by Beth Revis
“My time has been occupied entertaining His Imperial Majesty, but . . .” The governor lifted both her palms as if in defeat. “I feel my presence could be better used here or in the factories at Blackdocks.”
I smelled sawdust and blood, and resisted the urge to gag. “Have you been to one of the factories infected by the plague?” I asked.
“No,” the governor said. She paused, evaluating me. “But you have?” She spoke the words as if they were a question, but her look suggested she knew the answer already.
I nodded.
“I am aware of the horrible conditions at Blackdocks,” the governor said, leading me down the corridor. “When I ran for this position, I had to play the political game, but my intent was to lead with compassion, especially for those less fortunate than us.”
Us. Had I been so long in Northface Harbor that I was so easily mistaken for a city girl, born into a life of wealth and education?
“Prior to being elected governor, I worked in the treasury,” Governor Adelaide continued. “There are items there of immeasurable value—some items from the days of the colony, from before.” She paused, looking down the hallway, her eyes lingering on the families waiting to be treated, the children with black on their fingers or toes, over their hearts. “This hospital is funded from the treasury. But it’s supposed to be supplemented by the factory owners. The factory owners are supposed to send all workers here straightaway at the first sign of sickness.”
Her shoulders sagged. “But they don’t. Because they’re supposed to send a bit of money with their workers to help support the quarantine hospital. Instead, they let them die.”
My stomach churned, but I was too horrified to speak.
“It’s cheaper, you see,” the governor said. “Cheaper to just replace sick workers after they’ve died rather than pay for treatment.”
“Can’t you do something?” I asked.
She smiled at me, but it was sad. “I’m trying,” she promised.
* * *
• • •
As Grey and I walked back to Yūgen from Blackdocks, I paused outside of Berrywine’s furniture factory. The black cloth was being pulled from the windows. A line of new workers stood outside the door, waiting for the dead bodies to be carted to the pauper’s grave before they began their new jobs.
THIRTY-TWO
Nedra
“The governor was at the hospital today,” I told Master Ostrum.
“Oh?” His voice was monotone, indifferent.
“She came to see Lord Anton in the quarantine hospital, but stayed to visit many of the sick.”
Master Ostrum snorted. “She should have selected him as Lord Commander. Instead, she has yet to choose a second, and that weakens her position.”
“Still,” I said. “It’s more than what the Emperor’s doing.”
Master Ostrum conceded the point. “The Emperor is a child. We treat him almost like a god, but he’s a child.”
“He’s my age,” I pointed out. “Like it or not, he is our Emperor.”
Master Ostrum leveled me with a stare. “He’s been locked up in the castle since the plague got worse. He’s too afraid to peek outside the silk curtains of his own bed, too trembling to make his way from the governor’s castle to his own on the mainland. He’s not of stout enough blood to be Emperor, that’s for certain.”
His voice had risen with each word, and the resounding silence after he ceased talking hung between us. My mouth gaped. It seemed wrong to speak against the Emperor, and yet, I couldn’t disagree. I could tell he was waiting for me to do just that, to protest that this Emperor was best not just for our island, but for the whole of the Empire, the whole of the world, including the unclaimed lands. But Master Ostrum had a point. The Emperor had proven himself a coward. He had not been the one to walk the halls of the hospital. It had been Governor Adelaide, her kind heart and gracious words making the patients smile through their pain, giving them more hope than even my crucible could.
“But perhaps,” I said, “it is best not to speak such thoughts of the Emperor aloud.”
Master Ostrum raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps it is also best not to work along the edges of necromancy, yet here we are.”
I felt my cheeks grow hot. My efforts to save Dilada felt long ago, but the desire to do more still bubbled under my skin. All day at the hospital, I’d had to limit myself. I knew Grey thought I pushed too hard, helped too many people, but each time was like slaking my thirst after walking through the desert. The victims of the plague who weren’t going to make it, the ones closest to Death . . .
I touched the three knots on the necklace I wore around my neck, reminiscent of Oryous’s stars in the sky, symbolic of our greatest god’s three eyes watching over the past, the present, and the future. Death is not a god to worship, I reminded myself.
Master Ostrum watched me, seeming to follow my unspoken train of thought. “Let us forget what we should and should not say and instead speak the truth simply.” He stood and walked to the center of the lab. “This building is the oldest one on campus. Bennum Wellebourne himself walked the halls. But as time goes by, people forget about the foibles of old buildings.”
Master Ostrum knelt on the wooden floor, feeling along the edges of the boards and then prying his fingers in a crack. I gasped as the entire panel of the floor opened up. I ran over to where Master Ostrum peered into the dark.
I had known the floor of the lab was slightly higher than the floor of Master Ostrum’s office, but I hadn’t realized that it covered the cool, packed earth of the foundation of the building. A small ladder descended into the shadows, and Master Ostrum eased himself over the side of the floor and down into the subbasement. When he reached the bottom, he lit an oil lamp, illuminating the area. Leaning over the edge, I could see that the hidden room was smaller than I’d expected, but still large enough for Master Ostrum to comfortably stand and stretch his arms out without touching the sides.
Shelves had been dug into the packed earth walls, little burrows that looked like ancient catacombs. Master Ostrum grabbed a box from one of the shelves, then lifted it up for me to take.
It was heavier than I’d expected, and I had to leverage it against the floorboards to pull it into the lab. Master Ostrum climbed back up the ladder, first moving the panel to hide the secret entrance and then taking the box from me. He had to beat on the sides of the crate to get the lip to come undone, and when he lifted the lid, I found myself holding my breath as I peered inside.
Straw covered three crucibles—one gold, one silver, and one copper.
Master Ostrum lifted each of the crucibles, holding them out for me to take after he swept the straw aside. I had never used a silver crucible—transformations were difficult to master—but the golden crucible felt comfortable in my hands. I turned it over, examining the runes etched into it. I turned it upside down and saw two initials scratched into the bottom: B.W.
My eyes shot to Master Ostrum’s, and he nodded gravely. “Bennum Wellebourne’s personal crucibles.”
“How did . . . ?” I started, my awe at holding such ancient artifacts in my hands silencing my question.
Master Ostrum ignored me. “Wellebourne was one of the few who mastered all forms of alchemy. Transfer, transform, transact.” He touched the golden, silver, and copper crucibles as he said each word, but then pulled the copper one closer to him. “Transcend.”
Master Ostrum pointed to a knife on the table, and after a curious look, I fetched it for him. I recognized the blade. It was the same one he’d used to slice open my palm on my first day at Yūgen. This time, he turned the blade on himself, piercing the pad of his index finger and squeezing a drop of blood into the copper crucible. The bright red splattered on the empty base, but in a blink, the crucible was no longer hollow.
“What is that?” I asked as Master Ostrum withdrew the object.
I felt the smooth, black thing. “It looks like . . . bones,” I said. “This could be the metacarpals and carpals.” I touched each of the three sections on the longer pieces that pointed up. “Proximal, middle, distal . . .” As I named the bones, I suddenly realized what I was holding.
A hand.
“This is a replica . . . ?” I started, but Master Ostrum shook his head.
“It’s real.”
“And it’s made of—”
“Human bones, yes,” he said.
I should have been disgusted by the idea of holding hands with a dead person, but I wasn’t. I was simply curious. “Why do the fingers point up like this?” I used my other hand to mimic the position of the bones. I scrunched my fingers together, keeping them flat and pointed.
“All crucibles must be made of pure metals. A necromancer’s crucible is made of blood iron.” He held his hand out to me, and I saw the red smeared on the finger he’d cut with the knife. “Our blood is the color of rust for a reason. We have iron in our veins, Nedra.”
“Yes, but not enough to make a whole crucible,” I started.
Master Ostrum shook his head. “This is dark alchemy,” he said. “I tell you about it now only so that you know what we’re up against with the plague.”
The plague Master Ostrum believed was no true illness, but a necromantic curse.
“It’s not enough for a necromancer to have inherent power, he must have an iron crucible as well. And that can only be made with a crucible cage—a cage built of sacrifice, the hand of a loved one, the bones burnt in a sulfuric inferno.”
I thought of all the hands that had been amputated since the plague. And then I recalled the portrait of Bennum Wellebourne that hung in the quarantine hospital, and the woman who stood beside him with her hand missing.
“His wife,” I said. “He cut off her hand . . .”
“And created the crucible he used to raise the dead. This is the second crucible cage he made—and it’s still very powerful. Especially if . . .”
The implication was clear. This hand—this cage—could be used to make a crucible.
“I told you, to be a necromancer, sacrifices must be made. Not just of yourself, but of those you love and who love you.” Master Ostrum stared down at the bony cage. “Perhaps that is one reason why necromancers are so hated, because their sacrifices extend beyond themselves. Wellebourne took his wife’s hand first and used it to create the crucible that raised the dead. That relic is in the treasury—broken, but a reminder of all that happened.”
Master Ostrum’s face was grim. “That crucible was taken when he was captured. Wellebourne was locked in the castle while he awaited trial.”
I remembered what Grey had told me, about how the castle was haunted.
“He was so desperate to escape,” Master Ostrum continued, “that he actually sawed his own hand off in an attempt to make a second crucible. He got that far.” He nodded to the hand I still held, and revulsion filled me. This was Bennum Wellebourne’s hand, burned and cursed?
“He called his son to him, the day before he was going to be hung.” Master Ostrum spat the words out bitterly. “He intended to burn the boy to ash and complete the crucible. His son was about twelve at the time. Of course, the guards in the tower stopped Wellebourne. The boy stole the crucible cage and escaped. And Wellebourne was hung.”
“How do you know all this?”
“These are Wellebourne’s own crucibles,” he said, looking me in the eye. “The copper one will only reveal its contents with Wellebourne’s blood.”
My gaze dropped down to the bright red on Master Ostrum’s finger and the blood he shared with the island’s greatest traitor.
THIRTY-THREE
Nedra
“You’re—?”
“His descendant, yes,” Master Ostrum said. “The son who stole the crucible was my great-great-grandfather. I’m the last of the line.”
“I didn’t know,” I said.
Master Ostrum snorted. “It’s not something I publicize. My family has changed its name several times over the years.” He looked around at the office, at the floorboards covering the subbasement. “Ironically, quite a few of the professors who have resided in this office have been ancestors of mine. Wellebournes do have an affinity for alchemy, and we seem drawn back to this school.”
I put the crucible cage down on the floor. It didn’t disturb me to hold it while I knew it was made of human bones, but once I learned that human was Bennum Wellebourne, I was disgusted.
Master Ostrum picked it up. “My family has kept this hidden for nearly two centuries.”
“Why not just destroy it?”
“You think it would be that easy?” he asked in a low voice.
After a long moment, I asked, “Why are you telling me these secrets?”
“Because someone else has done all of this,” Master Ostrum said. “Someone has severed a hand, burned flesh to ash, spilled his own blood. Someone has followed all of the steps—and they’ve started the plague.”
Outside, we heard a noise—a thump of some kind, perhaps a door closing. Master Ostrum stood, returning the bones to the copper crucible and then packing it and the others back into their crate. He opened the hidden passage to the subbasement and motioned for me to follow.
The area beneath the floor was cool and slightly damp. My father would have been shocked to see books stored on the earthen shelves, but they showed no sign of damage or mold.
“My family has gathered what they could through the generations,” Master Ostrum said. “Guilt is hereditary.”
“You had nothing to do with—” I started, but he waved his hand, cutting me off.
“What’s important now is that so much time has passed, people have forgotten what necromancy really is and what it can do.”
I felt sick to my stomach.
“Nedra, you can see it, too, can’t you?” There was desperation in his voice. “You’ve studied this plague as much as any of the professors have. You know it’s not biological. It’s alchemical.”
“And targeted against the poor?” I asked. “Who would do that?”
“Someone rich.” There was bitterness in his voice. “Or merely one who doesn’t value human life. But you see it’s necromantic, don’t you? Now that you see the evidence, now that you see . . .” His voice trailed off, his eyes wide, searching mine.
And I realized: He wasn’t certain.
But he was eager.
Master Ostrum had spent his entire life with the secret of his family’s dark past. Now there was a hint of it rising up again, and his reaction was . . . excitement.
I tasted bile in the back of my throat. Master Ostrum and I had been studying the plague since my earliest days at Yūgen, but he’d never been as passionate for the cure as he seemed fascinated now with the curse.
“You can’t be sure,” I said. “People are afraid of necromancy. And this knowledge—” I swept my arm to the tiny collection of books and items hidden in the subbasement. “Who else would know all this?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Master Ostrum said, shaking his head. “But someone else must . . . There are books. Necromancy is illegal, but learning about it . . . There are books. Rare tomes. Hidden in corners of libraries, forgotten, old books with old knowledge.”
The back of my heel touched the ladder leading back up to the lab. How long had Master Ostrum suspected necromancy? How much of our shared laboratory time had been wasted with him already knowing the answer?
Dilada flashed through my mind. Had he sent me to the factories, to the hospital, hoping I would eventually push myself that far, that deep into the arms of Death?
My stomach twisted.
“I have to go,” I said, one foot on the first rung.
“Ne
dra, wait,” Master Ostrum said. “I know this is a lot, but—”
I shook my head, climbing a few more steps up. “I have to go,” I repeated. “I have to . . . I have to think about this. I have to . . .” But I didn’t finish. I was already back up in the lab. I crossed the small room quickly, throwing open the door, running out of the building. I didn’t slow down until I reached the center of the quad, until Bennum Wellebourne’s iron-encased statue loomed over me.
THIRTY-FOUR
Grey
When nedra stopped going to the hospital as often, my initial reaction was relief and hope that she would finally start taking care of herself. Instead, she went from treating patients to working day and night in the laboratory hall.
I joined her, helping where I could. “Did you and Master Ostrum have a breakthrough?” I asked, hoping this nightmare of a plague would soon be over.
“Maybe,” Nedra said slowly. “But I have to be absolutely, entirely sure.”
“Why aren’t you working in his lab?” I asked.
She opened her mouth to answer, then her brow furrowed into a frown. “It’s better this way,” she said finally.
Master Ostrum had blocked off a lab in the main hall just for Nedra. One wall held a row of cabinets that were all closed, many of them with locks. The other wall held a locker full of rats, each in its own cage.
“So what is this big theory of Master Ostrum’s?” I asked as Nedra pulled slides of samples from a box and lined them up with the microscope.
She bent over the microscope, analyzing the contents of the slide. But her eye wasn’t focused through the lens; her gaze kept drifting. She leaned back and pulled her bag closer to her. Through the open top, I could see a book. Not a textbook—something old, the title worn away.
She sighed as if she were making a decision, one she wasn’t sure about in the least. Then she turned her full attention to me, staring at me intently. “Grey,” she said, “there’s been no cure for the plague. Nothing has worked.”
