forty-eight

The four of us sprawled across the attic floor, limbs entwined. It took a minute to realize that the dark red blood was coming from Nicolas.

My relief that he and Perenelle were alive after being extracted from the painting was tempered by the gravity of the scene before me. What had I done?

There was no escaping the reality that they were gravely wounded. Nicolas was bleeding profusely from both his head and stomach. Perenelle clutched her stomach in agony, but I saw no blood. Had I misunderstood the alchemy it would take to safely pull them from the painting?

Tobias and I helped them up. It became immediately clear that Nicolas was incapable of standing on his own, but Perenelle rushed to his side and helped me support him.

Nicolas draped one arm over my shoulder and the other around Perenelle. He breathed a shallow breath and whispered, “Zoe, I knew it was you. I knew you’d done it.” A weak smile formed on his lips and his light blue eyes sparkled in the midst of the wrinkles surrounding them. “Before I entered the world of the painting, I’d heard rumors of a woman I thought might be you. I knew … I knew you would be the one to save us.”

I looked from his cracked lips to the blood on my hands. “But I haven’t … Look what I’ve done to you.”

“Don’t try to speak, my love,” Perenelle said to Nicolas, then turned to me. “This wasn’t your doing, Zoe. Our injuries are from long ago.”

Looking at their clothing, I could tell just how long ago. I hadn’t seen them since 1704, and their clothes looked much the same as I remembered, from Nicolas’s layers of starchy shirts to the yards of fabric in Perenelle’s dull-colored house dress.

Aside from their wounds, the two of them looked so much like I remembered them. Nicolas’s untamable gray-streaked hair, the deep lines on his face that were most prominent around his kind eyes, and his dexterous hands, like those of a magician. Perenelle’s auburn hair, firmly set jaw, and tiny frame that belied her strength.

That strength made it difficult for Tobias to push her aside to see Nicolas’s wounds.

“Please,” Tobias said, “let me help him.”

“You’re a doctor?” she asked.

“Close.”

“It feels like only yesterday,” Nicolas murmured, his thoughts reflecting my own, before his energy gave out. His grasp caught Perenelle’s voluminous skirts, and we were dragged down with him. I winced in pain as my ankle twisted.

“The backward alchemists … ” Nicolas mumbled, struggling to sit up but finding himself more and more tangled in the soft fabric.

“Calm yourself,” Perenelle whispered. “There will be time to deal with them once you’re well.”

Nicolas had always warned me away from backward alchemy. Pieces clicked into place—they must be speaking of the backward alchemists that Dorian and I had dealt with in Paris and Portland that summer.

“We must stop them.” Nicolas’s voice rattled. His bright blue eyes flickered and closed. I felt stillness overtake his body.

“I can’t lose you again,” I whispered as Tobias helped untangle Perenelle’s brown skirts so we could get up. “Not like this.”

“He’s still with us,” Tobias said, feeling his pulse.

“He’s been stabbed and hit,” Perenelle whispered, folding him into her arms, “and I’ve been poisoned.”

“Do you know what the poison was?” Tobias asked. He spoke in the peaceful, steady voice of someone who wished to impart a sense of calm to those around him, even though I knew it was far from what he was feeling inside.

“Pigments,” she rasped.

My throat clenched. She’d been poisoned by paint?

“Let’s get you some activated charcoal,” Tobias said.

“No.” Perenelle’s voice was resolute. It was the same tone I remembered her using when advising Nicolas not to try a risky experiment. “I pray you, attend to Nicolas first.”

“I’ll go,” I said. “Tobias is the one who can best help Nicolas right now.”

Tobias gently lifted Nicolas’s slashed shirts as I left for my alchemy lab to gather supplies.

Returning to the attic, I gave Tobias an anxious look as Perenelle swallowed the temporary antidote.

“The abdominal stab wound isn’t deep,” he reported, “but this wound on the back of his head … ” He examined Nicolas for a few minutes in silence as I sat with Perenelle. I couldn’t tell if she was feeling better or if her interest in watching Tobias’s care of Nicolas superseded her own pain.

“I really can’t tell what’s going on with this head wound,” Tobias said finally. He forced a laugh. “Even my cayenne can’t cut it.” He pulled me aside. “They need a hospital. Only … ”

“I know. They’re not supposed to exist. They have no ID—”

“That’s not what I meant. Though you’re right, that’s a problem too. It’s the nature of his wounds. Their bodies aren’t behaving as I’d expect. I don’t think standard medical care will be able to help them.”

But I knew someone who’d been brought up with an inquisitive, open mind, and who practiced integrative medicine—the type of medicine that combined standard Western medical care with a more holistic approach. I took a deep breath and made a phone call.

“Max, I know I’m the last person you want to hear from right now, but it’s an emergency.”

“What’s wrong?” The immediate concern in his voice gave me the courage to carry on.

“For what I’m going to say, I need you to trust me.”

“I do trust you, Zoe. Sometimes I don’t know why, and I don’t know where you’re leading me, but God help me, I love you and trust you.”

The words meant so much to me, but this wasn’t the time to touch on our relationship.

“I need your sister’s help.” I looked at my injured friends. I had to take the risk. “Old friends of mine … They’re in desperate need of medical attention. Mina can help them. But neither of you can tell anyone.”

The silence couldn’t have lasted more than a second or two, but it felt like an eternity. “Are you at your house?” Max asked. “I’ll call 9-1-1 and tell them—”

“No!” I shrieked.

“Where are you, then?”

“No. No ambulance. That’s why I’m calling you—I can’t call 9-1-1. And I can’t go to the ER. You said you trusted me.”

“I do. But if your friends need medical attention, that’s something completely different.”

“A hospital can’t help them. I need Mina. Please.”

Max swore. “You’re asking her to risk her license? She’d still need to report—hell, I should report—”

“That’s not why I need her. It’s nothing illegal, I promise. I need her mind. Will you help us?”