eight

I looked at the creases around Max’s eyes as he smiled, and I thought again of the time we’d spent together this year, as well as the dear friends I’d made, including my best friend, who shared the big old house I’d fixed up over the summer. I didn’t want to flee. I wanted to stay and fight for the life I’d built. I also wanted to find out what had happened to my old mentor. Why couldn’t I have it all? I had to tell Max the full extent of my secret.

“I think I know the reason you hate having your picture taken,” Max continued.

“You do?” I croaked.

I’d discussed the principles of alchemy with him before, but it hadn’t gone well. Max’s paternal grandparents had been apothecaries in China before coming to the US, and Max had told me about the things he’d seen his grandmother do when he was a child. He was brilliant at growing and transforming his own tea blends, but beyond that he’d consciously rejected anything he didn’t fully understand. Wanting a rational life was one of the reasons Max had joined the police force. He could help people in a way that made sense. What was he going to tell me now?

“Of course I do,” Max said. “You’re self-conscious that all your hair is white even though you’re so young. And although the photographer didn’t see the parts of your body with scars, I think maybe you’re self-conscious about them too. But you have no reason to be.”

I smiled and kissed his forehead. Max had seen me up close enough to realize my hair was naturally white. I didn’t lie to him about it, and told him it was the result of life. He assumed I meant a trauma, and he wasn’t exactly wrong.

“You should get some sleep,” I said. “I’ll bring you some homemade remedies for your cold tomorrow.”

“Let me walk you to your car.”

“You’re too sick to be chivalrous. I’m only parked a block away.”

Max frowned. “A whole block? It’s late, and there’s not usually—” He broke off.

“What?” My eyes narrowed. “What am I missing?

“Logan Magnus.”

“The artist who killed himself?” I didn’t like the sound of Max’s voice. He wasn’t usually so worried.

Max cleared his throat. “There are similarities between his death and other unsolved cases. It’s a far-fetched theory. Probably nothing. But it’s enough to make Detective Vega concerned that it might be murder, not suicide. A copy-cat murder. Those are never good.”

“You believe the theory?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“But your gut—”

“Not mine. Vega’s. I trust her. I’ll reserve judgment until she has all the facts. We’re getting strange tips all over the place. Par for the course, and most of them are probably fake, but … Until this is solved, I want the people I care about to stay safe.”

When I reached home, it was after ten o’clock. Visiting Max had achieved the opposite effect of what I’d desired. I was about as far from relaxed as I could imagine. I hadn’t thought the evening could get more intense. But on top of being accused of murder and deciphering Nicolas’s note, my photo had appeared in the paper and I’d learned that Logan Magnus might not have taken his own life. What I had hoped would be a fun date night had turned into a train wreck.

My body is attuned to nature and planetary cycles, so in spite of the tornado spinning my life out of control, I was ready to sleep. Which I would do as soon as I talked to Dorian, walked through my backyard garden, and locked up the house.

The first task proved impossible. Dorian had already gone out for the night.

Gargoyles don’t need to sleep. At night, Dorian kept busy by working as the pastry chef at Blue Sky Teas, with me as his cover. Since only a few of us knew of Dorian’s existence, it was safest to use me as his front. For my own home cooking I used the same ingredients as the gargoyle chef, but in a much simpler way. Dorian was the one who truly transformed the flavors of ingredients into something new.

When not in my kitchen or Blue’s, his favorite indoor space was my attic. Though initially intended to store my inventory for Elixir, Dorian had taken over the space as his room, because the spacious attic with its sloping ceilings contained the gargoyle’s best escape route. What had originally been a hole in the ceiling was now a proper skylight window that he could easily crack open to leave and enter the house. The skylight was located underneath a Pacific yew tree that shielded the back of the roof from prying eyes.

In addition to baking during the night, Dorian liked to explore the city under cover of darkness. To avoid security cameras, he’d taken to wearing a cloak. Anyone who happened to look at a camera’s grainy three a.m. footage would only see a child who’d snuck out of their house and was running around playing superhero. I was secretly relieved he wasn’t able to fly. Who knew what mischief he’d get up to then.

It was probably for the best that I’d missed him. I wasn’t coherent that late, and I didn’t want to worry Dorian more than was necessary about my photograph appearing in the paper. Instead, I stepped into one of my sanctuaries: the backyard garden.

Looking at the sprawling tendrils of mint, the bushy green tops of carrots and turnips poking through the soil, and the thyme ground cover, I thought about what might be most helpful for Max’s cold. I could make another fresh soup with the ingredients from the yard, and I’d look through the cabinet of tinctures I kept in the house for stronger herbal remedies. Nicolas had always encouraged my aptitude with plants. Unlike Perenelle, he’d wanted me to follow my own interests and aptitudes, not stick to a strict alchemical regimen.

I never felt more alive and at peace than when surrounded by nature, especially plants I’d helped nurture myself. I was teaching my neighbor Brixton, the teenager Dorian called my “unofficial nephew,” how to garden. There’s nothing quite like seeing an angry fourteen-year-old discover pursuits they excel at. Fifteen, I reminded myself. He was growing up so quickly.

I had been barely older than Brixton when I’d found myself fleeing home and becoming Nicolas’s apprentice. In the early eighteenth century it wasn’t easy to find people who ran away, especially those who frequently changed their names to avoid trouble. And more importantly, I’d been running from my past after the tragedy. I hadn’t been looking for anyone. And I hadn’t wanted to be found.

I needed to know what had happened to Nicolas. Was it too late to save him as he’d once saved me?

The orange sky of sunset had long since transformed to the indigo of night, but I left the porch light off. I wasn’t so old-fashioned that I didn’t use electricity, but I enjoyed watching how the colors of the sky and greenery changed with the movements of the sun and moon.

I was filling my copper watering can with water when my phone rang.

“She’s dead,” the deep voice said.