by Gigi Pandian
He laughed, but it was a mirthful laugh. “I think that psychologist was right. I’m going crazy. I’ve had an overactive imagination ever since I was a kid. My grandmother told me the most amazing stories about what apothecaries could do. It took me way too long to stop believing in her magical stories. I don’t know why I said anything in the first place. Only, doing things by the book is important to me. I know it might sound stupid to someone who’s not a cop—”
“It doesn’t sound stupid. It doesn’t sound stupid at all.”
“I’ve never lied on a police report,” Max said. “Never.”
“What did you see?”
“It was a damn monster.”
I didn’t know what to say. None of this made sense. He must have seen Dorian last night, without realizing what he’d seen, or even believing his own eyes. But how was it possible he’d also seen Dorian last month?
“What did it look like?” I asked. “The monster, I mean.”
He gave me a sharp look. Did he think I was mocking him?
“I should go.” He stood up, favoring his right knee.
I was too stunned on many levels to do anything as he brushed past me and headed for the door. It had to have been Dorian he saw last night. At least he hadn’t seen Brixton. But what had Max seen the previous month? Dorian had only arrived in Portland this week, with my shipping crates.
Hadn’t he?
twenty-one
I was startled from my thoughts by two people sitting down at the table next to me. Olivia placed two steaming mugs on the tree ring table top and tossed her red shawl over her shoulder as she sat down. Ivan sat down next to her, gave me a friendly nod, and buried his scruffy, haggard face in a book with Cyrillic text.
“That poor boy,” Olivia said, shaking her head as she watched Max depart.
“I don’t think his injury is too bad,” I said. “He’ll be fine.”
Olivia barked a laugh. “You are quite dense for a smart young woman.”
“What do you mean?” I was fairly certain I knew what she was going to say: that Max believed I was a suspect.
“He knows.”
“Knows what? I didn’t have anything to do with the crimes—”
She laughed again. “Not that. I’m talking about your French boyfriend.”
“I don’t—” I began, but realized I had to keep up the lie. One little lie to protect Dorian … I should have known people beyond Brixton and his friends would hear about what I told them.
“Why would Max care if I happen to have a French friend?”
Ivan sighed and shook his head. His tired eyes and unkempt beard and hair didn’t match his tailored wool suit.
“You should go after him,” Olivia said with the first genuinely warm smile I’d seen.
She was right. I stood up and went after Max. When I reached the sidewalk, there was no sign of him. I closed my eyes for a moment. Running after him had been a stupid idea anyway. What would I have said to him if I’d caught up with him? Told him I wanted to push all thoughts of poison and murder from my mind and sit down with him and talk about his apothecary grandparents and the tea he grew? That was only a fantasy.
Back to reality, I hurried home. I needed to hide the stolen vial. Now that Max was on leave and a new detective on the case, there was no way I could entertain the notion of telling anyone what I’d learned. I hadn’t even figured out how I was going to tell Max. Instead of knowing more, I knew less than I had before. I hadn’t learned more about Charles Macraith. I hadn’t identified the exact makeup of the poison. I hadn’t gotten any closer to figuring out who had killed Charles Macraith, stolen Dorian’s book, and was trying to frame Blue Sky.
The only thing I’d learned was that one of the key components of the poison was the most important element to an alchemist.
I had more questions than I knew what to do with. Had Dorian hidden out in my crate as he’d told me, only emerging when I opened the box? I believed him to be trustworthy from what I’d seen of him and from what he did for me years ago in Paris. But what other explanation was there for what Max saw? Could there be more creatures like Dorian out there? If Not Untrue Alchemy brought one stone carving to life, could it do the same to others?
———
It was Brixton’s last day staying with me before his mom returned from her artist retreat. I was going to miss the kid, but at this point I was wondering if he would have been better off on his own these last few days.
I needed to wash away all the evidence that he and Dorian had stolen the poison. I wasn’t going to destroy the liquid remaining in the vial, but it would need to be hidden somewhere safe, away from the house, until I could figure out what to do with it.
Before reaching the basement door, I was waylaid by smoke curling from underneath the kitchen door. Or rather, the room formerly known as a kitchen. It looked as if a tornado had blown through the room. Dorian wore the apron I’d picked up for him on a recent trip to the store, but that hadn’t prevented his entire body from being coated in flour, which also coated large swaths of the walls and window blinds. Wisps of smoke escaped from the old oven. Nuts crunched under my shoes as I stepped into the room. And was that sweet potato on the ceiling?
“Um, Dorian?”
He turned from the stool he stood on as he mixed a bowl of frothy batter. His black eyes stood out against the white powder on his face.
“The boy is playing his guitar upstairs,” he said.
“What happened here?”
“Do you know how difficult it is to make a soufflé without eggs? Who does not eat eggs? You know there is a family a few houses over who have chickens in their backyard. It would be so simple to take the eggs during the night. You are lucky I respect your wishes.”
“By destroying my kitchen?”
“You need a new oven regardless.”
“What did you do to my oven?”
“I told you, I am trying to make a vegan soufflé. I almost have it!”
I couldn’t imagine this gargoyle gourmet having a sinister plan and lying to me about when he arrived in Portland. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the alternative any better: that there was another creature out there—and one that might not be as goodhearted as Dorian.
“I need to ask you something,” I said.
“Sweet potato.”
“What?”
“That is the ingredient I was hoping would make the soufflé work without eggs. Sadly, I was mistaken, thus the potato on the ceiling. I have learned that similar to what worked for the galettes, ground golden flax seeds in warm water or nut milk works well as an egg replacement.”
“Oh. That’s great. That’s not what I was going to ask you.”
“No?” He resumed whipping the batter with a whisk.
“When you hid out in my shipping crates, you didn’t open the crate and come out before I opened the crates in my living room, did you?”
“How would I have done that?”
“You use your claws to get into all sorts of places. Like police labs.”
“Yes,” he said. “But not when heavy wooden boxes are stacked on top of each other in those metal containers that go on lorries. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” I said.
He stopped mixing, setting the bowl down and jumping off his cooking stool. “You,” he said, walking up to me, “should be a better liar for someone who has lived for so long.”
“I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily,” I said.
“I respect your privacy, but if this involves me—”
“Someone saw you last night.”
“Zut. Je suis desolé. I did not think anyone had seen us!”
“Just you, not Brixton. It was Max. But he thinks he imagined it.”
“This is good.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not. H
e saw something similar last month, here in Portland.”
“Last month? But I was not here.”
“Exactly. So who was?”
“But this is impossible! I have had the book in my possession all these years. How else could there be someone like me? Especially here in Portland.”
“I don’t know, Dorian,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“I shall investigate tonight.”
“No. You’ve done enough investigating. Speaking of which, I need you to take the vial you stole far away from here. Max is off the case and there’s a new detective working it. I don’t know if he’ll consider me a serious suspect. We need to make sure there’s nothing linking us to the break-in. I’m going to clean up the vessels I used to test it, and I’ll give you the vial to hide tonight.”
“You are done with it?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “But it can’t stay here. You can climb somewhere that nobody will be able to get to it, but that we can get back if we need it.”
“You do not yet know who is connected to the poison. You could try one more time.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
Dorian scowled. “You said the poison would help.”
“It’s sort of like a fingerprint,” I said. “I can’t detect the person who created a poison if I haven’t already seen what they can do. Like how a fingerprint is meaningless unless you’ve got something to compare it to. The reason I could tell it wasn’t Blue who mixed that particular concoction was that it didn’t have her signature.”
“You mean it is a process of elimination?”
“If I have already seen the way someone has put things together and the energy they have put into it, I can tell if a new substance was created by the same person. Their own unique signature. Only …”
“Only what?”
“If this mixture was created by someone other than the person who used it, I wouldn’t be able to link it to the killer. And since it was a mix of mercury, herbs, and other substances, I don’t know exactly what’s going on with it.”
“Why did you ask me to steal the vial, then, if it could not help?”
“I didn’t ask you to!”
“You implied it. You wished me to take action where you could not.”
“It wasn’t for nothing,” I admitted. “I’m more sure than ever that Blue is innocent and being framed. I know mercury is involved, meaning we need to be extra careful, because we don’t know who we’re dealing with. And now I know more about some of the ingredients that were given to Blue—” I broke off. I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid. There was a time when this type of poisoning was much more common. A time when I knew how to heal people.
“What is it?” Dorian asked.
“Wait here,” I said.
“Where would I go?” He glanced around the disaster area that was my kitchen.
I ran down the basement stairs. I found the vial of poison Dorian and Brixton had stolen, still half full, and slipped it into my pocket. I rooted through my glass vessels. I knew it had to be somewhere … I’d seen the blue-tinted glass when I’d carried things downstairs. Yes. I found the tincture I was looking for and ran back up the stairs. It had been so long since I’d thought of it that I’d forgotten it was there.
“Here’s the stolen vial,” I said, handing Dorian the vial after wiping it off with a kitchen rag.
“Where are you going?”
“There’s something I need to try. I’ll be back soon.”
———
I arrived at the hospital with a few minutes left during visiting hours. Though I was relieved that the only police officer in sight was chatting with a nurse at the far end of the hallway, I again wondered how safe Blue was. If I could get to her so easily, who else could? I was there to give her something I hoped might save her, but someone else might come with different intentions.
Blue looked so peaceful that I could have easily believed her to be asleep, if it hadn’t been for the tubes and machines surrounding her. Though I knew the plastic tubes were doing her good, the sight of them still made me shudder. Doctors of the past who prescribed bloodletting and other cures always thought they were doing good. They did the best they could with what they knew.
“I don’t know if you can hear me, Blue,” I whispered, “but I’m sorry someone did this to you. I want to help.”
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure nobody was watching, then removed the small glass jar I’d brought with me. I removed its dropper lid and put three drops through her parted lips.
It was a spagyric tincture I’d created a century ago—a mixture of plant essences in alcohol with calcinated plant ash to strengthen the effect of what would otherwise be a simple healing tonic. Tinctures last many years, but I had no idea if they lasted that long. I no longer knew how to create this concoction, and it was the last of the batch I’d transformed all those years ago. I had made it back when I was practicing alchemy with Ambrose, before I gave it up. Back then, I had often created healing tincture and tonics. They helped people, but they weren’t miracle cures. I hadn’t thought about this tincture for Blue’s coma until I realized the nature of what had poisoned her body. It was something I created to help the body detoxify from a mercurial poison that was making industrial workers sick, before the effects were known to be poisonous.
A knock sounded at the door, startling me. The dropper fell from my hand and into the folds of the bedding. I couldn’t see where it had gone.
Cupping the container in my hand and slipping it into my pocket, I turned to the person who’d knocked.
“Visiting hours are ending,” the nurse said.
“I’ll just be a minute.”
“I can wait. I’m here to check her vitals.”
Behind her, a police officer appeared. He frowned as he looked past the nurse into the room.
Time for a new plan. “Take care, Blue,” I said, leaning over to squeeze her arm, hoping it looked like a natural affectionate gesture as I attempted to see where the dropper had fallen.
I didn’t see it.
The nurse and officer stood in the doorway and watched me as I left, empty-handed.
twenty-two
By the time I reached the house, I had thought up a long list of the many horrible things that could happen if the dropper was discovered on Blue. What if my fingerprints were found on the dropper? What if they thought it was poison? My tincture wouldn’t hurt her, but it was possible it wouldn’t have any effect. It was a harmless plant mixture, but would modern doctors or the police realize that? Or would they think I had poisoned Blue and was trying to finish what I’d started? I was the one who’d found her lying unconscious, after all. The person who calls in something like that is automatically suspected.
Dorian was almost finished cleaning the kitchen. He was a responsible little gargoyle, I’d give him that.
“You do not look well,” he said, a scouring brush in his hand.
“I’m tempted to pack up and move to Paris.”
“Truly?”
“No, not really. It’s just been a bad day.”
“Oh.” His shoulders fell.
“I’m sorry, Dorian. I didn’t mean to tease you. You miss it, don’t you?”
“Why do you think I have been cooking soufflés today? If I merely wished to stay awake, I would read one of the many books you kindly brought me from the library.”
“You’re cooking comfort food the same reason you ordered Le Monde,” I said. “You’re homesick.”
He gave a Gallic shrug. “This is a strange country.”
“What’s been going on here isn’t normal.”
“I am not speaking of the murder and the theft of my book. I realize it was I who brought this upon you. For that I am truly sorry.”
“You couldn’t have known.”<
br />
“You are a kind woman, Zoe. This is why I wonder if perhaps I should leave you and return to Paris myself.”
“Are you serious? You can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
“We need to find out what’s happening to you. Find a way to reverse the effects of whatever is killing you.”
“Maybe I am meant to die this cursed death. Perhaps,” he said, “it is my fate.”
“I know you’re French, but you don’t have to be so resigned.”
“I do not hear Brixton playing his guitar,” he said.
“Nice try. Don’t change the subject.”
“I am serious. We should hear him.”
I rushed upstairs. The guitar rested on Brixton’s unmade bed. There was no sign of Brixton.
After searching the house and yard, I sent him a text, only to hear the beeping of a phone—coming from Dorian. The phone was in the pocket of his apron, where Dorian was keeping it to prevent Brixton from filming another video.
“Why did I agree to let him stay here?” I said. “There was a murder here, and a murderer still out there. What was I thinking?”
“Do not forget that the boy and I were also seen last night by the detective. Someone else may have seen us too.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Fais l’autruche?”
“No. You’re right. I don’t want to bury my head in the sand like an ostrich.”
“You are worried. But you must keep a calm mind.”
“A calm head.”
“Exactement.”
“His mom is picking him up tonight. He knows that. He knows he should be here. What if something has happened to him?”
“It is too early to think that.”
“I hate feeling helpless.” I grabbed my keys. “It’s sunny for the first time this week. Maybe he and his friends are out enjoying it.”
Though my little neighborhood felt much like a small town, I quickly remembered how big a city Portland was. Over half a million people lived here. And I was looking for one kid.
He wasn’t at the park across the street from the high school, where I knew he sometimes liked to hang out. Checking there had been my grand idea. I wasn’t sure where else to look. Was downtown Portland a draw for teenagers who lived across the river? I drove through Old Town and ended up on the main drag with Powell’s Books. I doubted they would be at the bookstore.
