by Nina Walker
“An alchemist and a whore.”
I exploded from my seat. Tristan beat me to it, launching himself at the guy with a primitive growl. Unfortunately, Cole was too fast and held him back. Hank couldn’t get to me in time. Not that he wanted to stop me. Knowing Hank, he was next in line.
I rushed forward and slapped Soldier-boy across the face. My hand burned with satisfaction. “Don’t ever call me that again or I’ll do worse.”
Before I registered what was happening, he grabbed hold of me, twisted my body, and swung me around. He had my arms locked against my sides, my back to his hard chest. One arm held me so I couldn’t move, the other wrapped around my neck in a loose chokehold. Anger rippled through me.
“Like what?” he whispered into my ear.
Anger swept through my body. Arrogant idiot! I’m an alchemist!
He may have had me in a chokehold, but my beloved stone necklace still hung intact, filled with a myriad of colors for me to pick my poison. All it took was one second to connect with the yellow, and I had the strength I needed. I slammed him to the ground with a crack. His stunned expression only made me smile. From my peripheral vision, I saw Tristan smirk, before he doubled over with laughter.
“Like using alchemy to teach you never to touch a woman without her permission!”
“Lady has a point,” Tristan added between fits of laughter.
“You slapped me first,” Soldier-boy growled.
“You called me a whore!”
He relented, hands up. “Okay, I’ll admit I shouldn’t have said that.” His face reddened at that. I wasn’t sure if he was still angry, or embarrassed, or both.
“You’re right. You shouldn’t have.” A voice grumbled. I swung my head around to see Cole’s deadly gaze on his man. Huh? “That’s no way for my top pupil to behave toward a woman, even if she is an alchemist,” he finished.
And there it is, ladies and gentlemen…
“Why do you have such a problem with alchemy?” I turned on Cole, staring him down. Who did these people think they were?
“All right, everyone settle down. That’s enough fighting for now,” Hank interjected. The power of his voice immediately defused the situation, as if he had blue alchemy at work. But nope, that was just Hank. We all returned to our seats, though a fair amount of hostility still hung in the room.
Hank introduced us. “Sasha and Tristan are Resistance members. Tristan may be a joker, but he’s smart as a whip. Sasha is our best alchemist and loyal to a fault.”
The two men stiffened. I couldn’t help it; I smiled with pride and narrowed my eyes at the younger one, meeting his glare head on. “Cole and Mastin are very special guests and new members of our Resistance. They are valued members and we’re lucky to have them.” Hank directed those words—“valued” and “lucky”—at me.
Whatever.
I still didn’t get why I had to play nice with people who so clearly hated me. I bit my lip and stiffened.
“They’re the beginning of our alliance with West America.”
My eyes shot to Hank. He was serious.
“Why would we want that?” The question slipped from my mouth. West America wasn’t part of our cause. They hated New Colony, sure. But we didn’t work with them because they also hated alchemists. They imprisoned them and sometimes even killed them. “And you expect me to trust these two?” I continued. “Alchemy is illegal in West America. I can’t work with them!”
“You can and you will,” Hank said, his tone final.
“Don’t worry, they may be jerks, but they can be trusted,” Tristan added. “They want to take down New Colony as much as we do.”
“And then what? Execute me?” I asked Cole, figuring he was the authority over that Mastin guy.
“We already signed an agreement. Everything is in place. Alchemy is still illegal in West America as of today. But we won’t hurt any cooperative citizens of New Colony if we succeed with what we set out to do.”
“And what’s that exactly?” I asked.
“It’s quite obvious, don’t you think?” Mastin said, studying his fingernails in boredom. “We’re going to take back what’s rightfully ours. We’re going to take back New Colony and unite America again.”
My mouth usually ran away with me, but, this time, I was lost for words. This was never what the Resistance had been about. This was not okay! We knew practically nothing about West America. They were a democracy still, that was true, but they hated alchemists. How could we possibly trust them with this?
“Let me just ask you one question,” I said, gathering my thoughts. I glanced between the two men before settling on Mastin. He drew me to him, like a moth to the flame. A moth he probably wanted to smash under his shoe. “What is your honest opinion of alchemy?”
He didn’t hesitate. “It’s an abomination.”
I stood, body shaking, stomach clenched in a sickening knot. I caught Hank’s pained expression. He’d been an officer when he’d left New Colony and taken me and Tristan with him. He wasn’t an alchemist. Tristan wasn’t. Most of the Resistance weren’t. The vast population wasn’t.
But I was.
I was, and he’d made an alliance with people who hated my very existence. Who hated my family—Lacey and Jessa. Even if they didn’t know I was their older sister, I still felt a primal need to protect them. I barely had them in my life again, and somehow, despite all logic, I wanted it to stay that way. And Hank, he was supposed to be my family too. He was the only adult who’d ever really cared about me more than my magic. And now he’d done this.
“I can’t believe you’d risk my life and the lives of all the alchemists we’ve been trying to save. What about Jasmine? What about Jessa? Lacey? And all the others?”
“Sit down and let me explain,” Hank said, his voice filled with some kind of fatherly concern, like he knew what was better for me than I did.
He doesn’t get it and he never will.
I shook my head. “Mastin said enough. Alchemy is an abomination, right? Well, until these two can prove to me without a doubt that West America won’t ever hurt innocent alchemists, I’m out.” I strode from the room, out the door, and didn’t look back.
3
Lucas
I was useless. I just stood there, watching, knowing there was nothing I could do. And Jessa knew it too. Her curly hair was wilder than normal, her eyes wide with anxiety, as she chewed on her lip—her nervous tic. I believed she would pass this test, but there was a possibility she wouldn’t. And that scared the hell out of me. If she failed today, it wasn’t just her secrets that would unravel, but mine as well.
I was an alchemist. That was my secret—and my burden.
I fidgeted uncomfortably against the wall as I studied the back of my father’s head, boring holes into it. What was he going to do to Jessa?
My father, Richard, had a love-hate relationship with alchemy. He wasn’t an alchemist, probably much to his frustration. No one in our line before me had the magic. Still, he used alchemy to keep the royal family powerful and New Colony isolated and controlled. He surrounded himself with an army of skilled alchemists, indoctrinated from a young age, and then used intimidating officers to keep everybody in line. But that couldn’t last forever: sooner or later, the alchemists would rise up. He knew it. I knew it. Faulk knew it.
And everyone in the Resistance was committed to it.
Pained, I watched him gaze at Jessa like she was the key to winning whatever sick and twisted game he was playing. She shifted in her seat, waiting for whatever was coming. Whatever it was, knowing him, it wasn’t good. I’d learned all about his experiments, and he’d even tried to get my involvement with a few when I first found out. He would use his lowest level citizens, or those who were acting out for whatever reason, and would test magic on them. Sometimes torturing them. Many times killing them.
And I couldn’t forget. I’d seen the shadow lands with my own eyes, the miles of dead, rotted, colorless earth where alchemists had
stripped all color. The people didn’t know about it. In fact, most of them loved him and treated our royal family like we were handed down from God himself. Of course it helped that Richard’s Guardians of Color used blue to spy and persuade, yellow for physical strength and agility, and green to heal those deemed worthy. Purple shades were useful to my father, though also extremely hard to manipulate. They could be used for telepathy and even for predicting the future.
And now that he had Jessa, he finally had red.
When an alchemist could pull red from someone’s blood, they could control that person’s mind. Make them do anything. We knew this because he’d had an alchemist in the past, Jessa’s older sister, who’d been able to do it. But then she’d disappeared. She’d returned years later as Sasha, much older and unrecognizable, and somehow infiltrated the GC on behalf of the Resistance. Faulk had figured that one out too late in the game, and I was still annoyed with myself for not seeing the connection sooner.
The officers had figured it out once she’d disappeared. Sasha had shown up at an outpost with a false identity, then slowly worked her way to the palace. The Resistance had to have someone on the inside because they’d also added her cover story into the files.
Richard was livid about it, and I hoped he didn’t take it out on Jessa.
Jessa.
The girl who not only could access red, but who could separate colors into their primary counterparts, another remarkable talent. One she hadn’t been able to replicate; but eventually, she would. There was no telling what that magic could do. If Richard could unlock her power, and worse yet, duplicate it in other alchemists, he’d be unstoppable. And if that happened, I had no doubt this girl, the one person who was capable of breathing life into my broken heart, would be lost in the crossfire.
She sat across from my father, her chin lifted and eyes narrowed in an expression that could either be interpreted as defiant or focused.
I knew better than to assume the latter.
“Let me guess? We’re testing blue today?” she asked.
“That’s right, but I’ll be the one testing blue on you.” Reed smirked. That smirk just gave me one more reason to hate him. Reed had befriended Jessa when she was the most vulnerable she’d ever been in her life, only to use and manipulate her for Faulk. He was a lackey. Another brown-nosing, ladder-climbing GC prick. But he’d failed.
And for all our sakes, he’d better fail again. Or I swear, I will beat him to a pulp. The angry threats tumbled through my mind, but I still managed to keep my expression apathetic. I’d had a lot of practice in that department over the years.
“And how is that a fair test?” Jessa asked. “Aren’t I supposed to get a chance to actually use blue?”
“We thought you’d ask that,” Faulk said, sighing heavily. “And don’t worry, you will. But first, we have some questions.” With a sharp tap of her pointed boot on the concrete floor, she glided forward, her hair slicked and scraped back more harshly than I’d ever seen. A repulsive creature, who basked in the enjoyment of making Jessa squirm at every opportunity. She gripped her hands behind her back and set her lips in a thin line. I attempted to relax my shoulders, aware of how tense this woman made me. When Jessa was in her sights, there was no knowing how far this monster would go—it was no wonder she and Richard worked so well together.
“I guess I don’t have a choice in the matter,” Jessa said, her eyes darting between Faulk and Richard. She rolled her eyes and settled farther into her chair. Reed ran his hands through his blond hair. I noticed a slight grimace as he positioned himself behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. A pulse of anger rolled through me. He had to touch her for this, but, logical or not, it still bugged the hell out of me.
The blue angular stone was about the size of my thumb and hung from a thick, black cord around Reed’s neck. It gleamed in the morning light that poured through the office windows. It only took a moment of Reed’s concentration for the color to begin rising from the rock. The blue tendrils swirled in rotations of menacing magic, before they shot around the room. A slice of the magic went into Jessa, with the intention of making her susceptible to persuasion. And more of the magic went directly into Richard, doing the exact opposite, making him the one with the persuasion. Even one thread of this magic had a powerful effect, but this was double time. My entire body went cold. Reed finally removed his hands from Jessa and stepped back. I ignored his wink in her direction.
“Great work, Reed.” Faulk smiled at her little alchemist protégé. And even I had to admit it was great work. Which made me sick. I held my jaw still, resisting the urge to groan. Jessa was in a lot of trouble.
“Are you ready to begin?” Richard asked, holding her gaze. He sat on the edge of his seat. Jessa nodded eagerly and smiled. In the short time between being affected by Reed’s blue alchemy to now, she’d visibly changed. Her eyes were no longer guarded, her expression open and vulnerable.
I bit back my anger. I’d wished I’d been informed in advance of this test today so I could’ve warned her. But it wasn’t until breakfast that Father Dearest had decided to let me in on what was going to happen.
This test had clearly been twisted to suit Faulk’s need to sniff out any disloyalty in Jessa. It was true that we could test blue alchemy by not only asking someone to perform it, which they usually failed, but by also seeing how resistant they were to someone else using the magic on them. Also, that usually resulted in failure. Blue was one of the hardest and rarest colors to control in alchemy. There was a reason the initiates only had to pass three of the five main colors to be accepted into the Guardians of Color. People simply didn’t have the ability to master all the colors.
“Is your allegiance to the crown?” Richard asked.
“No,” Jessa replied.
No? No? She answered honestly. Can’t she fight it at all? A bead of sweat ran down the back of my neck. If she didn’t hide some of her deeper secrets, we were both at risk for punishment.
“Why do you say that?” Richard countered.
“I lied.”
“Lied about what?” he spat.
On the outside, Faulk was an attractive woman. But that only made her more frightening. Her single-minded obsession was showing now as sneers at Jessa’s answer. But I knew my father well enough. This new development would cause problems for him. He was desperate to control Jessa. But I wondered, what would happen if Jessa failed? Would he demand her initiation anyway? Would he just store her away for special occasions?
“I lied about being an alchemist. To Faulk, when she first came to see me. I’m loyal to my family more than I’m loyal to the crown. You won’t let me see them.” The words Jessa spoke came out in an air of honesty and calm, like she was having a normal conversation with a trusted friend.
And it was true. She wasn’t lying. What else would she be honest about?
“Okay, but are you loyal to the crown now?” Richard asked.
“Not completely. Why would I trust the ones who have my family locked away? I’m loyal to you only as long as you can reunite us. They are my true objective.”
Now I knew she was lying. Pride rippled through me, and I stood a little straighter. She and I were both fully aware of where her family really was. Richard and Faulk were only pretending to have them under lock and key. Her family was with the Resistance, safe and hidden. And as it stood, there was nothing that anyone could do about that.
Richard shifted the conversation. “And you’ll do anything to make that happen? You’ll do anything I ask of you?”
Jessa paused, and I ground my feet into the floor. Please, answer correctly.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Good girl! I exhaled a slow, shuddering breath. She needed to sound honest, not like she was saying exactly what Richard wanted to hear. That was the only way they’d believe Reed’s magic was doing its job.
“Are you hiding any more secrets from me?” Richard asked. It was a t
ough question. Of course, she was hiding mountains of information from him. And he suspected it. If she said no, she’d likely pass the test. Pass, because everyone would know she’d been lying and they wouldn’t trust her. If she said yes, she would have to divulge some information. And it was likely she would fail this color. I wanted her to fail. For her own safety. She had to fail.
“Yes,” she said simply, calmly. “I do have one more secret.”
“And what’s that, little alchemist?” Richard asked. The room froze with anticipation. All eyes were intense on Jessa. She swallowed before speaking easily, with an open smile.
“I know you didn’t like it when your son was dating that other alchemist girl. The one who disappeared?”
“And what’s your point,” Faulk spat, unrestrained. She stalked behind Richard, pacing, her eyes narrowed into slits. If the woman wasn’t careful, she was going to give herself a headache.
Jessa didn’t bother to acknowledge Faulk; her eyes stayed locked on my father. “I know you look down on the idea of an alchemist and a royal dating. You don’t want an alchemist anywhere near that crown. Lucas told me as much. But you see, I think you don’t have as much control over your son as you think you do.”
“And why is that?” Richard folded his arms before turning back to look at me. Actually, there was an audible shuffle as everyone in the room turned to me.
“Your son wants me.”
My mouth fell into a hard line. This was so not good for us, for whatever our relationship was growing into. I wanted to keep it secret until I could find a way to get Richard to agree to it.
“Is that true?” Richard faced me now, anger dripped from the question. And a fair mix of fatherly disappointment, which didn’t actually mean anything to me. I didn’t care what he thought anymore.
I let out a breath. If I lied, suspicion would be sent right back on Jessa. The questions would continue until she eventually gave too much away. But if I told the truth about my relationship with her, Richard would lecture me mercilessly, and I might lose my only lifeline. Still, I had no choice.
