunged the white-hot metal into the water, and when it cleared, he had returned to his hammering. I looked at Duncan, who either seemed lost in thought or mesmerized by the clanging of metal on metal, and a bad idea percolated in my brain.
“Look, I need a little of the ink before I can get you the buff,” I said, and was again ignored. “But what if I put up some collateral?”
“Tokens? No thanks. Got plenty.”
“Not tokens,” I said. “Something better: an apprentice.”
This got his attention, and the hammering finally stopped.
“You’re kidding, right?” asked D.C. “Your boyfriend looks like he’s never done a day of hard labor in his life, let alone re-forged one of the most powerful Relics in-”
“So you’ll teach him. And then you’ll get a much needed break. Which is all the time I need to retrieve the buffs for you.”
“I hate to interject your bartering,” said Duncan, pulling me halfway across the basement with a yank of his arm, “but have you lost your damn mind?”
“No,” I hissed. “But you have. And this will help you stay focused and grounded. It’s just what the doctor ordered. Trust me.”
Again I saw the whisper of the ink’s command wash over Duncan’s face, and he nodded.
“OK,” called D.C., interrupting my guilt trip.
“OK, what?” I asked.
“Leave him here until you get back with the buffs, and I’ll put him to work.”
“So you’ll give me some ink then?”
“Yes,” he said. “Enough for six words, if you choose wisely. Take it or leave it.”
----------------------------------------
I spent the subway trek from D.C.’s mansion to Guild headquarters with my arms awkwardly crossed tightly to my body, the vial with pure memory ink, albeit a very tiny amount, resting in the inner pocket of my jacket. But any joy from completing this task had been outweighed by the terrible power I had wielded to achieve it and the desperate bargain I had struck to inch one step closer to Beatrice.
What would happen if I found her, and she had no buffs, no Compendium? Or even if she did, why the hell would she want to part with either? As far as I knew, she hated me for hiding the gold token from her for so long, for letting her expose herself, for letting her take the fall while I soldiered on, a good little supplicant to the Guild. How many lives would I throw into turmoil because of my reckless desire to push forward, no matter what?
I grasped my locket, as if doing so would somehow make everything easier. But all it did was remind me of the woman who had given it to me, who was no longer here.
“Happy 11th birthday, Jenny Bean!” my mom had said that day. I had opened the box and looked down at the stupid locket that had been my only present.
“Wow, it almost looks like real silver,” I had replied, and my mom’s smiling face had immediately changed to crestfallen. “Just like the silver purse I actually wanted. Thanks for nothing!”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
My mom, for all her faults, had been gracious, and never brought up the locket again. When she died, putting it on was the least I could do, but I still hadn’t forgiven myself and didn’t think I could until I learned how the token that Rita had hidden in 1787 had ended up around my neck.
That could finally happen today, though, if Ty was to be believed. The streets outside Guild headquarters were packed with departing children from the nearby school and so I awkwardly donned my cloak, drawing stares and laughs along the way. A few rotations around the block and I found the space to disappear from the world. Returning to the unmarked entrance, I gingerly pushed it open and darted into the darkness. The now-familiar staircases greeted me, and this time I walked up two times and found myself standing before yet another foreboding door.
Its wood was intricately carved with spiraling symbols and a repeated motif of circles embedded in triangles that I stared at for way too long. Finally giving up on my ability to decipher whatever cryptic message was hidden within, I grasped one of the metal knockers that could have been a triplet to the ones on D.C.’s mansion and banged it.
The door opened slightly after a few seconds, and Ty poked her head out.
“You could have just come in,” she said, looking annoyed. “Do you know how loud that thing sounds from inside?”
“Sorry,” I said. “Force of habit, I guess.”
“This isn’t the Wizard of Oz, Jen. You’re a full Guild member. You’re allowed to be here.”
I shrugged.
“It still doesn’t seem that way. I saw how D.C. looked at me. As if I was a carpetbagger who parachuted into his Table. I mean, the guy and his family have been forging that stupid sword for centuries and I’m … it’s like every day I have to prove myself all over again.”
“That’s a good thing,” said Ty. “Our ranks need more of you, not less. Anyway, that’s a discussion for another time. You’re here for a reason. To even your odds.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then let’s get started.”
She beckoned me inside and my mind flashed back to that day in Beatrice’s apartment, entering her secret lab behind the bookcase, when I had first learned some hard truths about alchemy. Except unlike that room, this one looked like an ordinary, dusty library, similar to the one I had worked at for so many summers.
“Right this way, right this way,” said Ty, walking past the first three rows to the middle of the collection. My tutor-of-the-day stopped at a set of shelves that were pressed together so tightly I could barely see the seam and I doubted any light could pass through, let alone an actual person.
“Doesn’t your mom have enough money to afford a bigger room for her library?” I asked.
“It’s not so simple,” said Ty. “Most of the Guild families have their own private collections, their own caches. At some point, the sharing of knowledge went out of style, and so no one really cares about this place anymore. Which is a pity, as there’s so much treasure here just waiting to be rediscovered.”
Ty placed her palms on each of the shelf ends and then somehow passed through the wood as if she was Patrick Swayze in Ghost. I stood there, dumbfounded at yet another branch of alchemy I didn’t even know about.
“Let’s go, Jen!” Ty shouted from somewhere within. “It’s an illusion. It won’t kill you. Press your palms like I did and then walk through!”
“I don’t have time for your illusions!” I yelled back. “Can’t you people just make a normal room?”
“You know we can’t!”
“Fine,” I said and complied with the cryptic instruction. The wood felt warm to the touch and after a second of feeling like an absolute idiot, I walked into the shelves, expecting to break my nose into a bloody pulp. But I didn’t and instead found myself in a cozy little antechamber. Weirdly glowing candles dotted the brick walls and in place of books and bookshelves, there was only a weird contraption that looked like a gumball machine straight out of a steampunk nightmare.
A large glass vat sat atop of the machine, with a combination of metal and clear tubes snaking out of it in every direction, some of which eventually ended a foot or two above the floor. Nestled at the center was an archaic console, with an old mechanical keyboard, a glowing green dot-matrix monitor, and a rusty bronze slot at the bottom.
“Where are we?” I asked. “That didn’t feel like a vervorium portal.”
“I told you, it was an illusion. Like a glamour, except an inanimate object. And much simpler from a creation standpoint, and you know, not actually banned.”
“See, that’s what I still don’t get,” I said. “You didn’t know me from a hole in the wall, and you gave me the glamour like it was a common trinket. Surely there were easier ways to protect me from Doug.”
The one thing I could say about Ty was that despite her age, she was extremely well versed in maintaining her stoic exterior, a trait I assumed she had inherited from her mother.
“Because it was what you needed,” she replied. “Because I knew Doug was after you, that he knew what you looked like. ”
“Yeah, thanks for that,” I said. “You have any more deranged trainees running around the city that I should know about?”
“Not at the moment,” said Ty and my eyes widened. “Oh relax, will you? Doug was a convergence of circumstances, all of which then broke the wrong way. The only one I’m trying to mentor now is you.”
“Fine,” I said. “Never thought I would be studying under someone who isn’t even old enough to drive.”
Ty snickered, breaking character for once.
“You’re a lot funnier than him, I’ll give you that,” she said. “So, you’re probably wondering what this insane-looking machine is, right?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“It’s an atheneum. When the Guild moved headquarters in the 60s, it was decided, as both a practical and logistical matter, to convert the library’s contents into electrum.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Rather than answer, Ty walked to the console and punched in a series of numbers and letters. The machine suddenly sprung to life, smoke emitting from various ill-fitting joints, weird sounds emanating from … somewhere, until finally a bell rang.
“Come and get it!” said Ty, who waved me over to the slot at the bottom. I lifted its metal cover to reveal a small silver bead.
“What is that?” I asked as Ty handed me something closer to a stale cocoa puff than a precious metal.
“I told you, it’s electrum. Bottoms up!”
She jerked my palm up to my lips, forcing the little sphere into my mouth before I could stop her. After experiencing all manner of Beatrice’s buffs, this newest piece of alchemy tasted sweet, like an ice cream sundae with salted caramel. But the saccharine sensation ended there, as my eyes roll back into my head and the next thing I knew, I was crouched in a bramble bush wearing in a long, calico dress, a shotgun in my hands and a compass dangling from a chain around my neck.
“Ready, Hector,” I said in a chipper tone, like a schoolgirl trying to show off in front of the headmaster.
The weathered man nodded, and I aimed my gun toward the sky.