‘Pants. As in underpants. It means rubbish.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘Basically, I’m the worst alchemist in history. Rocks keep beating me. It’s embarrassing.’
‘You’re good enough to kill Bringers,’ he pointed out. ‘Which is better than everyone else.’
She gave him a grateful smile.
‘I wish you’d been out there to say that to Louisa.’
‘Is it the same problem?’ he asked. ‘The control part?’
She nodded. ‘Louisa says I’m a nuclear missile with no sense of direction.’
His lips twitched. ‘Harsh.’
‘Right?’
Sacha’s face grew serious again. His fingers tapped the heavy book still open in front of him – the only sign he gave that he was concerned.
‘What do you think it is? What’s holding you back? I mean, I’ve seen you control your power and make it look easy.’
His voice betrayed no judgement, but Taylor hesitated. She was reluctant to say ‘I don’t know’ to him. His life – everything – depended on her figuring out how to be a brilliant alchemist. And right now, she wasn’t.
‘It’s hard to control it when there’s no one standing there trying to kill me… I mean, us,’ she said after a long pause. ‘I’m better than I was, but I still lose control, and I don’t know why. Louisa says I just need practice. But we haven’t got much time.’
‘You’ll get there,’ he said. ‘Just keep trying.’
If he was nervous – afraid she’d fail and let him die – he was hiding it well.
Not wanting him to see how worried she was, Taylor picked a book up from the stack on the table. The title was in French, and it took her a second to translate it.
‘The Burnings of Carcassonne.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Cheery.’
‘Yeah… Uh, Taylor, I really don’t…’
He reached out as if to take it from her, but she’d already flipped it open. The first page held an engraved image of a blazing pyre. A woman stood atop it, hands tied behind her back. Even in the rough lines of the engraving, her face was contorted with fear and pain.
Sacha said quietly, ‘That book is quite disturbing.’
Taylor didn’t reply. She didn’t need to.
They didn’t know much about the curse that threatened his life, but they knew it started with Isabelle Montclair, one of Taylor’s ancestors. An alchemist who lived in France in the seventeenth century, Isabelle had rejected her upbringing and the beliefs of her own people and turned to demonology – which alchemists called ‘Dark practice’. Like many alchemists of her time, she was burned as a witch. But two things made her execution different.
The person who burned her was Sacha’s ancestor.
And, as she died, she’d used some unknown Dark practice to curse his family for thirteen generations.
Because of that curse issued long ago, over the centuries twelve first-born sons in his family had died.
Sacha was the thirteenth.
Taylor turned pages restlessly as if clues might leap up and offer themselves to her.
‘Is there anything in here? About the curse?’
‘Nothing new. The burning of Isabelle Montclair is mentioned, but the information is limited. It’s never what we need.’
He slammed the old book shut so suddenly, Taylor had to yank her fingers out of the way.
‘There must be more information somewhere about how to undo a curse like this. There are thousands of books about alchemy and Dark practice in this library. The information we’re looking for has to be here. It just has to be.’
Taylor could hear the frustration in his voice. She wished there was something she could say to make this better, but the simple truth was, they had to understand this curse if they were going to stop it from killing him. And the alchemists at St Wilfred’s had been researching it for years without success. Sacha’s birthday was seven days away.
It was all starting to feel hopeless.
‘It’s here,’ she assured him, reaching for another book from the stack in front of him. ‘We’ll find it. I’ll help you.’
Sacha didn’t argue. But as she flipped through an old French book she could only barely understand, he didn’t pick up another book. Instead he stood up and stretched, his black t-shirt riding from the top of his jeans to expose the tawny skin of his flat stomach.
‘I’ve been looking at these books all day,’ he said. ‘I need to get out of here.’ He glanced at her, a rakish glint in his eye. ‘Let’s go throw some rocks.’
Three
Ten minutes later, they were walking rapidly across the courtyard in the afternoon sunlight. Sacha slid his sunglasses on, ignoring the curious looks from the students they passed. Unlike Taylor, he very much liked the feeling of being watched and whispered about. He thought it was funny.
There goes that French boy who knows the day he’s going to die.
What a ridiculous thing to be famous for.
‘Louisa will flip when she realises we’re gone.’ Taylor looked as anxious as if they’d just stolen a car.
Sacha tried not to smile.
She obeyed all the rules, all the time. It was adorable and frustrating in equal measures. The world was literally ending and she still wanted to ask permission to go outside.
‘If we solve your control problems, Louisa will forgive us,’ he reminded her.
‘I doubt that,’ Taylor muttered. But she kept walking.
Blonde curls had sprung free from the clip holding her hair back, tumbling down to surround her face in a golden halo. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat.
She glanced up, catching him looking.
‘What?’ she asked, lifting a hand to her hair self-consciously.
Quickly, Sacha looked away. ‘Nothing.’
As they left the quadrangle and turned into a shadowed archway leading past the science building, Sacha hurried his steps. He was eager to get out of here, even for a few minutes.
He didn’t mind the stares but he didn’t like this college. He didn’t fit in at St Wilfred’s at all. It wasn’t really about the language – his English was good. It was simply the fact that he wasn’t an alchemist and everyone else was.
He was out of place.
Reminders of his normality were everywhere. The professors conducting research in the library pulled books down without reaching for them. Earlier that day he’d watched one of them heat a cold cup of tea, as far as he could tell, just by glancing at it.
He knew there was more to alchemy than that, but he couldn’t see it. Taylor had told him about streams of energy and molecules but these were invisible to him. All he saw was how different he was from everyone else here. How ordinary.
His otherness mattered. It made him feel left out, even when he was right in the centre of things.
When they came to a door hidden in the shadows at the edge of the quad, Sacha reached for the door handle automatically before realising there wasn’t one. His hand hung in the air for a second, as if confused about what it was doing there.
‘I have to do it,’ Taylor said, a hint of apology in her voice.
He stepped back, watching as she pressed her fingertips against the door. Instantly, the lock clicked and the heavy door swung open.
Sacha had seen her do much more astonishing things than unlock a door, but he marvelled at how nonchalant she was about it lately. She expressed doubt constantly, but he could see her growing more unconsciously confident every day. She wasn’t afraid of what she could do, or who she was anymore.
Following her through the door, he found himself standing at the edge of a broad green expanse of grass and wildflowers, wild and untamed. He stared at the field in open astonishment. Taylor had told him about it, but he had never seen it for himself. He was forbidden from leaving the college for any reason. The dean had been quite firm on the subject and Sacha had been kept within the university’s walls since he arrived.
Now he felt like he was stepping into another world.
Getting his freedom back.
Some of the tension that had kept him tight as a wire for days left his body. He stood still for a second, taking it all in. Already several steps down the path, Taylor turned to look at him.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ Shoving his hands into his pockets, he stepped onto the footpath to join her.
He took a deep breath – the air smelled of sweet grass and wildflowers. The ground was soft beneath his feet. After weeks spent trapped in dusty old rooms, this was wonderful.
He could hear traffic sounds in the distance – real life was out there, somewhere. But it seemed far away.
‘This is heaven, I think,’ he said, tilting his face up to the sun.
Taylor glanced at him with a knowing smile. ‘Glad to be out of the library?’
Still looking up, he nodded. The very thought of going back to those books made him want to start running and never stop. Finally, he lowered his gaze to hers.
‘The worst part isn’t the reading,’ he confided. ‘Or the students who gossip about us like they expect me to be able to fly or something. The worst part is the professors.’
‘I know, right?’ Taylor said. ‘That guy with a beard…’
Sacha made a face. ‘He is awful. I was studying on the ground floor in that room for a while but I had to move because he keeps sneezing. Really loudly. Each time he does it, he looks at me like it’s my fault.’
She laughed. ‘Seriously?’
‘I think he’s allergic to French people.’
She laughed harder then, and it struck Sacha it had been a long time since he’d heard her laugh like that.
Everything had been so serious lately.
‘What about you?’ he asked.
Her smile faded.
‘You know about me.’ She looked away. ‘I come out here every day. I try really hard. And I mess up.’
They walked in silence for a while. Sacha shoved his hands back in his pockets, stealing sideways glances at her. Her brow was furrowed, and she seemed lost in her own worries.
He knew how much she wanted to succeed. He wanted to tell her not to be so hard on herself – it would be the kind thing to do – but if he was honest, each time she told him how something in her training hadn’t worked, it hit him like a punch in the gut. However much she wanted to succeed, he wanted it – needed it – more.
He desperately needed her to be strong enough to fight the Dark practitioner. Strong enough to help him. He hated that he couldn’t save himself. It wasn’t fair that so much of the responsibility fell on Taylor’s shoulders. They’d only known each other a few weeks, and now she had to save his life.
That was why he spent every day in the library. Why he buried himself in old French books.
He had to contribute something to his own salvation.
And he wasn’t about to put more pressure on Taylor now.
‘You’re getting better,’ he assured her.
She glanced up at him, doubt filling her cool green eyes.
‘You are,’ he insisted. ‘You can’t see it because all you notice are the things you can’t do. I see all the things you can do. And you are getting better.’
They’d walked several steps before she replied, her voice so low he wasn’t certain at first that he understood what she’d said. ‘Not fast enough.’
Before he could think of a response to that she pointed ahead, changing the subject.
‘That’s where we’re going.’
She quickened her pace, speeding to where a silver ribbon of river curved through the trees. Sacha hurried after her, down a few stone steps to a weathered stone boathouse near the river’s edge.
A breeze rolled off the slow-moving water, blowing his hair into his eyes. The air smelled green and damp. It was cooler down here than up at the school.
‘This is it.’ Taylor threw open her arms. ‘This is where I go every day.’
Aside from the boathouse and an old bench, there was nothing here except a muddy shore and a graceful weeping willow tree dangling its long branches into the water, which tugged and pulled at its leaves. It was quiet and isolated – the perfect place to train.
Picking a pebble up from the damp sand, Sacha flicked it sideways towards the river. It danced across the water before slipping quietly beneath the waves.
He turned back to Taylor. ‘Show me what you can do.’
For a second he thought she would argue. Maybe even refuse.
But then she gave a small shrug and turned around, her gaze searching the shore. Finding what she sought, she held out one hand.
A heavy stone at the edge of the river rose with a jerk, floating weightlessly into the air. Taylor held it there, sweat beading her forehead for a few short seconds, then two things happened simultaneously.
She flinched and gave a small cry. And the stone fell hard to the earth, landing with a thud in the soft, wet dirt near the water.
‘Oops,’ Sacha said in the silence that followed.
‘Yeah.’ With a bitter sweep of her hand, Taylor wiped the perspiration from her brow. ‘Oops.’
‘That’s what keeps happening?’ he said, studying the heavy rock.
She nodded, her lips tight. ‘Every time.’
It shouldn’t matter that she couldn’t lift the rock. She should have years to hone her abilities, to study, to learn. But she didn’t have years. She had days. And it mattered.
Her family history made it clear Taylor could stop the curse that would kill Sacha, and end the Dark practitioner’s demonic plans – everyone was sure of that. They just didn’t know how.
That’s why it mattered that Taylor couldn’t set the rocks down properly. That’s why people were whispering in corners about the two of them.
Everyone was scared.
The Dark practitioner was coming for them all. And time was running out.
Sacha pulled his hands from his pockets. ‘Let’s try something different.’
* * *
They gathered the heaviest rocks they could find, stacking them at the edge of the water. It was hot work, and they were both sweating by the time everything was in place.
Then Taylor backed far away until she was nearly in the meadow.
Sacha watched her, bemused.
‘You should hide,’ she warned him. ‘The rocks will go everywhere.’
He snorted a laugh. ‘I’ll be fine. Let’s float some rocks.’
Squaring her shoulders, Taylor took a deep breath, and held out her hand. Sacha took it, lacing his fingers through hers. Her skin was velvet soft and cool, despite the hot day.
Tightening her grip, she held his gaze with eyes as green as willow leaves.
‘Don’t let go.’
For a second, fixed in that brilliant gaze, his voice failed him. He had to force himself to reply.
‘I won’t.’
Suddenly, a crackle of electricity raced through Sacha’s body. He drew in his breath sharply.
He felt Taylor’s body stiffen.
‘Now,’ she said.
Her voice had deepened, she stared straight ahead. He turned to see what she was looking at.
The rocks they’d stacked a few minutes ago were flying. Floating high above the water, lighter than air. Bobbing like kites.
Sacha’s heart began to pound. He could feel the energy surging through him, flowing from him to Taylor and back, looping them together – the connection between them was a live wire. This was how it had felt when they fought Bringers together in London. Like they could do anything.
Nothing he’d ever experienced was as exhilarating as this.
‘What happens now?’ His voice sounded breathless.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘we place them back down.’
Taylor’s grip on his hand tightened painfully. She stared fixedly at the rocks.
The heavy stones began wafting slowly towards the river, perfectly controlled. When they reached the water, they separated into a line, and floated, duck-like, on the
top.
‘Hallucinant,’ Sacha murmured, impressed. ‘How did you do that?’
She beamed at him. Perspiration dotted her brow; the colour was high in her cheeks.
‘I can’t believe it. I’ve been trying for days. I couldn’t do it on my own. But with you it was easy.’
‘This is it,’ Sacha told her. ‘This is the part they’re getting wrong. We have to do this together. I should be training with you all the time.’
‘I think so, too,’ she said. ‘We could do this together.’
For just an instant, Sacha let himself feel the warm illusion of hope.
Maybe that was why he didn’t notice the odd sound at first. A low rumbling roar, like ocean waves, rolling to shore.
When he did hear it, he turned towards the water, and tightened his grip on her hand.
‘Taylor…’
Hearing the warning note in his voice, she followed his gaze.
The river had begun bending in their direction, pulling away from the opposite bank, and rolling across the muddy shore towards them. It seemed to lean towards them like a flower leans to the glow of the sun.
Atop the waves, the heavy rocks still bobbed happily.
Taylor blanched.
‘Oh no,’ she whispered and then, at the top of her lungs, ‘STOP!’
She flung out an arm, focussing her power on the river.
The water kept rolling in their direction. The river bed was emptying, dark mud glistening in the sunshine. All the water flowing down the river was now flooding the beach, heading towards the meadow. Waves splashed at the base of the boathouse. It was unstoppable.
Sacha turned to look at her. ‘Taylor…’
‘I’m trying. Come on,’ she begged the river, panic in her eyes. ‘Please stop.’
‘You have to release your hold.’ Louisa’s voice came from the meadows behind them.
They both turned. She stood, legs apart, hands on her hips. Her blue hair flashed in the light. She looked furious.
‘You have to release your hold, or you’re going to drown.’
Four
The Secret City Page 2
