by Nina Walker
Lacey smiled with the kind of fascination that only young children could pull off. “See? That wasn’t so bad,” I said. “Are you ready to try?” I’d taken hardly any green from the plant, leaving only a small patch of gray. Not enough to kill it, but I also knew it would never be the same.
They never were.
“Why does it look like that?” Lacey asked. She was nearly seven and observant enough to notice the trace of gray.
“There’s a price to pay for everything, kid.” I smirked at my dry humor. She didn’t get it. All right then, let’s try again. “In order to give to something, like making these flowers feel healthy again, we have to take from something else. This grass gave a little bit of its life so that the flowers can keep living. Do you understand?”
“Does it have to be that way?” She bit her lip, her small face pinched. Her worry over one blade of grass was so ridiculously cute; I had to hold back a laugh. I didn’t want to hurt her tender feelings, as innocent as they were.
“For what we do, yes. Alchemy is magic. And magic is never free. Taking color is the payment. But we can always try our best to make sure we don’t kill anything completely. And the grass doesn’t feel like we feel. It doesn’t hurt. Sound okay?”
“Okay.” She wrinkled her nose, not convinced. “But what if it does hurt?”
Okay, she was adorable, but we had to move on.
“It won’t hurt you and the grass doesn’t have feelings. Now, you try. In your mind, and with your feelings, I want you to ask the grass to give you a little bit of its color. Do you think you can do that?”
She nodded and reached her hand out to gently caress the wild stalks. I could hardly believe someone so young could hold so much power. It wasn’t fair that alchemy came on so strong in kids. It was too much responsibility. But I was just as young when I’d been discovered and taken to the guardians for training. I understood the daunting emotions she faced.
“Look, you’re doing it.” I pointed to the emerald strands of magic that twisted above Lacey’s hand. “Now move it to some of the dying flowers,” I told her before she could get frightened and lose focus. All it would take was her intention if the ability was there. Luckily, green was one of the easiest colors to manipulate. And with a use like healing, that had come in handy on more than one occasion. Just as mine had done, her flowers perked up the instant they received the green alchemy. As she giggled something in my heart cracked open.
“How’s it going over here?”
I prickled at the voice of the woman who approached. It appeared she still didn’t know who I was. I planned to keep it that way. Placing a false smile on my face, I looked up and greeted Lara Loxley like I cared what she had to say.
“We’re making progress. Lacey just healed these flowers.”
“Mom, it was magic! They’re pretty, don’t you think?”
“Beautiful,” Lara replied. I noticed the family resemblance, despite my annoyance. Jessa’s dark curly hair and height obviously came from Lara, but her sense of style was entirely different. Lara was all-colorful, each article of clothing a bright hue not matching the next. I found it odd. She didn’t match the picture I’d had in my head of a cold, calculating person.
“It turns out Lacey is a natural alchemist. Like Jessa. You have talented daughters, Mrs. Loxley,” I said. “Magic must run in the family.” She averted her gaze; I probably shouldn’t have added that last bit. Sometimes my mouth ran away with me, no matter how much I tried to keep out of trouble. Something else Jessa and I had in common. The last thing I needed was for Lara to figure out who I was. I couldn’t pretend some happy family reunion with that woman or her husband, even if they were, technically, my parents.
“Well, I think that’s enough for today.”
Wait, what? “But we’re just getting started.”
“I don’t want Lacey to get too tired.”
I stood and brushed the dirt from my pants. “I assure you that took very little effort on her part. Like I said, she’s a natural. We have a lot of work to do and not much time.”
“What do you mean, not much time?”
Oh, oops. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that either…
It was likely that Lacey would be needed. The Resistance had big plans to take down the monarchy, and alchemy was an integral part of that. But Lacey’s parents had only agreed to her training so that she didn’t accidently hurt herself. They didn’t actually want—and I’ll admit, neither did I—Lacey anywhere near the Resistance or New Colony.
I backpedaled. “I just meant to say there’s not much time before we move on to the next color. I want to make sure she’s fully comfortable with green first.”
“Please, Momma.” Lacey grasped her hands together in a praying motion. “It’s so much fun! I want to try some more.”
“Really, I’ll take care of her. The first sign of fatigue and I’ll make her stop.”
And it was true, I would. No one gave me that luxury when I was a kid, and while the Resistance would possibly need Lacey’s help later, at least for now I certainly wasn’t going to treat her like a workhorse.
“Okay, fine.” Lara smiled fondly at Lacey before turning on me. “But I mean it. You stop the second she gets tired. You have to remember, she’s only a child. She’s my baby. And I want her safe at all times.”
I nodded vigorously. Anything to get this woman to leave. I watched her retreat to the cropping of trees, no doubt to supervise from a close distance. Her momma-bear instinct drove an angry blade right down my center, fileting me wide open. The hot anger of rejection charred so painfully, I lost my breath. More than anything, I wanted to run over there and give that woman a piece of my mind. How could she now have such care for Lacey, her baby, when she’d had so little regard for me?
I had been her child too.
And while she didn’t know who I was now, she’d certainly done nothing to protect me back then. Lara and Christopher didn’t even try to hide me, like so many other New Colony parents often did. No. The second these so-called parents discovered my alchemy, they’d sent me straight to the wolves. I’d spent years burying that memory into the deepest recesses of my soul. But it flashed through my mind anyway, like nails on a chalkboard.
“Give me a hug, okay,” Mommy says. I wrap my arms around her. She smells like sugar and roses. She pulls me in so tight that I squeal. She doesn’t normally hug this way, but I like it. I laugh. She doesn’t.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. She’s kneeling in front of me. Her eyes are all watery and blinking. She just shakes her head. Daddy comes into the room.
“Jessa’s finally asleep,” he says. She goes to bed before me because she’s only three so she’s still really little. But I’m a grown girl. I get to stay up later with Mommy and Daddy.
“Are you sure they know? They’re coming?”
“I’m positive. Kareth Jackson saw her do it, Lara. You know how that woman is. She would never keep something like that secret.”
Mrs. Jackson’s our next-door neighbor. She isn’t very nice to us. But she has kids our age that we sometimes get to play with. Mom says it’s better that we play alone. She says my magic is a dangerous secret. But it doesn’t feel dangerous. It’s fun. Jessa loves it, too!
But since it’s our family secret, I’m not supposed to do magic in front of anyone else. It’s okay. I am really smart.
“What do we do?” Mommy stands now, whispering to Daddy. They think I can’t hear. But that’s silly thinking. Kids always hear.
“I don’t know,” Daddy replies. “Where would we even go?”
“Maybe we could get out.”
“I have no idea how we would do that, Lara. We could all be killed.”
“So what do we do?”
“Maybe they’ll give her a good life. Better than we can.”
“No.”
“They’ll train her. She’ll learn how to control it.”
“No.”
“We’ll see her again. Maybe we can work
something out with them.”
There’s a long pause then. My heart begins to summersault through my body, like when we play tag and Daddy is just about to get me. Something is bad, and Mommy is crying. But they’re both nodding. And hugging. So it can’t be all-bad. Mommy and Daddy always know how to fix the bad things.
“We love you very much,” Daddy says, pulling me into their hug. It’s my favorite kind of hug, a Frankie-sandwich. But something about it isn’t right.
“I love you too.”
There’s a knock on the door.
I trusted them. Loved them. They were my protectors. So surely they would have at least put up a fight, right?
Wrong.
I tucked my head under the hood of my sweatshirt as I began my evening run around the perimeter of the camp. Newly fallen leaves crunched under my shoes as I focused on the trail.
Our Resistance camp was located in a remote Canadian mountain range. It worked well enough, small and isolated, even though the winters were brutal. We said “camp”, but it was basically a small village of log cabins. Mostly abandoned, our people had moved in one by one. Some were fleeing prosecution from New Colony, too fearful to go anywhere else, and others were looking for a place to hide out before moving on.
Canada didn’t have much government left to care about us, even if they did know we were here. Plus, there were little villages like this all over the country. It was a nation of refugees and misfits, people happy to be left alone and willing to take care of themselves. West America was a big unknown, so no one wanted to try his or her luck there, and anything south was so poverty stricken and overrun with drugs, it was downright dangerous.
I headed around the edge of camp, behind the mess hall where they were still cleaning up from dinner. We all took turns, spreading the work out evenly. I didn’t stop to chat. Not that anyone expected me to. Since returning from New Colony, I’d been less than talkative. Then again, I’d never been the friendliest of the bunch.
Nobody cared.
Our community was filled with rejects. We were a mix of alchemists and their families who’d run away in order to stay together, political dissenters who’d joined the Resistance, and social outcasts looking for a better life. Because of the shadow lands, it was nearly impossible to survive a trek out of New Colony by foot. Everyone had been smuggled here either through one of the Resistance’s helicopters, or, more likely, by boat on the Atlantic Ocean. Plenty of the people who lived here met the Resistance with weariness, because as much as we stood for what they believed, they feared King Richard more. But, over the years, we’d figured out how to live amicably. We worked together in a commune of sorts, growing our food, raising livestock, and sharing it all with each other. Of course, it helped that the few alchemists we did have used magic to grow healthy crops, heal the sick and injured, and just generally make life easier for everyone. Alchemy could do a lot of good things for the world, given the opportunity.
I increased my speed for the next stretch, zooming past a group practicing combat. That was something that could be seen during all daylight hours lately. We were training for something big, even if we didn’t know the logistics yet.
I wasn’t in the mood to join them. I would later, but running was my salvation and I needed it after my day training Lacey. Part of me wanted to forgive Lara and Christopher. It wasn’t their fault. And had I been born somewhere else, I probably would have been murdered. Most countries imprisoned or executed alchemists out of ignorance and fear of the unknown.
Then the image of gray things infiltrated my mind. No. What I’d endured, being forced to harm innocent people as a child, was worse than death. The smell of decay haunted me. The cries of agonizing death terrorized my dreams. My actions as a child were something I’d live with forever, because of them.
My parents.
The officers.
And the royal family.
The kings of New Colony were all the same. Power hungry. Fear mongering. Strategic. Each one worse than the last. Richard used magic to keep the kingdom protected by the uncrossable shadow lands—lands that grew larger every time we flew over them. He used alchemy to keep the people in line, just comfortable enough not to question the cage. And they used alchemy to keep their own royal family living in luxury.
Worst of all, they used magic to kill.
Needless to say, after my own painful experiences with the GC, I was more than grateful to be out of there. And also more than ready to take down the royals the second I got the chance. I’d thought Lucas was different, and part of me still held out hope that he was. But reports had come back that although he was helping Jessa, he was refusing to work with the Resistance. He foolishly blamed us for the queen’s death, as if we knew who was doing that to her. He admonished us for putting Jessa back in the palace, but that was the most logical course of action to gain an upper hand against Richard. And he hated that he hadn’t ever been let into the inner-circle—even though we’d planned for that to happen soon. He’d ruined it, and I hoped he wouldn’t get killed for it. Every day Richard continued on his path, the likelihood of a peaceful rebellion grew smaller. We would succeed, no matter what, and if that meant removing Lucas from the equation, my superiors wouldn’t blink an eye. Especially now that he’d left the alliance.
Stupid boy. Why does he always have to be so difficult?
I stopped to catch my breath, bent over.
I was just outside Hank’s cabin. He usually spent his evenings alone, but I heard the sound of muffled voices coming from within. Someone jogged up the front steps and entered without even knocking. Tristan. What was he doing here? I knew it had to be Resistance business, and I wanted in on that.
I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and pushed open the door to Hank’s cabin. Sure, I might have been dripping with sweat and red-faced from the run, but I didn’t care.
“Frankie, girl, always a pleasure to see your smiling face,” Hank said, clearly joking at the stoic expression I so carefully wore. “I was just going to send Tristan here to fetch you.”
Anyone else, and I would have called bull. But Hank didn’t lie.
“Thanks for thinking of me, old man,” I said. “And don’t call me Frankie; we already talked about this. It’s Sasha.”
“That’s right, sorry, Sasha. Old habits die hard for this old man.” He winked. Trying to be funny, no doubt.
I scoffed and shuffled into the cozy cabin. Three other occupants filled the space. I’d spent numerous hours here and considered Hank to be the closest thing I had to a father figure. I lived in a cabin with the other single girls, though I didn’t connect with anyone very well. I struggled with relationships. Can we say, abandonment issues? But Hank had never treated me like the orphan I felt I was. I loved him for it, and I owed him everything. He’d saved me from the GC and taken me under his wing. And while I’d begged him for years to let me get more involved with the Resistance, he’d only agreed when they’d needed someone young on the inside. I’d started off at a few of the distant outposts, finally working my way to the palace to monitor Lucas.
Technically, my mission there was to get the prince to fall in love with me, to get him to turn from his father and join us beyond any doubt. And technically, I’d failed. Jessa had come along, and my long lost sister had easily stolen his heart. She didn’t have to try. Just the way they looked at each other wasn’t something I’d ever experienced, so I didn’t blame her. Since I’d recruited her to our side, I still considered the mission a win. If anyone could turn him for good, it was Jessa.
And Jessa was one of us now.
“She’s the alchemist?” One of Hank’s guests stepped forward. I didn’t recognize him. In fact, I only recognized one of the other three. This man had a different air about him, unfamiliar and almost hostile. He was clean-shaven and dressed well—he wasn’t a regular in our camp. He was an outsider.
“What business is it of yours?” I quipped back.
Hank rested a hand on my shoulder.
I instantly felt protected, and the hostility inside began to defuse. I looked up at the grizzly-bear of a man: mid-fifties, hair beginning to gray, and a scruffy beard to match. I smiled.
“We didn’t expect to be working directly with your alchemists,” the man pressured in a clipped tone.
“I assure you,” Hank said calmly, “Sasha is an asset. She’s here to help us, and we can’t do this without alchemists on our side.”
“And why not?”
Who is this guy? I wasn’t used to people being so volatile against alchemy. In New Colony, while it was a crime to hide it, it certainly wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. I was proud of who I was because I’d fought hard to become her.
“Ever heard of the phrase fight fire with fire?” I barked at the man. He raised an eyebrow, less than impressed. I didn’t care. Whoever he was, he needed to back off. I’d proven myself time and time again, and I refused to let anyone doubt me. I studied him further and guessed he had some kind of military background. His cold eyes sparked with calculated intelligence as we faced each other.
“Sasha’s right,” Hank interceded. “The king has an arsenal of alchemists at his disposal. We need to take whatever magic we can get. And I promise, I’ve known Sasha nearly all her life. She can be trusted.”
The man glared for a minute longer, then smoothly returned to his seat at the table. I followed and dropped into a vacant chair. I wouldn’t shrink because of this man’s opinion. He knew nothing of what I’d sacrificed for this cause.
“Sasha, this is Jacob Cole.” Hank waved a hand at the jerk. “And you already know Tristan.” Hank nodded to the guy sitting next to me. Oh yes, I knew Tristan all right. Before I’d left the camp, he’d been the closest thing I had to a best friend. He’d helped get me out of New Colony in the first place. And we’d spent countless hours together over the years since. He was one of those people who always had the best jokes and could diffuse any situation with his smile. Since returning, I’d worried things would be awkward between us. I hadn’t had a lot of time to catch up.
