Alchemical symbol: Tin [https://i.imgur.com/e9DvjDg.png]

The Alchemist’s Guildhall was a squat two-storey building sandwiched between the larger Guildhalls of the Lighters, on the right, and Saddle-Makers, on the left. Smog had yellowed the white plaster frontage and faded the murals of stylised angels to a uniform brownish-grey.

A black House Oryche banner hung beside the door, which was closed. A handwritten notice informed visitors that Guild assemblies were held monthly, the clerks’ office was open in the hours of daylight, and to knock for admittance.

Thea knocked and waited, fidgeting, until the door was opened by a heavy, pug-faced man wearing the black armband of a Guild proctor.

He looked Thea over. ‘Yer?’

‘I’m here on business,’ Thea said. ‘My master’s a guild member.’

The proctor grunted and stood aside.

She crossed the much-scuffed parquet floor of the entrance lobby, passed down a corridor papered with peeling layers of notices, and entered the reading room. A large cold-lamp shed its pale light over four sloping desks, one occupied by a young man. He hunched over a large book, his long brown hair falling forward to brush yellowed pages thick with dense black text.

In the far corner, the elderly clerk nodded over his own small desk, spectacles at half-mast on his bony nose. Thea approached and cleared her throat.

He blinked into consciousness. Watery eyes fixed on her and narrowed. ‘Oh. It’s you. What do you want?’

‘Carmikal’s Compendium of Paints and Dyes, if you please, sir.’

The clerk pursed his lips. He couldn’t object to the book — it was the standard work on paint formulae. ‘Only journeymen and masters are permitted to use the library.’

Thea suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. ‘My master, Benedict, he’s an old man, sir. His eyes are bad. I can copy for him well enough.’

‘It’s irregular. He’s not even that old. He’s younger than me, I’ll wager.’

Since she didn’t know either man’s age, Thea couldn’t argue with this. ‘His eyesight’s bad, sir.’

The clerk sniffed. Slowly and deliberately he leafed through the ledger on his desk, scowling at her between pages. ‘Benedict. Benedict. Hmm…’ A smile of pure glee contorted his face. ‘He’s not paid his dues this year.’

Thea’s heart dropped. She hadn’t thought anyone would check. ‘It’s only a little late.’

‘More than a month.’

‘Times are hard. He’s been a member for many years, sir. Surely you can give a few days grace. Please.’

‘He’s not shown his face here in a while, has he?’

‘He’s been unwell, sir, but he’s working. He’ll pay, if you give us a chance.’

The clerk tapped his pen on the ledger. ‘A few days?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘He must attend in person, mind.’

Thea bowed her head. ‘Yes, sir. May I have my book?’

The clerk grudgingly unwound himself from the desk. He disappeared through a door behind him and returned with a thick tome. ‘Mind you don’t get ink on it. These books are very valuable, you know.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll be careful.’

She took her prize to the empty desk next to the young man. He brushed his hair from his eyes and smiled at her; she ignored him. She opened the book and flipped through the familiar pages to the section she wanted.

There it was, just as she remembered, next to an unrelated diagram of distillation apparatus: formula for permanent binding to a substrate, application to glues, paints, and dyes. The exact thing they needed.

With this one formula, the paint additive was straightforward; without it, they might have worked weeks or months with no guarantee of success.

She stared at the page until her eyes burned and the glyphs swam.

Benedict’s own books had all been sold years ago. They needed the Guild library. No Guild membership, no library. In theory, Benedict wouldn’t even be allowed to work as an alchemist. She’d seen people dragged in front of the Guild Court for practising alchemy outside the Guild. Benedict could be fined, or sent to the mines — though surely no one would do that to Benedict, he wouldn’t last a day. As for herself…

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The fee was eight forints, which thanks to Nevin, they could afford, just. But how was she to get Benedict to the Guildhall?

The young man leaned toward her. ‘That’s advanced stuff you’re looking at. Need any help?’

Judging by his sallow complexion and chemical-stained coat, he was a journeyman. She knew the type: penniless, lonely, ever hopeful. ‘No, thanks.’

He smiled, undeterred. ‘Haven’t see you here before. I didn’t know these fossils let girls apprentice.’

‘They don’t,’ she said, and glared until he grew uncomfortable and resumed his work.

Her own pen scrawled and blotted, her hand too tense and shaking with hatred. Not for him, really, because it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault that whatever she learned from Benedict, she’d never be a journeyman, or even an apprentice alchemist. Not his fault that without Benedict, she was nothing. Not his fault Benedict was old and sick and one day he would die, and then... she’d be alone, with nothing.

Alchemical symbol: Antimony [https://i.imgur.com/7omjkx8.png]

Andra returned to herself in pieces.

Pain first, an all-consuming wave. The agony ebbed, the hurt shrank to a griping ache in her gut, a savage dryness in her mouth and throat. Legs, arms, body pressed against the floor, too heavy to move. Even her bones throbbed.

The pain was a clear and certain thing, something to hold to. She hurt, therefore she lived, and she was awake.

There had been dreams. Vivid, twisted dreams, coloured with pain and dread. Endless, hopeless searching for her lost child: trudging through deep snow, each step painful labour, and knowing, knowing the grief of what she would find, and still she must go on, always searching, never finding.

But the dreams had ended. She was awake and alive, not dead. Which meant… what?

Time had passed. How much, she couldn’t guess. Days? Weeks? Forever? Pain had been sun and moon to her, its waxing and waning the only measure. Dreams filled all the space between.

The pain in her gut was the wound. The marked one — his knife driven into her gut, the gush of blood. He had killed her. She should be dead. She had lain in the mud, bleeding, waiting to die.

What had happened to her?

Where was she?

The scent of humans was thick and strong. Many humans, rats and damp stone. Distantly, rats skittering, rodent squeaks and scuffles. Nearer, human snores and sighs.

Humans, and the too-familiar musty underground smell, this too she had dreamed. Dreams of the cage, of being trapped like a beast for the amusement of men, of helpless anger, of fear and pain and more pain.

Only a dream, a memory, but the human smell was real. The human sounds were real. Within touching distance, a human breathed and shifted.

She had to know. She blinked, or tried to — her eyelids resisted, then opened.

A child was there. A small human girl child, brown: shaggy dark hair, dark eyes, brown skin. She sat scrunched into a ball with her head resting on her knees, gazing sideways at Andra.

There were more humans than this small one. She heard breathing all around. Surrounding her, and she was too weak to fight or run.

Muscles tensed, wrenching a fresh spasm of pain from her gut. Her claws scraped across stone. Her legs would not move; she was bound.

The child raised her head. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

Andra stilled. Slowly the pain subsided, her heart steadied. The child’s gaze, the light pressure of it was familiar somehow, not unpleasant. Not threatening. Perhaps Andra had woken before and seen her, or she had passed through Andra’s dreams. Perhaps the other ghosts who came and went, the high-pitched human voices, the patter of bare feet on stone, perhaps they too were real.

Her surroundings too were familiar, and yet not. She had lain on this hard floor many days; her bones knew and ached with it. The wedge of sunlight falling through the doorway had always been there, and the cobwebbed beams of the low stone ceiling, and the musty smell. All these things had shaped her dreams, and they were real.

The fear of human cruelty, of being caged and helpless — that had come from her pain-fuelled dreams. This place was not that place; these humans not those humans. Her legs felt weak and heavy and bound in place, but the constraint was only a ragged blanket. Her hands were free, her claws, and this child was so small, so harmless.

She reached for human words. The harsh sounds slipped from her thoughts like darting fish. She snatched one. ‘Water.’

The child moved away, returned with a cup. She crouched beside Andra, close enough to feel the warmth of her body, the faint pounding of her heart. The small human held the cup to Andra’s mouth. She sipped. The water tasted foul but it was wet and cool.

Too soon the cup was empty.

‘More?’ the child said.

Andra nodded.

The child sat back on her heels. ‘I’m Mouse. What’s your name?’

‘Andra.’ So many questions to ask. What had happened? Why was she here, alive? The human words twisted and fled, left her grasping emptiness. Besides, humans lied. What they said could not be trusted. Still, she had to know. She had to ask. ‘Why?’

Mouse regarded her steadily, and seemed to understand. ‘You were hurt.’

She said this as if it was answer enough. But Andra knew humans did not help strangers for no reason, especially strangers who looked like her. But they had — whoever they were, they had taken her from the muddy street to shelter, watched over her dreams, done she-knew-not-what for her while she lay helpless.

They had not harmed her. Had left a child to watch her, and not even tied her hands, as might have been wise.

And this was strange, but not as strange as her being alive at all. Because with or without help, she should be dead. A gut wound always killed. She should have bled to death, and if not, the injured flesh would have rotted within her.

But she was not dying. Her gut hurt terribly, but not so much as it had. With each breath, air moved strongly in her lungs. She was weak as a newborn puppy, but not fevered, not sick. Somehow, she was healing.

That was wrong.

The pieces of herself felt wrong. Broken like shattered pottery, all jagged, disturbed, never to fit together as they once had. But in time, she would heal. She must only rest until she grew strong and could hunt again.

Then she would hunt the marked one. And this time, she would watch him die.

‘When I saw you,’ Mouse said. ‘I knew you would live. I knew you would help us. You will, won’t you?’