Tempered: Book Four of The St. Croix Chronicles

by Karina Cooper

For all the years I’d known him, fought and argued with him, his eyes had bedeviled me. They were brown, as clear as if a candle burned from behind, save for a vertical swath of blue bisecting his left eye. I’d always considered it the mark of the devil that rode him, but I had never expected to learn how spot-on that really was.

  “Ashmore,” I said, each syllable coming slowly. I could barely believe that I could even give the suspicion I held voice, yet voice it I did. “Is there something awry with Hawke?”

  “There is a great deal wrong with him,” Ashmore replied, dry as dust. “What are you specifically referring to?”

  His eyes. I knew of no reason why they might change color, yet the last I’d seen him, the night he’d spoken of subjugation and showmanship, his eyes had been that wicked blue, not a trace of the brown they should have been.

  It was a clue I had given no real thought to.

  I turned my gaze to the man who had become my second lover, and for the first time in so very long, I felt no guilt at the choice I had made.

  Ashmore had given to me what I desperately needed. For all that I ranted and railed, for all the awful things I had done in his care, it was Ashmore who forced upon me the sobriety to choose for myself a future—and the strength of will, no matter how fragile it might feel, to face my past. In his embrace, I found comfort, and with his body, enough physical bliss to ease my transition.

  I owed him so much more than I could ever repay, and perhaps I’d spend my life trying, but my future was not his. He would never be Hawke, and I would never expect him to try.

  He studied me with his too-sharp gaze fixed upon mine, and finally inclined his head. “Yes, Cherry. There is something terribly wrong with him.”

  “Then I have to help him.” This was no whisper; I spoke it calmly, as though it had always been so. “I owe him more than enslavement to the Karakash Veil.”

  “Because of your relations?”

  Color flooded my cheeks—to be talking so openly of such things to the man I had only just given myself to seemed surreal and inappropriate. I looked away, but he reached down to capture my foot, lifting it far enough that my leg straightened.

  His lips pressed into the arch, and I shivered. “You will not shock me,” he said, lowering my foot to his chest. His heart thudded solidly beneath my heel, and he returned to stroking my arch with his thumb—a gesture as much to soothe me as himself, perhaps. “I am long past the age of requiring undying affections. You cannot break my heart.”

  Perhaps not, but he could set mine to pounding. I tugged the dressing gown over my bared thigh as though it might afford a return to modesty.

  He chuckled quietly. “Do I inspire you?”

  “It seems vastly unfair that you do,” I muttered.

  “Unfair because of him?”

  Not content with baring my heart, he seemed determined to prise open all of my secrets. I covered my face with both hands. “Is it disloyal?”

  “To whom?” He cupped my calf with his warm fingers, delicately tracing my limb. I shuddered. “Me?” He chuckled. “As I said, I demand nothing of you that you are unwilling to give.”

  I was very much afraid that time would make me all too willing to give a great deal.

  “Is it Hawke that worries you?” he asked.

  “Some.”

  “Don’t. As you are right now, you are of more use to him than he is to you. Mend, first, so that you will not be the tool he wishes you to be.”

  “’Tis not Hawke you’re speaking of.”

  “It is,” he countered, “though I grant you your debate. Whether it is the man you knew or the man you never knew he was, the end result is that he had plans for you that you did not have for yourself.”

  “You can’t know that,” I said into my palms.

  “I know it,” he returned calmly. “The last you met is reason enough.”

  “He wasn’t himself,” I insisted. “How can I judge, when I don’t remember clearly much of the event?”

  “Probably best that you do neither,” Ashmore murmured, but I was too focused on my intentions and did not address this.

  “I intend to save him from whatever is wrong.” It sounded like sanity, but smacked of promise and hopeless ambition. “Him, and Zylphia too.” Friends. Not an easy word, and one I even wavered before attributing it to the Micajah Hawke I had known, but a word I would use nonetheless.

  He did not argue with me, as I’d expected. “Then do so, once you are done saving yourself.”

  I dropped my hands, startled into meeting his lazy smile. “Am I saving myself?”

  “You are.” He let go of my leg, as though done proving a point, and patted my arch. “You are a grown woman, and though for all intents and purposes Society must think you virginal, you are not. You are free to do as you please, which does include abstaining if that is your desire.”

  “What if…” I hesitated.

  “Mm?”

  I took a deep breath. “What if I’ve not yet made up my mind as to that?”

  “Then I shall be here when you do.” He placed my foot upon the ground, and eased the other off his hip. Sitting up, he folded his legs in the lotus style I first saw at the Menagerie and offered his hand. It brought the ink staining his forearm into stark relief. “However, you will need to be made safe from consequences of such things.”

  “Safe?”

  “More, you’ll need to be trained if you intend to go against the magic Hawke brings to bear.”

  I eyed his hand as though it might hide a serpent. “Magic.” A flat sound.

  Now that I saw the tattoos clearly, I recognized some. The slashing lines and black sigils carved in precise rows down each defined forearm carried alchemical symbols within them.

  I had never met a sailor with that upon his skin.

  His chuckle demanded my attention; he mocked me openly, though it lacked the sting of malice.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “You have some nerve,” he returned, though good-naturedly. “Truly, how can you sit there and disbelieve something you have seen with your own eyes?”

  “These eyes,” I replied with indignation, “were somewhat less than trustworthy, or have you forgotten my affair with the smoke?”

  His amusement eased, and he captured my left hand in his. “True enough, but I believe you do yourself a disservice by relying on the fallacies instead of the truths you know.” Drawing me to sit up, he twitched my borrowed dressing gown into place over my bent legs.

  “Magic is a thing that science—”

  He cut me off with a wry, “—that science has not explained yet. Yes, I am familiar with that particular debate.”

  “Then you understand,” I said. “The Veil, the entirety of the Menagerie, was built upon the precepts of the exotic and the fantastical. Hawke is just a showman.”

  “You are surprisingly close-minded.” He pointed at me. “What do you recall from the fight in the Menagerie’s grounds?”

  “Color,” I replied, but had to pause again to consider my faded memories. Color was the most clear detail I could summon; streaks of light in blue, red, violet and green. “I’m sure it was the usual ringside tricks—”

  “Stop,” he said, cutting through my musing dialogue with a grumbled order. Ashmore eased forward, bracing a pale hand beside the platter of food between us. “If you choose not to believe in magic, then what do you postulate alchemy is?”

  I frowned at him. “I once considered it the scientist’s superstition. An ill-advised attempt to save old men from the creeping tide of death.”

  “What do you consider it now?”

  “An enigma.”

  He did not smile. “I shall assume you are not being flippant.” When I nodded, he swiped a bit of bread and cheese from the dwindling platter, but did not fall back to his pillows. His gaze held mine, as though searching for something within it. “Alchemy is the scientific art of perfection.”

  I blinked. “Perfection of what?”

  “
You are familiar with alkahest?” This time, I shook my head. “What of chrysopoeia?” Another denial from me. His eyebrow inched upward in obvious contest. “Then tell me how you can possibly turn your nose up at a thing you know nothing about?”

  I had no answer for that, and because none came readily to mind, I found myself contemplating the question rather more seriously than I might have, were I more quick-witted about it.

  “I…” Humility was not a thing that came easily to me. I sighed. “I suppose I mustn’t.”

  “That goes doubly for what you think you know about Hawke.” He laid a finger upon my nose, forcing it down some to illustrate his point. “Lesson one, minx. Forget everything those regimented fools ever taught you.”

  “Lesson?” I stared at him. “Am I to be taught by you?” When he only nodded, an expression something like pained tolerance shaping his features, my stare turned to confused curiosity. “I don’t understand. Alchemy may be labeled an art, but I gather ’tis based on rules of science. How would this explain what you claim Hawke wields?”

  “You mean magic,” he said, and I could not help myself. I projected deliberate disbelief with a studied lift of my eyebrows. “Put it this way. Whether a culture calls it magic, alchemy, science or divinity, does it matter what the name is if the outcome is the same?”

  I thought about that. “What one calls magic might be science.”

  “And what one calls science might well be magic.”

  “So Hawke knows a form of science that those who don’t see the formula call magic.” Then, as I raised my fingers to my mouth, I added, “The Veil’s spokesperson called him a…” The word escaped me. “A magician, I think.”

  “Wūshī.”

  “That’s it.” I gaped at him. “Do you know Chinese?”

  He nodded. “Enough to get by.”

  “Will you teach me?”

  This time when he laughed, it warmed parts of me that I thought too empty to ever be warm again. “One thing at a time, minx. You’ll have enough to learn already, and I don’t want you taking ill.”

  I smiled. “Then what will you teach me first?”

  He pointed to the plate before me. “How to finish a meal.”

  “Ashmore.”

  He only tilted his head.

  So compelled, I reached for a bit of bread and sausage. To my surprise, I found myself rather more hungry than I expected. “Ashmore,” I said again, but this time a question as he leaned back on his elbow and watched me eat.

  “Yes?”

  “Did you learn alchemy from my grandfather?”

  He sighed. “No.”

  “But you know alchemy, yes?”

  He lifted a hand, loose fist tipped to display his forearm. “Yes.”

  “I noticed it before,” I admitted. “But I don’t entirely understand. What is that for?”

  “Structure.”

  When he made no other comment about it, I leaned forward. “And you’ll show me?”

  “If you behave, work hard, and give me no cause to doubt your reason.”

  I frowned. “My reason? Do you mean my sanity or my intellect?”

  “Among other things,” he muttered, and again pointed to the food. “Eat, please. You need to gather your strength.”

  I nodded at him over my bread, the sausage and cheese I’d heaped upon it tottering. “Did you learn beside my mother?”

  He was silent. I used the opportunity to take a bite of the cold fare. “Your mother,” he finally said, “was the most gifted student I had ever seen. I was fortunate enough to work beside her.”

  “Did she learn here? Was she marked like you? Is there a laboratory?” I added quickly.

  His fingers extended, as though flicking that bit of knowledge away. “No, there isn’t. In all honesty, you have proven to have all of your mother’s pride, and more than a bit of your grandfather’s stubbornness. We shall see if your intellect overcomes these foibles.”

  I ate in silence, digesting this information even as I worked on the plate he occasionally filched a bit of meat from.

  I wondered if he simply hadn’t read my grandfather’s journal. Was it possible that he didn’t know of the laboratory within the book he gave me?

  I thought over this. It made me wonder how long he had known my grandfather, and how old he must have been when the old man passed on. “Ashmore?”

  “What is it now, minx?”

  I caught a bit of falling cheese and placed it very carefully back upon the bread. “Did you know my mother well?”

  A pause. “No. Not many did.”

  “And my grandfather?”

  “Rather more than I did her.”

  “Was he…” I looked up to find him watching me, his expression closed. I must have stretched his patience. I shook my head. “Never mind. I don’t mean to open old wounds. ’Tis clear you respected him.”

  “I did, in part.” He smoothed a wayward curl from my brow. “In a great many ways, you are better off as you are, your own woman without familial burdens.” He spoke with such a deep sadness that I wasn’t certain how to respond.

  He gave me no opportunity. “Eat,” he added sharply, and rose to his feet. “I’ll fetch more tea and a preventative.”

  Without another word, Ashmore left me in his room to contemplate all that he had revealed.

  And all that I had revealed to him.

  It felt…oddly comfortable. As if for once, I was accepted for who I was. What I was.

  No, more than once. Hadn’t Hawke accepted me, as well?

  I’d thought so. In that night before he’d turned me out, I thought I’d seen in him an understanding that reached out to something in me.

  Was it only the tar I’d sensed, after all?

  I couldn’t be sure, but I also didn’t want to consider that I had been used.

  It seemed easier to think that if Hawke’s behavior had been reprehensible from the start, that it was only because his Chinese masters demanded it.

  Was I prepared for an alternative?

  Not yet, anyway.

  As I worked through the last of the plate, licking my fingers like an uncommon savage, I wondered what Ashmore might have to teach—and whether I would have the skill to learn it.

  Alchemy.

  My father’s mad plans. Miss Hensworth’s invisibility draught, which allowed her to murder the professors who had barred her entrance to the university because she was a woman.

  These were the only brushes with alchemy I had known, and each had gone terribly awry. My father’s serum did not strike me as any method of attaining perfection—whatever that meant. Miss Hensworth’s formula had caused her body to deteriorate at a rapid rate, which seemed the very antithesis of perfection.

  Was there something good to be done with alchemy?

  When Ashmore came back, a tarnished silver tray balanced between his hands and clad in a dark green dressing gown, I looked up. “Ashmore.”

  “More questions, minx?”

  I shook my head. “Thank you for the book.”

  He knelt, setting the tray down beside the hearth. “I’ve given you many.” But he smiled, and that was all I’d hoped of him. “You are welcome for them all.”

  I returned his smile, feeling oddly at ease. I hadn’t felt that way for so long, I wasn’t positive what was expected of me.

  “Drink this first,” he instructed, passing to me a small glass phial, the cork plucked by a simple twist between his fingers.

  I studied the murky gray contents. “What is it?”

  “A preventative,” he said. “It will make sure that our activities of the past day will not result in a child.”

  My eyes went enormously large. “Is that…” I floundered.

  “Safe? Or moral?” Now, a bit of a smile touched his lips, though it was a little more droll than I think he might have intended. “I cannot help with the latter, that’s between you and your conscience. I would prefer to sire no children and hope that you might feel the same.”
<
br />   “No!” As his eyebrows rose, I amended quickly, “I mean no offense. I simply…Children have never…” I hadn’t even considered it when I‘d agreed to marry Compton.

  Me? The mother of a helpless child?

  I shuddered. “No,” I said, deeply heartfelt. “I’ve no desire for children.”

  That relief shaped his regard did not offend me. “Then drink that down. ’Tis perfectly safe for your constitution.”

  I obeyed, wincing some when the flavor spread upon my tongue. “It reminds me of milk and…” I smacked my lips, searching for the descriptor. “Rather more of the Thames than I’d like to have swallowed.”

  Shaking his head in amusement, he handed me a full tea cup, its delicate rim glinting gold in the firelight. “I apologize that I did not consider your feelings on the subject when first we…That is, when I took you earlier.” Now, brilliant scarlet patches bloomed on his cheeks.

  I took the cup gratefully. “I am glad you did.” No lie, there. I was the fool who had not even considered the idea of children before the word was spoken before me. I would be much more careful in the future. “One more question.” At his inquisitive sound, my smile widened. “Can we start tomorrow?”

  To my delight, he laughed without shame or moderation, until the sound of it filled the room. “You will wish you did not ask.”

  I leaned back into my pillows and cradled the cup.

  “Mr. Ashmore,” I told him with great dignity, “your challenge is duly accepted.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I had never regretted impulsive words so much until some two days later. My one tea gown had been laundered and returned, somewhat worse for wear but serviceable for my needs.

  Maddie Ruth, oddly unconcerned for my behaviors resulting in hours spent in Ashmore’s bedroom, saw to my care with a breezy enjoyment I found endearing. That it allowed her to remain nearby whilst I studied the things Ashmore desired of me did no harm to her motivations.

  Oh, but the things Ashmore placed before me were mind-numbingly dull.

  He tested me first of my grasp upon basic scientific principles, including my memory of the periodic table. When I faltered even once, he sent me back to the books.