“No,” said Cathal. He knew already whom the letter would be from, and the messenger dwindled into a vague shape and a vaguer sound. Cathal walked away and climbed the stairs to his solar, only opening the seal once he was alone. If Valerius had included any magic with his message, it would be well for Cathal not to be around people.
There was no magic. There was very little: only a few words.
Have you reconsidered yet? Time grows. Your friend shrinks.
V.
Nine
Sophia didn’t hear anything until the door opened.
Looking back, she wasn’t surprised. True, Cathal was a large man and had no reason to walk quietly, but she’d always been able to shut out the world. It had been a source of Words in her youth, when she’d immersed herself in a book and let stew boil over, or stared out the window contemplating a new theory while seven-year-old Aaron spread blue dye liberally over his hands and clothing. She’d grown into the habit rather than out of it.
The last of her ingredients was just achieving coagulation. She could watch the faintly orange liquid in the beaker become solid, but shehadto be standing by with the rest of the assembled mixture, now dark and murky in its golden chalice. The final step wouldn’t be a split-second matter, but a minute one way or another could flaw the whole experiment.
And so, when the door creaked open behind her, she didn’t take her eyes from her apparatus. “I’m fine, Alice. I’ll come and eat after this,” she said, her voice edged. She’dtoldAlice that morning of her likely schedule. Her friend usually had a better memory for such things, and more consideration when they were happening.
“What’s ‘this’?” Cathal asked, sounding far from calm himself. “And how much longer will you take at it?”
She did turn then—just her head and just long enough to see him standing in the doorway with his arms over his chest and glaring at her, the apparatus, or both.
A second later, she spun back to look at the beakers. The break in her concentration had done no harm, but the demand rankled—and she disliked how quickly she’d turned to see him. She hissed through her teeth. “Not an hour more, if it goes well. My attention will be vital to ensuring that it does.”
“Oh aye,” he said, a bit meeker now. “And what part of the process will that be?”
“The end of this experiment, I shouldhope,” she said. “Ash is the devil itself to distill, you might be interested to know, and all the worse when I’m working with dried leaves rather than fresh ones.”
“Don’t you need holly? Or yew?”
“I might, in time. Saturn is tricky. Best to restore the solar forces first, if I can, and then proceed from there as needed.” She dared a glance back over one shoulder. “Would you like me to draw up a plan for your perusal, my lord? I can, though it may well change dramatically. I’m very much in unknown waters here, as I believe I mentioned at the first.”
“No,” he said and cleared his throat. “Won’t be necessary. I just…” He glanced down at his hands. One was a fist with something in it. Cathal stuffed whatever it was into the pouch at his belt. “I wished to know. Not unreasonable, is it?”
“Wishes have very little to do with reason,” Sophia said sharply, turning back to the apparatus. Then, thinking better of herself, she added, “But it’s a compassionate thing to fear for your friend, and I’ve no objection to telling you. I’d have answered your questions at dinner just as well, if you’d asked them then.”
“I hadn’t thought to ask before,” he admitted.
“And now you have,” she said. Had she been able to face Cathal for any length of time, she’d have given him a quizzical look. “I won’t pry…” She of all people could understand the desire for knowledge, and he’d forgiven her own trespasses, or however the Christian prayer had it. “And perhaps I should have told you to begin with, but it’s not safe just to walk in without notice.”
“No?”
“I meditate before I start each phase of an experiment. If my mind’s impure or my concentration insufficient”—she gestured outward—“then the process may fail. All beginnings require clarity, particularly in a matter that’s spiritual in itself. Fergus’s cure, if it exists, will involve more than boiled herbs. I must makesomecontact with greater forces.”
“What sort of contact?”
Now Sophia could feel his gaze, startled and maybe a shade uneasy, on the back of her neck. He was a fine one to talk, considering his bloodline. She didn’t point that out, but merely shrugged. “Nothing as blatant as your saints claim. There exists a feeling, a state of mind…Connectionis perhaps the simplest way to put it. If I can achieve that before I begin, my work is much more likely to succeed.”
Cathal was silent. She could hear his breathing, low and regular. Despite the task before her, not to mention her exasperation, her whole body prickled in response to the sound.
“There are also practical considerations,” she said, breaking the silence. “And those are more dangerous. I work with open flame here, you notice, and at times with volatile substances. I did, I believe, mention the occasional catastrophe. The timing is…There.”
The substance in the beaker shivered into its final form, turning from orange to the golden-red of the sunrise, clear enough to see through, yet as motionless as the glass surrounding it. Losing track of all else, Sophia seized the tongs, grasped the beaker, and pulled it off the flame. Only then did she let out her breath.
“We have a minute,” she said, conscious again of Cathal standing behind her. “It must cool slightly first…but only slightly.”
She set the beaker on the table, put down the tongs, and held her right hand an inch from the glass, feeling the heat pressing against her palm.
“What is that?” Cathal asked.
