Page 2 of The Alchemists

All day, Lily sat in the stands, enraptured as people roughly her age wielded Æther for the sport of it. Even when her back ached and her legs fell asleep, she stayed. She did her homework in between bouts, books spilling out of her bag, laptop teetering on her knees. As evening bore down, she was torn between the train that would get her home in time for curfew and this new world—a world she’d been orbiting for years, but never truly felt a part of.

And then he came out.

From the moment he entered the arena, Lily knew he was different, though she couldn’t name why. The stadium hushed as the dark-haired youth strode across the court and took his place opposite his opponent with brisk purpose and effortless composure. The Æther was so heavy in the air that she could taste it, thick and golden as nectar on her tongue. Lily glanced down at her billing, catching the moment the program revealed the final match of the day: the one that would determine the National Junior Cantrèa Champion. His name rolled across the rich paper in aubergine script:

Sebastian Allsaires – Defending Champion, 17

Lily was going to miss her curfew; there was no hope for it, so she settled back, the wooden bleachers digging into her spine. She watched as the two boys handed over their spell-storing Orbs for inspection, as they donned their open helmets and touched foils before taking their starting positions.

Immediately, it was obvious he was going to win. Every move of the match seemed like a dance whose choreography he had already learned by heart before it happened. For all that, he didn’t play like anything was guaranteed. He played as if the game were not a game, as if it were sacred; as if it were life and death, and everything in between.

He moved with a fluid grace that Lily had never seen in the videos she’d devoured on the magical web, or the occasional cantrip-fueled spar at the Ætheric Study School she attended on the weekends. Even from this distance, Lily could see his total focus. It wasn’t even his skill that took her in most of all—it was his love, pure and absolute, for Magic itself. It poured off of him, telegraphed in his every movement. She understood for the first time what the instructors meant in her Ætheric classes when they said that you were meant to be a vessel, a conduit for Magic.

She watched them move back and forth over and over again between the magical and physical zones denoted by dark and light sand. As he fired his Fateful Lightning⁠* at his opponent from the Orb nestled in his off hand, it sizzled through the air and found its target with a mighty crack that left the entire arena smelling of ozone. Their foils hissed and flashed against each other, scoring physical points almost too quickly for her to follow. When he finally smashed his opponent’s Orb against the sand to end the match, Lily breathed for the first time in thirty minutes as the broken Orb’s swirling vapor dissipated into the air. As he peeled off his helmet, sweat dripping, his face cracked open with a joy that wrenched her heart.

She had to speak to him.

She waited on the sidewalk afterward for endless minutes, shoulder aching where her heavy bag weighed her down. More than once, she considered the very real possibility that he wouldn’t come out the front door, that maybe there were customary festivities underway inside and he wasn’t coming out at all. But she’d cast her lot, missed her train. She was already going to be grounded, so what was a bit more waiting?

Her stomach thrashed with nerves. She knew the Allsaires name—everyone did. They were one of the thirteen Great Houses and one of the families that almost always had a seat on the Tribunal. She’d never gone out of her way to introduce herself to another Magician, always kept to the shadows as taught, and her heart pounded with an anticipation that nearly rendered her senseless.

She watched the minutes tick, tick, tick by on her phone, and finally, there he was, rushing down the steps of the Dueling Club. His pea coat was open over a hoodie for his school—one of the exorbitantly expensive, private Ætheric prep schools—and his wet hair was plastered to his forehead. His enormous duffel bag thumped rhythmically against his side with each of his long strides. Lily gathered her nerves and stepped forward.

His name caught in her throat; the breath knocked out of her by a sudden impact. Her palms flashed with pain as they hit the sidewalk. She looked up, unsure what had happened; how he’d gotten from there to here so quickly. He turned back, startled as well, and she tried again, crouched on the pavement, his name formed on her lips. Then he looked down at her, through her, frowned, and walked away.

Lily remained frozen; her cheeks flushed in a way that had nothing to do with the bite of winter rushing down the streets. He had hit her. He had seen her, looked at her, and walked away as if she were nothing because she was nothing. Her eyes filled, undammed by the cruelty of sudden knowing, as she reached for her laptop, where it lay spilled on the pavement. She understood now why her mother’s voice had that bite of bitterness every time she spoke of magic, why her eyes had walls bricked up behind them.

Her heart broke as she picked up her laptop. The latch, its grip on life already tenuous, had broken, and the screen shattered. She shoved it into her bag, standing stiffly, stunned by all of it: how much could turn on the dime of a moment, how the best day could become the worst in a clutch of seconds.

It wasn’t until she stood alone, in the humid, underground heat of a tunnel, waiting for a train she should have gotten on two hours sooner, that she let herself begin to cry.

Professor Chant’s words pulled her out of the past, but how could she forget the past when Sebastian Allsaires was right there, only two rows ahead of her? He was seated between his roommates, vigorously writing in a soft-covered leather notebook, occasionally leaning over to whisper something. She looked down at her own blank page.

“As we all know, Magic craves balance. It’s right there in the fundamental laws, yes? ‘Nothing may be created from nothing’: law one. ‘From Æther to Æther. All is circular’: law two. Alchemy, too, is necessarily about balance and the work is often circular.

“We balance substance and magic to create something new and transformative. It may look from the outside as if we are creating out of nothing, but the Ætheric laws say, ‘not so.’” He looked around to make sure the class was following him. “We take a material substance, and we break it down to its component parts—naturally, the more essential and organic an element is, the harder it is to separate. A blade of grass is of course made of sun, and earth, and water, but the delineation between them is subtle and occurs at a fundamental level, which makes it harder to work. Anything inorganic, however, is much easier to separate into component parts.” He nudged at the laptop he’d pulled out of his satchel. “This laptop? I could break it down and reconstitute its elements into something fantastical by end of day. To an outside observer, it would appear as something entirely new, and in that perceived newness lies the power of alchemy.”

Once more his gaze swept the classroom, and Lily studiously avoided his eyes though she knew they had found her. When she looked up, he was looking back, and she realized that—perhaps for the first time—she was being seen, and her beholder was not flinching.

* Aegistics: The study of wards and protections. From the Greek Aigis, a mythical shield, and -ikos, meaning “pertaining to.”

* “He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword.” —Julia Ward Howe, “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (1862)

SEB

Seb focused all of his attention on the blackboard at the head of the classroom and the man in front of it. He had waited, he had studied, and he had made it in. Alchemy, one of the most esoteric of the Ætheric arts, had welcomed him at last, right on schedule, for his Cert Year. And it was almost perfect, flanked as he was by Asher and Tori; the only thing missing was Conrad.

No, don’t go there.

A few months ago, his brain might not have listened, but today it did. He hung his intensity on Professor Chant instead. That was easy; Chant was handsome, young, and brilliant, and the words flowing out of his mouth in his delicious, Welsh-tinged accent were very, very interesting.

“So,” he said, approaching the blackboard, chalk in hand. “Who can tell me what, exactly, alchemy is? Rudimentary, I know.” He grinned at them conspiratorially, dark eyes crinkling with mischief, and Seb couldn’t help grinning back. The room stayed quiet. “It’s not a trick question. I know no one wants to be the first one to be wrong, but I promise: you’ll all have plenty of chances to say something that belies your age and inexperience.”

Seb wanted to raise his hand. He didn’t. He worked too hard at making his studies look effortless, like his grades were the inevitable result of an overabundance of capability, to have that shattered in his final year of college by unchecked eagerness. He had plenty of talent, but no one did well at Windermere without putting in the hours.

“Anyone?” Chant raised an eyebrow in disappointment. A few hands reluctantly went up. “Ah, yes, Gemma. Thank you.”

As one, the class turned to look at Gemma. Seb was mildly surprised by her presence in alchemy given that she was doing her Certificate Year—the optional fifth and final year at Windermere, whose successful completion allowed graduates to work in magical jobs—in mental magic and her mundane major was psychology. She flushed, nearly matching her burgundy top.