Then the moment’s gone, and Rudra turns, melting into the night, shouting for the others to get out. One of Lumines’s men hits an officer in the neck with a bullet—the man snaps back and collapses to the ground. Another crewman—Ari can’t even tell which syndicate, in this chaos—lunges at another officer and the man screams, shaking, as the alchemist transmutes his helmet into his skin until the two are fused.
There is gunfire everywhere. Ari turns toward the gate in the distance. The police are closing in now—this is the end.
He’s about to sprint when a figure darts before him and yanks him into the bushes.
That’s when he hears her voice.
“We can’t go this way. Follow me.”
It’s Sam.
It’s Sam.
They lock eyes for a moment and Ari thinks he’s dreaming. She’s been hurt—her cheeks look bruised from a beating, and there are bandages around her wrists that are stained crimson with blood.
But she is alive.
By sheer will or wit or madness, she has somehow survived.
“Follow me,” she says, and grabs his hand.
Everywhere they look, there is fire and blood and the sound of rage.There is no winning this—they can clearly see the ring of police closing in, their ranks thickening.
Ari and Sam make their way along the wall until they come through a thicket of bushes farther down the hill, where a complex of buildings comes into view.
“This is the Observatory,” Sam tells him breathlessly. “Where the alchemists train. Under the floors is a tunnel. Every building has one.”
“Where does it lead?” he asks.
“Out to the back street,” she replies. “It’s the alley that runs behind the estate.”
He nods, taking her hand in his. She winces, but clutches him tightly. They don’t have much time left.
Behind them, the battle rages on. They disappear into the thickets of ivy blanketing the complex’s gates, then make their way through a building and out into a courtyard. For a moment, Ari slows down and takes in the space. Evening lights illuminate the base of the oak trees, and in the center of the courtyard, he sees a vast mosaic of tiles, each a different element.
In the shadows near the edge of the courtyard, Sam bends down and searches for a specific stone tile. There, she presses her hand against it—and transmutes the slab of concrete into a smooth slab of brass, her hand on the knob that opens it. When she pulls up, it reveals not solid ground but a tunnel yawning down into blackness.
She pushes herself to her feet and looks at Ari. But Ari is no longer looking at her. He’s staring at a shape that has materialized behind her out of the shadows of the oaks, his figure turned directly toward them.
It is Will.
[…] but certain emotions remain a curiosity in the field of bioalchemy. Love, for instance. One can transmute all the oxytocin and serotonin a body can stand, wreak so much joy on a person as to make them delirious—and yet, one cannot transmute love reliably into another. Alchemy cannot create nor destroy love. Alchemy cannot force love to bend to its will. Love, for better or worse, is its own mysterious force.
“Paradoxes in Bioalchemy Pathways”
by Kepler, Oct. 17, 1946
