What had he said?
They hate me. So many of them hate me. The way they sneered at me…
It has nothing to do with you.
But, it must.
No, they just hate an idea in their head, an ignorant stupid idea. You’ll prove them wrong. The old and ignorant die and make way for the new. You’ll be so good they can’t ignore you.
Kip wasn’t sure. Why did he have to be better just to win acceptance? Couldn’t he just be like everyone else? He changed the subject.
What do we do now?
Bonfire Night is this Friday. We can go out. We can celebrate. You need some fireworks immediately!
I think you’re right. Just promise me they’ll have every color.
I promise.
It was enough. He would be with Enos. He’d passed his test. He’d graduated.
He’d survived the storm.
The light approached again, golden white and buzzing with some intangible energy. The sound of a chorus came with it, many voices singing in perfect unison.
Kip dreamed of breaking clouds, splintered by golden light. It pierced cumulus and cumulonimbus, and stretched to the heavens. The voices seemed to drive the light on as they smashed through a gray world, finding every spot that had been robbed of color and breathing new life into it.
The sound rose and fell, rose and fell, like waves crashing on a shore.
The voices turned to sea foam.
It muttered with its constant motion, moving in and out.
He was doused with it, bitingly cold and salty.
The dream of light faded and Kip shuddered back to consciousness. He sucked air into his lungs, each breath filling them with cold blades.
Kip pushed his body off the sand, balanced on his hands and knees, wanting to collapse back into the water, wanting to let it drag him back out to sea. It seemed like a place where he could forget, wrapped in seaweed, coral sprouting from his skin; a place to spend the eons.
Water flowed from his hair and off his clothing, like liquid squeezed from a sponge. It was sucked back into the sand where tiny bubbles rose to the surface.
Morning had come. The storm had broken on the shore and was replaced with sunlight. Its light played off the sand, making a million small jewels.
Kip dared to look back at the sea. It moved with no memory of what had come before; no memory of shipwrecks and lost friends.
Shadow was lost, his only and dearest friend.
His bag, that reliquary of alchemy, had sunken to the depths.
Even Fairfield and Britten were gone.
And Enos.
Kip felt a warmth spreading from his forehead and he brought his hand up to find blood there. It coated his fingers like a red glove and he watched it cover his fingerprints before dripping into the sand.
There was a beat in his breast pocket; a small thumping vibration.
He pulled out the vial, its churning light bringing color back into the world. It was a tiny engine of warmth. He hadn’t lost everything after all.
The light hugged the wall of glass, pushing towards his bloody fingers, hitting the glass barrier again and again.
Does it want my blood?
Mercury, Salt…
And Sulfur.
Sulfur was abundant in the body. It turned to red liquid when burned. It was brimstone, linked to fire for as long as there had been anyone to link it. It was in the blood.
Kip realized the Pale World didn’t need symbology. It didn’t need tinctures and potions and chemical recipes, it was a living laboratory. Its structure had always been fluid, right from the start, as if it could change at any moment; sprouting a mountain here, collapsing a tunnel there, making a library, making a ship.
Blood pays for the passage.
He uncorked the vial and brought his bloody fingers to the glass lip of the tube. It excited the substance that lived there and it swam up to meet him. The blood was drawn into the light in thin streams and then spun like thread until it disappeared. The bauble of light turned red and then settled back into the vial.
What had the three elements made? Could he dare to hope it was the Soul of All Things? He felt its power through the glass, and its warmth.
I should lie here and wait, his mind offered. The tide will rise, all you have to do is wait. Think of how it will lift you, tumble you, back into watery arms.
Something tugged at his wrist. He looked down to see his bracelet pulling at his skin, vibrating like a tuning fork.
He left the cold water behind, not looking back at the thundering waves. There were new things to see.
He’d reached the purple haze, that mystery on the horizon that Vorax had pointed to for all this time. He could see the wonder that it was made of now. The light came from the thousands of Shadows, constructing forms like bees making honeycomb, but on such a grand scale that the mind boggled. Their work finished, they flew away, wrapping themselves in clouds as they disappeared.
The Pale World was a laboratory. It had made all the wonders that he’d seen, and now it had made his city.
London.
With its spires and towers, clocks and rooftops, alleyways and wharfs. The Shadows had captured every detail with devotion. They’d made bricks of every kind and color, paver stones, rippled window glass, wooden beams, and roof shingles.
It was a place for Vorax to feel human, a place of mimicry, and it was a lie. It was Pale London.
Kip walked past the docks and the deserted taverns that lined the edge of the wharf. All with darkened windows. No beer would flow there tonight. No stories and lies would be shared around a fire. No fights would break out in a flash of drunken passion.
Grief had held him in isolation for so long that it took the absence of life for him to remember it. He missed his home with such an aching that he marveled he could stand it. He thought he could see the people on the streets; only ghosts now, only memory.
The fishmonger, the curio shop manager, the tobacconist, Ragman…
The smiling faces, the angry, the apathetic. The man who helped a woman after she tripped on the curb. The haggling that turned to a profanity-laden argument. The girl crying after dropping her penny lick.
All gone.
A ghost world in this underworld.
The echo of his shoes on the cobblestones were muted, further draining the world of life. Not even sound wanted to penetrate this place.
His bracelet knew where it wanted to go even if Kip didn’t. It pulled this way and tugged that way. Muscle memory spurred him on, bringing him to the one place he didn’t want to go.
21
The square opened up before him.
The market was abandoned, its sellers gone for the day. They’d packed up their curios and wonders, things that had sailed across seas to get there. Goods from the Orient and the Middle East, spices from India. All the foreign tongues that spoke here had been silenced, leaving only their memory and the longing to hear them again.
It was Potter’s Market.
The Three Nymphs fountain was there, a dead landmark in a pale world. No water flowed from its stone spout. Kip remembered throwing a coin in that fountain, making a wish. He wondered now what he had wished for so long ago.
There were empty barrels and crates, usually brimming with mulled ciders or packed with strange root vegetables. There was an empty spot under a stone arch where the Bird Lady took up residence, the silent woman with her collection of cages and the chatter of voices inside, all wanting a taste of freedom.
But it wasn’t a vision. It was real.
Kip saw the bulk of a cart being pulled out of the square. It had a canvas tarp over it, hiding its contents. He approached it with caution.
It was the Bird Lady. She was no memory or vision, she was real, as tangible as he was.
“Ma’am, where are you going?” he said. “Do you remember me?”
“Must go,” she grunted, straining under her load.
“But…but you’re here. You shouldn’t be
here.”
The woman had been alive when he’d left London, and should be there still for all he knew. How did she come to be here? There was no sign of the young girl that played at the folds of her dress while she worked.
Kip reached out his hand, rested it on her arm. He needed to make contact, to know if she was real. He felt the rough fabric of her sleeve and the thin bones of her arm beneath. She looked down at his hand and then up at his face.
“Something coming.” There was a sadness in her eyes. She pulled away, turning her back, and left the square. The caged birds beneath the canvas were silent, knowing better than to sing.
Something’s coming.
Kip turned back to the abandoned square.
Then he saw.
Enos walked down the steps, into the abandoned marketplace. He was laughing, his head thrown back. His teeth shown like pearls. This was no shade of Enos. It was a window through time, showing the real thing. He moved in a bubble that captured a thriving London, a barrier between this pale version and the real one.
There was another figure in the widening sphere. Kip saw himself, a few steps behind.
It was his turn to be pale, to be nothing.
This other Kip was happy, careless, ignorant. He thought life was a laugh, and that happiness was a guarantee. The boy before him thought life was inevitable.
“God, no,” Kip whispered, not wanting to see this vision, wanting to turn away but knowing he couldn’t. Here he was, even now, chasing a memory.
It had been a year ago on a crisp autumn night. The stars had burst through the smog of London, demanding to be seen. They were diamonds cut from light. The two had always taken this route back to Alchemy House, passing through the market that they loved.
It was Bonfire Night and they’d gone out to see the burning effigies of Guy Fawkes, and the fireworks that followed. They’d stayed out too late, and drank too heartily. Kip remembered they’d stopped to hear a quartet play for their supper in Finsbury Square. Scarves wrapped tightly around their faces as they played their instruments with fingerless gloves, digits dancing over strings.
Mozart, Offenbach, and Boccherini.
Enos’s Boccherini.
With the crescendo of the music, someone ignited an effigy down the street. The gun-powder plot foiled for the two-hundred and seventy-sixth time, England’s most famous rebel consumed in flame. The light from the straw scarecrow poured down the street and wrapped the musicians in its glow. It was the synchronicity of vision and sound the Kip remembered. Timing so perfect that it had to be divine.
He’d turned to watch Enos, stealing a glance at his love. His clear eyes caught the firelight as the music flowed over them. That moment should have stayed. It was a perfect sum. There was no need for anything to follow.
Cheers and applause filled the street and the musicians bowed. Kip and Enos put more than their share in a tattered top hat and were happy to see it quickly filling. They turned and left, filled with the magic of that brief moment. All of creation had bent to bring it about and now it had passed.
Alone, they walked down Crown Street then Bishopsgate, then turned down the stairs into the empty marketplace.
Laughing, back in their perfect bubble of light.
Enos walked to the fountain and Kip followed. They watched the gurgling water and pretended they heard voices in its bubbles.
Enos said it was a wishing well.
“I wish,” Kip whispered.
He slipped his fingers between Enos’s. Their hands intertwined and, leaning forward, Kip kissed him on the cheek. It was the smallest movement, imperceptible compared to all other movements. In a world with ships battered at sea, and trains thundering across continents, with horses marching in processions, and people screaming in parliament, it should have been nearly invisible.
“Oi, look here!”
It was a gruff voice, slurred by too much alcohol, and was soon joined by another.
“Two benders out for a bending stroll.”
Four roughs came out of the shadows. Two drank from flasks and one pulled from a cigarette, a tiny pinpoint of red embers in the darkness.
The leader of the group had a green bowler on and looked the part of whatever role he was playing. Kip wondered how he could take himself so seriously; fit a part that was such a stereotype: the street rough, the brutish masculine bully.
“I’m Kip of Alchemy House,” he said, as if titles would matter to the ignorant.
“I heard of you, least ways I’ve heard of Alchemy House. You’re one of them, eh?”
“What are you? A wizard?” another one said.
“No, mate, he’s a witch.”
“You know what we do to witches?”
The smoking one answered by igniting a match between his fingers, sulfur and flame sparking to life.
“Why don’t you two faggots kiss again. Let’s see it,” the man with the green bowler said.
“You want ‘em to kiss, Charlie?”
“Yeah, let’s see what all the fuss is about.”
Kip looked to Enos. He’d always been defiant in the face of hate, even when it was reckless. Enos refused to shrink from the world and his place in it. He did the one thing that Kip would never have done, he smiled.
“Something funny, poof?” Charlie with the green bowler asked.
The four men had fanned out in a semi-circle around the fountain, spoiling for some action, something to cap the excitement of Bonfire Night.
As if offering them an alternative, a thundering noise split the sky. Shards of colored light filled the air, blotting out the stars with fireworks.
Stabbing embers of red, purple, and blue igniting into flowers.
As they looked up, Kip slipped a hand into his pocket. He’d brought Filament powder to make his own fireworks display. He’d thought he could entrance merry-makers with a light show; flames that danced around rooftops, or spun around lampposts. He’d planned to watch the faces of people in the crowd, to see wonder in their eyes. The magic of alchemy filtering through their minds and inspiring visions.
Now that same alchemy could be a weapon. His fingers found the leather pouch in his pocket and slipped inside, powder coating each digit.
The fireworks exploded above, the punch of each explosion bringing fear instead of excitement. Charlie and his ruffians looked up, their faces masks of color. Kip saw Charlie’s hand move to his belt and slowly pull a knife from a thin leather sheath. It looked like a gutting knife for deboning fish, a precise instrument.
There was a break in the light show and the group looked back to their two captives.
“Now kiss, faggots.”
Kip brought his hand forward and blew on his palm. Blue flames ignited and flowed from his hand. They shot out in a straight line, stabbing towards one of the men with a flask. The man tried to duck out of the way, but the fire caught the left lapel of his jacket and ignited.
Kip made a long arc with his hand, the flames moving like a whip. The four men jumped back.
I’d only meant to frighten them, he thought. It was a display of power, of dominance; the only thing men like this would understand.
The blade of the knife glinted with the rainbow colors of the fireworks as Charlie moved towards Enos.
At the same moment, the man with the blazing lapel charged forward and caught Kip in the stomach. He pushed him back with his violent embrace until the back of Kip’s knees hit the lip of the fountain. They both tumbled into the water, liquid dowsing Kip’s flaming hand, and filling his eyes and ears. He heard the muffled pop of a firework and then felt strong hands holding him down in the water. Ice cold, it rushed into his mouth as he gasped for air and tried to claw away from his attacker.
Every few seconds there was a reprieve as he was able to get his head above water, just enough time to see Charlie wrestling with Enos and the other men laughing. Enos struggled to get to Kip, even now trying to save him first.
Kip viewed the action like a stuttering film strip, t
he movements skipping frames with each dunk in the fountain.
Enos grabbing the back of Kip’s attacker.
Turning to face Charlie with his sharp knife.
Thrown punches in a flurry of watery motion.
Kip brought his knee up and caught his attacker in the groin, then pushed him to the side. He stood up, water running off him in a torrent.
“STOP!” he screamed.
Charlie had Enos by the head, his giant palm cupping his black hair, thick white fingers running through black.
Kip jumped forward as Charlie forced Enos’s head down, cracking it against the side of the fountain. It was like a gunshot that brought people to their senses. The sound made his men stop laughing. It froze Kip in his tracks.
Enos crumbled and fell into the fountain. Kip jumped forward and caught his body, pulling his head above water and cradling it in his arms. Blood pumped from his skull and spilled into the fountain. It ran between Kip’s fingers as he tried to find the wound and stop the bleeding. Tears stung his eyes and blurred his vision as he began to mumble.
“You’re all right. You’re all right.”
He said it like a mantra as he rocked back and forth.
Charlie’s men ran, disappearing into the night. Charlie looked on for a moment, standing like a lost child in a crowd. He opened his mouth to say something, then turned and ran.
“You’re okay, my love,” Kip whispered.
A second wave of fireworks lit the sky, throwing color onto Enos’s face; turning the fountain water blue, then red, then purple.
How could there be so much blood? How could life be contained in this unremarkable liquid, the fuel that powered a human being?
If I hadn’t held his hand, Kip thought, his eyes blurred with tears. If I hadn’t been so stupid, so careless. If I’d only been content with a secret.
If only I hadn’t kissed him on the cheek. One small gesture that had brought down the avalanche and changed the course of two lives.
If I hadn’t used alchemy to defend us. If only I’d been content to take a beating, satisfied by each blow.
Enos opened his eyes. They looked past Kip, reflecting the colors in the sky.
Kip & Shadow Page 16
