The Alchemist's Apprentice

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “It wasn’t pleasant,” I said. There was something disconcerting about his attention. I would have preferred him to be staring at my chest. “I was lucky that Master Travis took me in.”

  “Indeed you were,” Reginald agreed. He started to pace the room, his face growing increasingly agitated. “My father was kind enough to have me brought up in Bolingbroke Hall. He told me that I was his flesh and blood, that he would never send me away. But I was never truly part of the family. My stepmother pretended I didn’t exist. My uncles and aunts told my father, time and time again, to banish me from the halls. And I would never - never - have a chance to compete for power!”

  I watched him, warily. I’d seen enough to be confident that his uncles and aunts had excellent reasons to want Reginald banished from Bolingbroke Hall. And yet ... I felt another flicker of envy, mingled with contempt. Reginald had everything I’d ever wanted - he certainly knew who his parents had been - and he still wasn’t happy. He could have spent the last five years mastering magics I barely knew existed. It wasn’t as if he was an untalented magician.

  “They tell me that I can never rise to power,” Reginald said. I realised, suddenly, that he’d been bottling his resentment up for a long time. He could rant to me because it was safe . I wouldn’t have a chance to betray him. “And when my father dies, they’ll banish me from the hall. I will lose everything.”

  “You have magic,” I said. I reached out with my senses, gingerly. Reginald’s wards were masterpieces. “You won’t be powerless.”

  Reginald snorted. “Do you think that anyone will take me as an apprentice?”

  I winced in sympathy. Reginald was in a mess, through no fault of his own. His family hated him, both as a living reminder that his father had been unfaithful and as a threat to the established order. Uncle Wesley had made that clear. Nothing could be allowed to threaten the deals House Bolingbroke had made with its allies. Reginald would be kicked out of the hall as soon as his father died.

  And he’s still a monster , I thought. They wouldn’t want to keep him around even if they could .

  “My life will be taken away at their whim,” Reginald fumed. “I will lose everything ...”

  My temper snapped. “You mean like I lost everything?”

  Reginald swung around to face me. “I’m playing for the very highest stakes here, Rebecca. I did what I needed to do.”

  He lowered his voice. “You know what it’s like to be permanently insecure. You know what it’s like to know that the rug can be pulled from under your feet at any moment. You know what it’s like ... and I think we can make a deal.”

  I swallowed the angry response that came to mind. “What sort of deal?”

  Reginald sat back down. “You brew the potion for me, following your old master’s instructions,” he said. “Master Travis assured me that he’d worked all the problems out of the recipe. If it works ... the sky’s the limit. What would you like? A new shop? An apprenticeship? A permanent position as my brewer? Or a husband? I could arrange a very good match for you.”

  My eyebrows crawled up. “A husband?”

  “It’s astonishing what people will overlook if you give them something they want.” Reginald winked. “And we can easily forge you a family tree.”

  I shook my head. “It can’t be that easy.”

  “You’d have problems marrying Simon ,” Reginald said. “The old biddies” - a flash of pure hatred crossed his eyes - “would look into your background and then ... well, they wouldn’t sneer openly , but everyone would know they were looking down their noses at you. Simon is too important, too well-connected, to be allowed to marry for love. But someone from the lower family? Or one of our clients? No one would pay attention to whoever they married.”

  “Oh,” I said. I wanted to scream. Was it really that easy to overcome an unknown father and an unknowable set of ancestors? Or was Reginald trying to snowball me? “I just want the apprenticeship. And money.”

  “Very well,” Reginald said. “You’ll brew the potion?”

  “I’ll try,” I said. The recipe, what little I’d seen, had looked complex. Master Travis had been experienced enough to compensate for any surprises, but I knew - without false modesty - that I wasn’t anything like his equal. “But I still don’t know what it does .”

  Reginald smirked at me. “What do you think it does?”

  I looked at the notebook, resting innocently on the table. Master Travis had known ... I gritted my teeth at the reminder, once again, of how much I didn’t know. It was clearly designed to do something extreme , to the point that Master Travis had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure the drinker survived the experience, but what? I’d never seen anything like it.

  “I don’t know,” I said, numbly. “Are you a werewolf?”

  “No,” Reginald said. “Do I look like a werewolf?”

  I shrugged. My schooling hadn’t been that comprehensive, but my tutors had gone over the more dangerous magical creatures. People who were born werewolves tended to be hairier than the average, although by that definition just about every longshoreman and dockyard worker in Water Shallot was a werewolf. My stepfather was certainly hairy enough to qualify. But people who were infected with lycanthropy were indistinguishable from everyone else, at least until the full moon. Reginald might be a werewolf ... I told myself, again, that it was unlikely. His family would have banished him long ago.

  “I’m not a werewolf,” Reginald told me. “What do you think I’m doing?”

  I looked at the bubbling mixtures in his decanters. It looked as if he was trying to brew something illicit, something dangerous ... poison, perhaps?

  A thought struck me. “Are you planning to poison your family? Your father?”

  Reginald gave me a pitying look. “Are you stupid? How would I possibly benefit from killing my father?”

  I flushed. Reginald was about the only person in the house who didn’t have a motive to murder his father. Lord Anton was all that stood between Reginald and banishment. No, Reginald wouldn’t try to poison the man. I wondered, morbidly, if someone else had . It was unusual for an aristocrat to catch something lethal. A poison specifically tuned to one person might just have got through the victim’s protections and killed him.

  He isn’t dead yet , I reminded myself. And anyone who tried and failed to kill him would wind up dead himself .

  “Then I don’t know what you’re doing,” I said. “And I ...”

  I stopped, dead, as the pieces fell into place. A powerful healing potion. A brain-sharpening potion. And two more potions, both of which were designed to force cells to regenerate themselves ... no, to change themselves. The potion was designed to trigger a complete cellular regeneration process. Master Travis had grumbled, once, that the Ancients had known how to cure anything with a simple potion, but no one had been able to figure out how the drinkers had survived the experience. We knew the recipes, we thought, yet they turned to poison when we tried to brew them ...

  “You’re planning to change your entire body,” I said. It felt right. I knew I was right. “You think you can make yourself a legitimate heir.”

  “Quite,” Reginald said.

  I stared at him, torn between awe and horror. It would hurt. Every cell in his body would hurt. The pain alone might drive him insane ... I realised, in a flash of inspiration, why Master Travis had worked so many healing brews into the mix. Reginald would come right to the edge of death, but his body would heal so rapidly that he’d have no time to die. And yet ... I didn’t think I could drink such a potion, not for anything . It would hurt so badly that my heart might give out halfway through.

  “You’re mad,” I said. It was all I could do to force the words out of my mouth. “I could brew the potion perfectly, I could do everything right ... and it might still kill you. You could die.”

  “I know the risks,” Reginald said.

  I studied him for a long moment. Reginald was a couple of years older than me, in the prime of life
. He had a reasonable chance of surviving, if everything went to plan ... if, of course, he could endure the pain. And if he couldn’t ... that was his problem. I wondered, morbidly, just how Master Travis had intended to handle it. There was no way Reginald could risk taking any other potions during the transformation ...

  A thought struck me. “You can change yourself to be your father’s legitimate son,” I said, slowly. “But it won’t make you his legitimate son. Everyone would still know that you’re a bastard ...”

  I expected Reginald to hit me. Or hex me. Instead, he laughed.

  “I don’t expect the family to recognise me,” he said, sardonically. “I could save them all from death - or bankruptcy - and they’d still hate me.”

  His eyes gleamed with unholy delight. “All I need is the wards to recognise me as the legitimate heir. And then I’ll have the family over a barrel.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Zadornov is going to be disappointed , I thought, numbly. The potion isn’t something he can sell.

  I would have smiled at the thought, if I hadn’t been trapped between two monsters. Reginald wanted - needed - me to brew the potion, but I was fairly sure he wouldn’t keep me around afterwards; Zadornov was expecting me to bring him something he could turn into pure profit and he was going to be furious when he discovered the truth. Master Travis’s potion was a work of genius, but it simply wasn’t what Zadornov was expecting. It had no use at all outside a very specific situation.

  Reginald ... I silently gave him credit for coming up with the scheme, and for finding a way to make it work. The household wards were tuned to their owner and, I suspected, to the next in line. Reginald wouldn’t count - now - because he wasn’t his stepmother’s child, but if he actually managed to change his cellular structure the wards might have some trouble figuring out who they should acknowledge as the new heir when Lord Anton died. If Reginald’s blood matched his dead brother’s, the wards might go to him automatically. And even if it didn’t, he’d still be the oldest person with the right bloodline. He might win by default.

  I eyed him, wondering how I could escape. I really didn’t want to help either Reginald or Zadornov. But I was trapped. I couldn’t think of any way out. I’d have to play along with Reginald just to get out of his chamber of horrors. And I doubted he’d give me complete freedom to do as I pleased. He might just keep me as his prisoner until the brewing was completed ...

  Reginald coughed. “Well? What do you think?”

  “It sounds workable,” I stammered. I understood, suddenly, why Reginald had spent so much time studying wards and wardcrafting. He’d been trying to find a way to subvert the family’s wards for years. “But how do you know the wards will accept you?”

  “I’ll have the right bloodline,” Reginald said, easily. “By the time my family realises what I’ve done, I’ll be in total control.”

  And you can turn the wards against anyone who opposes you , I thought. House Bolingbroke’s protections pervaded the entire hall. Reginald would have no difficulty crushing opposition once he was in total control. You can force your family to submit to you and kill them if they refuse.

  “Very clever,” I conceded. It was clever. “And your friends? The Circle?”

  “I’m not the only one,” Reginald said, curtly. He didn’t seem surprised that I knew about them. “I’m sure they’d have a use for the potion too.”

  That, I supposed, was as close as I’d get to a guarantee that Reginald would keep me alive after the potion had been brewed. He wouldn’t have time to brew the potion himself, even if he had the skills. He’d need someone who had both the skills and a strong reason to keep her mouth shut. It was incentive, I supposed, to accept my fate. Except ... Reginald had killed Master Travis. I was damned if I was letting him get away with it. I had to find a way to outwit both Reginald and Zadornov and escape.

  I could always take the potion myself , I thought. Let them think that Rebecca died ...

  I felt a sudden pang. Would I have taken the potion, if it would have made me my stepfather’s legitimate child? I wasn’t sure. I would have given a great deal to have some recognition, although I doubted it would mean anything to him . My eyes would still give me away, unless they changed. Reginald had been right about one thing, at least. He was playing for far greater stakes.

  And if he’d been kinder to everyone from the start , I admitted ruefully, I would have helped him willingly .

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll do my best to brew the potion for you. If I succeed, if you succeed, you will arrange a potions apprenticeship for me. And a new shop. I’ll have to learn a great deal more before I can be your personal brewer.”

  Reginald nodded, stiffly. “You will unlock the notebook code for me and copy out the recipe,” he said. “I don’t want to be in this position again.”

  “Afterwards, you give me the notebook,” I said. I wasn’t blind to the underlying threat. He probably wouldn't have any trouble finding a potioneer who came with less baggage. Or desire to kill him. “I’ll make sure you have copies of the recipe first.”

  I looked past him. “I assume you want me to brew here?”

  “Yes,” Reginald said. He smiled, rather thinly, as he tapped his chin. “Officially, you’ll be my personal maid. No one will question me if I summon you to my room regularly.”

  “No,” I said. I felt my cheeks heat. I knew what everyone would think. My reputation would never recover ... it didn’t matter. One way or the other, I couldn’t stay in the hall. “I suppose they wouldn’t think twice about it.”

  “No,” Reginald agreed.

  He met my eyes. “Answer me another question,” he said. “How did you get in here? I thought the wards were unbreakable.”

  I didn’t bother to pretend to be surprised by the question. “With a little of your sister’s blood and some magic.”

  Reginald looked more amused than angry. “You do like playing with fire, don’t you?”

  “You gave me no choice,” I said, stiffly.

  “I would never have thought of that,” Reginald mused. “You really are quite ingenious.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Of course, there would be no mercy if my father were to find out what you’d done,” Reginald said. “Or Simon, if he inherits. You’d better do everything in your power to make sure that I inherit.”

  “Yes, Young Master,” I said.

  “They will do whatever it takes to make sure that you’re dead and the blood sample is destroyed,” Reginald warned. He leaned closer to me. “You’re mine now, Rebecca. And don’t you forget it. And you can call me My Lord from now on.”

  “At least you remembered my name, My Lord,” I said, sullenly.

  Reginald laughed, then lifted his hand and held it over my head. “Of course, I’d be foolish to completely trust you,” he said. “You’ll be under a geas .”

  I felt a stab of panic. My legs refused to move as Reginald gently rested his hand on my forehead. “You ... I can’t brew if you put me under a spell.”

  “I’m not talking about a compulsion spell,” Reginald said. He sounded irked, as if I’d questioned his honour. “You’ll be under a geas. Please don’t try to fight. It won’t make the enchantment any more pleasant.”

  “No,” I said. “Please.”

  Reginald met my eyes. When he spoke, his voice was genuinely curious. “You would rather die? Or spend the rest of your life as an ornament on my mantelpiece?”

  I looked down, trying not to cringe at his touch. “... No.”