“But this is not what you wanted,” I said. “Not what you thought would be here.”
“Of course not.” Her hand clenched around the vial again. “Thiscannotbe all there is.” She ran her free hand over the marble top of the shrine, prying at the edges, examining every inch, as Desmond took advantage of her distraction to shuffle closer to me. “He must have left notes.…”
“What notes?” I asked. “What are you looking for?”
“For mercy!” She whirled on us, eyes flashing. “When I realized what you’d found, I hoped—for the first time in more than a century—that he might have hadsomecompassion for me. That maybe all of this—the puzzles and whatever he’d buried beneath his precious Conservatory—was meant forme. That he hadn’t sentenced me to eternity after all.”
The truth washed over me like the glow of a lantern lit in a dark room. “You want a cure for immortality.”
“What else?” she roared, swiping the ancient dress onto the stone floor in a paroxysm of rage. “And it is…not…here!” She whirled around, and her gaze landed on me. “Butyouare here.” Something seemed to click behind her gaze, like a key turning in a lock. “And you.” Her focus shifted to Desmond, then to Wilder. “And him…”
“What do you want with us?” I asked, chills rising as gooseflesh all over my arms.
“Only what you’re already willing to give the Alchemary: your service.”
A growl wound its way up Desmond’s throat. “Why would we ever—”
“For him,” Iris snapped, waving her empty hand through the shadows at Wilder. Then she turned to me. “As Desmond knows and you have likely already come to understand, one of the central pillars of the Alchemary is the idea that an alchemist’s dedication to their craft—and to this institution—does not end in death. That matter—the body—can serve science, even after the mind and soul have passed on. We’ve always interpreted that edict as a dedication of the alchemist’s corpse as components for the craft—an ashes-to-ashes sort of approach. But I’ve spent more than a century developing another way for alchemists to serve past death.”
She stepped over the dress crumpled on the stone floor to gesture at Wilder. “Or rather, to suspend the animation of the human body, which is only possible on the very verge of expiry. And that was his state, when I saw him in the infirmary. I had no other choice. It was either this or death.”
“Thisisdeath,” I said through clenched teeth, my heart aching as my gaze lingered on Wilder’s vacant expression. “This is the death of hiswill. Of hisautonomy.”
“Perhaps,” she allowed. “And yet, heisliving. Or, more accurately, he is dying very, very slowly.” Iris slowly paced the floor in front of him, her shadow shifting across the stone walls of Calyx’s…catacomb. “I’ve induced a state of biological dormancy, which allows me to take control of his physical function. I can tighten my grip.…”
She lifted her left hand, and when she clutched it into a fist, Wilder shuddered and collapsed to the dusty floor, his joints cracking and bending at odd angles.
“Stop!” I shrieked, lurching toward him, until Desmond pulled me back, one arm tucked firmly around my waist. “Let him up!”
“Or I can loosen it.” Iris spread her fingers wide, and Wilder blinked, then he stood, more swiftly than should have been possible, and for one instant, I saw something in the fleeting clarity of his expression that I recognized.
He was still in there. Wilder wasalive, inside the golden shell of his body.
“Let him go!” I demanded, and Desmond’s grip on me tightened for a second.
“I cannot,” Iris said. “If I release my control of him, that biological dormancy will end, and he will die. Unless…” She lifted the vial. “I am prepared to make you an offer. Both of you.” She glanced at Wilder, just as his expression emptied into that disturbingly blank look. “All three of you, actually. The three brightest minds this institution has seen since Calyx died. Together, you might actually rival him.”
“What are you offering?” Desmond demanded, finally releasing me.
“I will give your brother a drop from this vial,” she said. “Just enough to bring him back from the brink of death, so I can loosen my hold on him.”
“Give him all of it,” I demanded. “Cure him. Let him go.”
“No,” she snapped. “Even if I could do that, it would be unfair to him. I would not sentence him to the very fate I’m trying to escape, and if you were thinking clearly, you would not ask me to. Do you think he wants to live to see both of you wither and die? To go on living after everyone he loves has passed on? Whether or not you spend that interval entangled in your own desire, in utter disregard for his affection.”
I had no answer. In the moment, I didn’t care what Wilder wanted, or what an infinite future might bring. I just wanted him back.
Iris paced across the uneven stones toward us, brushing aside a cobweb dangling from the low ceiling. “I will give him enough to reverse what the poisonous gas did to him, but you will need the rest of the Elixir in order to hold up your end of our deal. You will analyze what is left and use it to come up with the formula. And you will usethatto find a way to reverse it.”
“You want us to cure you,” Desmond said. “Why would we do that? Why would we do anything you want?”
“Wewill!” I said, shooting a look at Desmond as I grabbed his hand to silence him. “You havemyword.” Then I nodded at Wilder. “Fix him. Now.”
Iris cocked one brow in Desmond’s direction, and when he nodded, somewhat hesitantly, she uncorked the vial and turned to stand in front of Wilder. He opened his mouth at some unspoken signal from her, and she dipped her finger into the serum. When she pulled it out, a single drop of a thick, viscous, coppery liquid clung to her fingertip, already forming a bulbous tip as it was pulled toward the ground.
She held her finger over Wilder’s extended tongue just as that drop gave way.
The coppery drip flattened on his tongue, and his entire golden form seemed to shudder. He closed his mouth. He blinked, then he blinked again. Slowly, the golden sheen seemed to fade from his skin.
