“You mean heal you.”
He inclined his head, a wry flicker of amusement ghosting across his expression. “I doubt your ability to do it, but one will turn to any port in a storm. Dirk has told you about my predicament then, yes?”
“You drank a corrupted version of the elixir from your philosopher’s stone and it poisoned you, right?”
“That’s the shortened version of it. I’ve been extending my life for centuries with that stone—something which is now polluted. I can’t make a new one until my body has been purged of the poison within me. At this rate, I only have a few months left to live anyway.”
I held out a hand to him. He hesitated and then, with a resigned sigh, he reached for me. His hand looked like porcelain left too long in the kiln: pale, fissured with thin red lines of alchemical scarring, the veins underneath shimmering faintly.
“Not pretty, is it?” he muttered.
“It’s not meant to be,” I said softly. I took his hand, my warmth against his cold, almost brittle skin. “Alchemy isn’t about being pretty. It’s about transformation.”
His magic answered my touch, a warm golden thread twined with green vitality. There was rot clinging to his soul, but with the smallest of nudges from the goddess, I was able to peel it back and reveal the unblemished spirit beneath. The faint scent of crushed herbs and ozone filled the air. The sigils tattooed on his knuckles shimmered, reacting to my aura and to the energy within me.
Klaus sucked in a breath. The faintest hint of color returned to his cheeks, but he didn’t pull away.
“Interesting,” he murmured, eyes flicking down to where our hands met. “Your energy… it’s honest. Warm. Kind.”
“Just like she is,” Andre said proudly. “And I don’t think it needs to be said, but if you have any negative intent towards her—“
“—I do not. So you can save yourself the lecture, Romeo.”
I couldn’t help but giggle at that.
Chapter Twenty-four
I shifted the wooden crate in my arms, careful not to jostle the glass bottles inside.
They clinked softly with every step I took, a faint chiming sound beneath the murmur of the cars on the street. The box smelled like my shop. A mix of herbs, honeyed alcohol, and the faint mineral tang of magic that clung to the corks. Some bottles were neatly labeled, their liquid contents glowing faintly through green and brown glass. Still others were wrapped in paper and twine. Those were my experiments for the week, and they made me a little nervous. But it was Roy’s order, not mine. If he stored them and they blew up, it was a risk he was willing to take.
Still, it made me queasy. I didn’t like making my friends guinea pigs.
“Stand up straight, girl. Skulking isn’t becoming of an alchemist or a lady.”
Klaus walked beside me, hands in his pockets, matching my stride. Every so often, he’d glance down at the box as if expecting one of the bottles to explode. Glad I wasn’t the only one worried about my progress... or lack thereof.
“I’m not a lady, Klaus. You’re not going to find many people who share your 17th-century sensibilities here.”
Klaus shrugged. “It’s a Hollow. I’m bound to meet all sorts here, including one or two creatures my age. Don’t you worry about my social circle, girly.”
It really hadn’t taken much time to heal him. I could still remember the way his breathing rattled, thin and uneven, like each gasp was something he had to chase just to stay tethered to this world. The poison had settled deep in him, deep and thorough. When I’d laid my hand over his heart, I could feel it—cold and wrong, crawling beneath his skin. So I did the only thing I could: I reached inward, past flesh and bone, past fear,to that quiet well where the goddess’s essence lived inside me. And her energy had answered my call. It had risen like warm light beneath my ribs, filling my lungs, my fingertips, until I could barely tell where I ended and she began. Then I pushed, gently and carefully, letting that divine warmth spill into the old man. In response, I’d felt the poison within him recoil, felt it peel away from his blood and seep out through his skin in a sickly rush. And when it was done, when the last thread of darkness was drawn out, his breathing steadied. He slept for two days afterwards. I knew because I’d come to check on him throughout both days. And then on the third day, he’d awakened like a new old man.
Well, a new but still crotchety old man.
It was then that he’d helped me to turn the ashes of Smith’s niece into the most beautiful amethyst I’d ever seen. Smith had been beyond grateful and that was enough for me.
From the outside, the Half-Moon Bar and Grill had a kind of folksy charm. Its wooden siding had long since faded to a weathered gray, and the paint on the sign above the porch was peeling in curling flakes. The crescent moon emblem caught the last traces of light while the smell of smoked meat and char drifted through the screen door, heavy enough to make my stomach twist with hunger.
A few pine benches sat along the wall near the entrance while the hostess—a girl from the local high school—stood waiting behind her podium. She brightened when she caught sight of us.
“Oh, hey, Poppy! Roy’s in the back. Want me to get him?”
“If you would,” I answered with a strained smile.
She led us through the hum of voices and the clatter of dishes to a booth tucked beneath a rounded window in the back.
It took me a moment to spot Roy, though once I did, I couldn’t imagine missing him. Roy stood out. Not because hewas flashy, but because he wasenormous, the kind of man who took up space just by being there. The red plaid shirt fit close across his chest, the sleeves rolled halfway up his strong forearms. His short brown hair and rough stubble gave him an easy, unpolished look. When his gray eyes met mine, they were warm—like he was happy to see me. We might have broken up a long time ago and each of us had found our soulmates in the interim, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a fondness still there. I felt an old echo of it when we looked at each other. I was happy for him. Fifi was a lucky girl.
