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

A scuff of boots on dirt: someone was outside. Andra tensed, the cellar wall hard against her back. Pain throbbed in her gut.

Three days since she had woken, three days of rest and careful effort, of relearning her own body, all so she could stand, just, if she leaned on the wall, and take a few steps. She couldn’t fight. Couldn’t run.

And now another dawn sent sunlight creeping down the cellar steps toward the three blanket-huddled bodies still snuffling in sleep. Beyond them, in the far corner, a narrow stairway led down, but only into a lower room, dark and dripping. Rats lived there.

Light footsteps pattered down the steps, bringing with them a breath of outside air to stir the stale stink of humans, rats, and damp.

Mouse. And the heavier footsteps following, that would be Boss.

Andra relaxed, muscle by muscle, the pain in her gut easing. Mouse and Boss had gone out earlier, now they returned, and there was no one else with them. That was all right. Five denned in the cellar, five she knew now as names and faces, distinct scents and voices and noise. She’d seen no others.

Mouse clutched a loaf of bread. Boss scowled at the sleepers. ‘Food up, gits.’

Blankets stirred and groaned. Slight’s head emerged, all pale tousled hair and sharp features. ‘What you got?’

The small dark-haired boy, Tick, rubbed his eyes. The big one, Lump, shrugged off his blanket and lumbered over to Mouse.

She slapped away his reaching hand. ‘No.’

‘But I’m hungry,’ he said.

Lump towered over Mouse. She was the smallest of them, and he was biggest — full-grown, Andra assumed, though he had the clumsy awkwardness of a much younger child. He could easily take the loaf from Mouse, but he held back, only following the bread with his eyes.

Mouse walked over to Andra. She offered her the loaf. ‘Here.’

Andra shook her head.

‘You got to eat,’ Mouse said.

The wound had closed to a pink puckering of skin, the pain less each day, with no sign of infection, no redness, no swelling, only an infernal itch she couldn’t scratch. The inside damage though, the unseen injury, that was unknowable, and to eat might be dangerous — but Mouse was right. She must eat, and soon.

Healing so quickly and cleanly from such a wound was unnatural, as unnatural as the claws on her hands. The healing must be fed by something. Her muscles had grown thin and weak because her body was eating itself.

To recover her strength, she must eat, and human foods might be better than nothing.

She dug her claws into the crust. The bread didn’t smell or look like food, and in her mouth it felt like dust and tasted of nothing. Chewing turned it to mush. She wanted to spit it out, but seeing the look on Mouse’s face, she forced herself to swallow.

Mouse offered her the bread again.

Andra shook her head. Her stomach churned. ‘I eat animal. Meat.’

‘Meat!’ Boss laughed. ‘Oh, yeah. Buy her steak, why not.’

Boss wasn’t as tall as Lump, but bigger than the three small ones. Andra thought she was the oldest — adult, or nearly so. She spoke with forceful confidence and expected the others to defer to her, which they usually did.

Slight rolled to her feet. She stood no taller than Mouse, her twisted body so hunched she squinted sideways at the world. ‘Don’t remember the last time I had meat.’

‘I had sausage once.’ Lump smiled happily. ‘I like sausage.’

Slight groaned.

‘You want sausage, get out and steal some,’ Boss said. ‘Or shut up and be thankful for bread.’

Slight looked thoughtful. ‘I know where there’s meat.’

Boss spread her hands, gesturing to the walls. ‘Near here, was it?’

‘Not far. I seen it. There’s a shop down Shear Street. All dead sheep and pigs all hung on hooks.’

‘And what good is that to us? It’s not laying round for the taking is it?’

‘Nah.’ Slight drew a picture in the air with her hands, too quick for Andra to follow. ‘Small window low down. High wall round the yard though. Gate locked at night. And there’s a dog.’

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Tick raised his head. He was another small one, all knees and elbows. As usual he sat cross-legged on his blanket, surrounded by bits of metal. He hoarded such things — broken and twisted pieces, not shiny — and played with them, all day, hardly moving or speaking. Even food didn’t interest him much.

‘Does the shop-keep live there?’ he said.

It was so unusual for him to ask a question, everyone stared.

‘Yeah,’ Slight said. ‘Sleeps over the shop.’

‘I know how to get past the dog,’ Tick said.

Boss crossed her arms. ‘Don’t talk daft.’

Tick shook his head. ‘We could if we wanted. We could get some meat.’

‘Shut up,’ Boss said.

Tick drooped. He picked up a round piece of metal and turned it in his fingers: this way, that way, back again. He might do this for hours.

‘Tick’s not daft,’ Mouse said. ‘He has good ideas sometimes.’

Boss glared at her. ‘We take meat, that’s not kids stuff, not like swiping apples from a stall. They catch us, they’ll feed us to the dog.’

‘But if we could do it,’ Slight said. ‘We can sell the meat. For coin. Enough for sausage every day. Beer even.’

‘Yeah,’ Boss said. ‘Or dead, more like.’

‘Tick, are you sure about the dog?’ Mouse asked.

Tick didn’t look up. He selected another bit of metal and twisted the two pieces together as if nothing else existed in the world. Then he nodded.

And everyone looked at Boss.

Settled comfortably with her back to the wall, Andra watched. The conversation puzzled her, the words too quick and hard to follow, but there was something familiar here, something she almost understood. They were strangely interesting, these young humans.

Alchemical symbol: Zinc [https://i.imgur.com/db6WC9b.png]

‘She ain’t coming,’ Sparrow said. Hunched in his over-large blue coat, he idly kicked the wall of the roofless temple. The painted image of the burning angel loomed over him with its painted sword raised for vengeance, or protection, or whatever angels did.

Zult squinted at the sky. Midday they’d said; hard to tell with the sun only a fuzzy lightness behind grey clouds. ‘Early yet.’

‘Isidro’ll be pissed if she’s stiffed us.’ Sparrow turned his back on the angel. He sniffed loudly and wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘That woman of yours—’

‘Not mine.’

‘Yeah. Still the same?’

Zult looked away. A few months ago this place had been a chapel, full of dour old northers praying to their god, and now the altar collected empty glass jars and the corners smelled of piss.

The alchemist girl stood in the doorway, a dark shawl clutched round her head and shoulders, her face very pale. She stared directly at him, and flinched, and dropped her gaze.

Zult couldn’t blame her for that. Red and livid, the new scars ran in parallel lines from under his left eye, across his nose to the other cheek. That mad clawed creature had split him like a herring. It healed, of course, the flesh had knit together, but as usual the scars itched something awful, and it wasn’t pretty.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the itch without scratching. He’d been ugly enough before his face got ripped open. Now he was something to give kids nightmares, and she was just a kid really, small and scared and trying not to show it.

‘You’re late.’ Sparrow met her halfway. ‘Got it?’

She fumbled a bottle from her pocket. Clear liquid sloshed inside.

Sparrow frowned. ‘Is that all?’

The girl nodded. ‘Enough to treat ten gallons.’ She handed Sparrow the bottle.

He squinted at the liquid. ‘Don’t look much. Looks like water.’

‘I don’t recommend drinking it,’ she said. ‘Buy oil-based paint, the best you can afford. Mix in the additive just before use. As soon as it’s exposed to air, it starts to cure. The pigment will bond to whatever it touches, including you and your clothes, so take care. Paint brushes aren’t much use afterwards either.’

‘But how do we know it works?’

She shrugged. ‘It works.’

‘We’ll have to try it.’ Sparrow tucked the bottle into his coat. ‘Three days. Be here at midday.’

‘Ten forints on delivery was what you said.’

‘Can’t pay until we know it works, can we?’

‘But—’ Her voice rose. ‘We had an agreement.’

‘You can wait three days.’

‘But we need money now.’ She turned to Zult, appealing for support. ‘This isn’t fair.’

‘Pay her,’ Zult said.

Sparrow scowled. ‘What?’

‘A deal’s a deal, man.’ Zult offered the girl a sympathetic smile, though with his face, he wasn’t sure it helped much. ‘We trusted her before. If she meant to stiff us, she wouldn’t have come back, would she?’

Sparrow turned on him. He hardly came up to Zult’s chin. ‘You telling me what to do?’

Careful not to smile, Zult shook his head. ‘Just saying. It’s wrong, is all.’

‘Wrong!’ Sparrow fairly spat the word. ‘There’s no damn right, no damn wrong. Just what you get away with. The strong tread on the weak, and that’s how it is. No bugger ever did right by me because it was fair.’

‘Well.’ Zult frowned. He’d never thought about it enough to argue one way or the other — only he felt the girl should have her money. He shifted his weight. ‘Maybe so. And maybe we should do better, if we can.’

‘Isidro put me in charge of this. Me, not you. You think those snakes make you better than me?’ Sparrow glared into Zult’s face like a bantam-cock spoiling for a fight with a mastiff. ‘Go on, hit me. I dare you.’

Zult crossed his arms. ‘If you weren’t such a little damn fool, I would, and we’d both be sorry.’

Tempted as he was to swat Sparrow like a fly, it wouldn’t go down well with Isidro. The Shepherds didn’t trust Zult yet. In a gang, you had to earn trust, and you had to rub along with folks, even when they were jerks. It wasn’t always easy.

‘I can wait,’ the girl said quickly, her small voice breaking the silence. ‘It’s all right. Three days?’

Sparrow stepped back, not taking his eyes off Zult. ‘Three days. Ten forints — if the stuff works as you say.’