“Powdered topaz, originally. The most difficult of the ingredients, as you might imagine, for it’s most reluctant to give up its form. Indeed, only with the proper state of mind and the right alignment of the planets will any of the stages work on it. It took years before I had either the money or the confidence to handle it at all.” She smiled, remembering how proud she’d been that first successful time, and then realized she was rambling. “Yet its virtue is most potent, and it will heal most merely physical ailments, when its power is applicable.”
“Oh.” He sounded surprised by the flow of information, but also…amused or admiring. She couldn’t decide which—perhaps both. So many elements made up a human being, and perhaps there were even more in Cathal, blend as he was of human and not.
The heat had abated. She moved her hand to rest against the beaker and found that she could leave it there for the count of ten seconds. “It’s ready.”
Pouring the topaz into the rest of the mixture required steady, slow care, so she grasped the beaker with the tongs once more and took a long breath to keep her hands still. Smoothly she brought the glass vessel up over the golden goblet, and smoothly she turned it, letting the contents begin to pour out.
Bright touched dark. Sophia heard a sound like a low bell. Then a tongue of golden fire sprang up from the goblet, as wide as the cup itself and half again as high. The top of it wavered just below her hand holding the beaker. She could feel the heat, just as she had earlier, but now it was greater, and far from comfortable. She pressed her lips together and went on.
At the first appearance of the flame, she’d heard Cathal catch his breath. He was breathing again as Sophia kept still and tilted the beaker further toward the goblet, but his breaths were quicker. He might have stepped closer too, though he was holding still from all she could tell. She didn’t have the leisure to look at him.
The purified topaz kept flowing into the rest of the mixture. Sophia watched it but couldn’t see how it was blending because the flame obscured the surface of the goblet.Itgrew and changed, shifting from deep, almost brassy gold to a clearer, paler shade, like midday light in spring. The heat increased too—and then the flame stretched upward, licking at her skin.
It hurt. She yelped. Dignity had never been of much concern to her. She’d done most of her experiments alone, with none to impress and few to hear. She’d learned to hold herself still and cry out at the same time, and now her hands never moved, even as her voice ascended to a lark-like height and shaped a very unbirdlike “Yeow!”
Boots moved on stone.
She felt Cathal’s body, inches from her own, and in the same voice cried out, “No!”
For a mercy, that stopped him in his tracks. Sophia clenched her free hand in the folds of her skirt, breathed twice through her nose, and finally said in a low but steady voice, “I can’t move yet.”
“You’re hurt,” he said, though he made no further move toward her.
“I’ll heal. It’s almost done.”
Indeed it was. The beaker was almost empty, only a last few drops remaining. Sophia tilted the tongs once more and watched through blurry eyes as they fell in. Pain ran sharp and insistent from the side of her hand up through her arm; tears ran down her cheeks with it. She ran her tongue around her lips and tasted them, mingled with her own sweat.
And then itwasdone, the beaker empty. Slowly, wanting to be fast and therefore deliberately taking her time, she pulled her hand away, out of the flame. Slowly she set both beaker and tongs down on the table. With her other arm, she wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked back at the goblet.
The flames were dying down, now barely dancing along the rim. Inside, the substance had turned to red-gold, translucent and almost glowing.
She breathed out a prayer in Hebrew: thanks and praise.
“I don’t know precisely what effect it will have,” she said, turning to Cathal. He was standing rigid, a soldier on parade or a knight at vigil, staring at her. “But I am convinced it will dosomething. There are bandages in that trunk in the corner and also salve, if you would be so kind.”
The base of her hand, from the tip of her little finger to the bracelet of tiny lines between palm and wrist, was bright red. Odds were it would blister, and it was a truly awkward place for a burn. Still, it could have been far worse, and she had succeeded. Sophia leaned against the table and let herself grin.
“That must hurt like the very devil,” said Cathal, coming back with the items she’d requested. He peered from her hand to her face and shook his head.
Sophia laughed, giddy in the aftermath of both injury and success. “It’s pain. It exists. Then it doesn’t. On this scale, I can exist alongside it; it doesn’t consume me. Surely you’ve felt the same.”
“Aye,Ihave,” he said, “but you’re… Nae, never mind. Hold out your hand, please.”
She did, but couldn’t resist asking, “A woman? A mortal?”
“And a civilian.”
“Such heavy weights for me to bear.”
The salve was cool and instantly soothing; she’d been making it for a long time. The sharp smell of barberry wafted to her nose, reminding Sophia of August days back home, the late-summer sun and the sounds of people passing outside the garden wall. She closed her eyes for a second, and then felt Cathal’s fingers stroking down her wrist past the end of the burn, far more vivid than memory, spreading warmth in their wake that was as pleasant as the flame had been painful.
Before she thought about what she was doing, she leaned toward him, her body alive to his presence and, as if of its own accord, seeking more warmth and contact. Cathal’s hand on her wrist went still in response, and she heard him make a sound low in his throat, not quite a hum but not yet a growl.
When he let go of her hand, she opened her eyes. Cathal hadn’t drawn back. He stood a few inches from her still, and she was staring at the hollow of his neck, where his collar parted to show pale skin. Sophia couldn’t make herself lift her eyes to his face. Her own cheeks were already starting to flame, both with embarrassment and with the desire that she could neither deny nor banish. She didn’t want to read rejection in his eyes, and God forbid she see kindness there.
When he took her hand again, this time to wrap it in bandages, Sophia made herself stand very still and think about formulas. That didn’t work entirely, but it kept her from doing anything else foolish, even if she was far too aware of every brush of his skin against hers. As he knotted the bandage, she tried to think of a single dignified thing to say—and couldn’t.
Then she realized that Cathal still held her hand, his fingers light around hers. He did step back as she watched, but only so that he could bow low over it, then brush his lips over her knuckles. It was only a second, but the feeling ran through Sophia like flame itself, taking the breath from her lungs.
