Sixteen

Looking at my face in the mirror the following morning, I barely recognized myself. My skin was drawn like it had been before I began taking care of myself, and the dark circles under my eyes were even darker than the day before. A large chunk of hair fell off in my hairbrush. Even my teeth had a faint gray cast to them.

Dorian was right. Helping him was killing me.

Each time I made the Tea of Ashes, the effects lasted longer and were more severe. Still, I was in better shape than Wallace Mason. I couldn’t get the image of his body out of my mind. I hadn’t realized he was dead until he hit the stage floor.

Though I’ve seen my share of death over the years, seeing two murder victims within three months was unsettling, to say the least.

Had Wallace Mason seen too much when he was at the theater earlier that day? If it was the magician-alchemist who had killed him to protect his secret, how could I ignore the murder? I was entangled, whether I liked it or not.

I doubted the two young crew members had anything to do with the murder. The elderly usher who took our tickets didn’t seem especially likely, either. I expected the police would dismiss them from suspicion, making the magicians the most likely suspects. Would the police figure out Peter Silverman’s true identity? It would be like the Salem Witch Trials all over again—only this time, the accusations against me would be true.

As an innocent sixteen-year-old I’d been accused of witchcraft, because of my affinity to plants. I could work with plants in ways that most people couldn’t, both in coaxing them to grow and in extracting their mysterious properties. People are frightened of what they don’t understand. It was their fear that had driven me away from them and into the arms of alchemists. Now I had become something that people might truly have reason to fear, not because I would harm anyone—I had spent my life trying to do the opposite—but because I had unlocked powerful secrets that could be used for both good and evil.

Breathe, Zoe.

Now that I’d gotten a few hours of sleep, I began to wonder about my hasty assumptions. Had I jumped to the right conclusion? Was the magician involved? I was looking at only half of the picture—the magician-alchemist, not the man who’d been killed. The dead man’s life would be examined by the police. The police would look into Wallace Mason’s life and follow the trail wherever it led.

Pushing thoughts of murder from my mind, I fixed myself a cup of turmeric tea and a green smoothie for breakfast, then I tended to my window box and backyard gardens. Three mint varieties—lemon balm, chocolate, and peppermint—were getting a little carried away, stretching their roots and tendrils too close to the parsley. That wouldn’t make any of the plants happy. My garden choices had been made in part so I could harvest fast-growing plants for Dorian’s Tea of Ashes. If it hadn’t been for that, I would have planted the mint in containers.

The familiar routine of touching the plants and giving them the amount of water they needed served to calm me, but my mind was still restless. I dressed in my ill-fitting jeans and a sweatshirt and set out on a walk to clear my head. But the scents of springtime Portland only served to remind me of the strange scents I’d imagined coming from Dorian’s book, and the scent of ether the magicians had used in their performance.

Back at the house, I went straight to the kitchen with the intention of having another cup of tea. Before the mug reached my lips, a knock sounded on the front door.

I’d already given a brief statement to a police officer the previous night, when I was questioned along with the rest of the audience. I’d said I didn’t know anything, so I couldn’t imagine they were following up already. I knew I should have told them about seeing the two men sneaking around the theater earlier in the day, but I couldn’t do so without incriminating myself. Doing the right thing was always a delicate balance for an alchemist. Telling the complete truth could easily lead to greater confusion and injustices. If I knew anything that could help, I would have spoken up. But in spite of my initial reaction, I didn’t know what had transpired.

I took a deep breath and opened the door.

“You were there last night?”

“Nice to see you, too, Max.”

He pushed past me into the house. “You didn’t say anything about going back to the magic show.”

“It was a last-minute decision. I wanted to see if I could figure out how some of the tricks were done. I told you I love old-fashioned magic shows.”

Max stared at me. I suddenly felt very self-conscious about my hair and skin. “What are you keeping from me, Zoe?”

“Are you here officially?”

“No. I’m here as your … whatever the hell I am to you. But I suppose your answer shows me where I stand.”

“Max—”

“A man is dead, Zoe.”

“Why do you think it has something to do with me?”

“I didn’t say that! I’m worried about you. That’s why I came by. You were in the same place as a killer.”

“Oh.”

“You find it so surprising that I’d be worried about you?”

“No, it’s just—”

“What?”

“Nobody has been worried about me in a long—”

A crash from the house interrupted us. I gave a start, and saw Max’s shoulders tense.

“You attract burglars like anise hyssop attracts bees,” Max whispered, then raised a finger to his lips.

Only Max would have thought up a simile that included anise hyssop instead of something simple like sunflowers. I put my hand on his and stopped him from heading to the house. “It’s not a burglar. I was cataloguing my inventory and left a stack of books that wasn’t very stable. I didn’t anticipate being pulled away for so long.”

“You sure?”

Another crash sounded.

“I’d better check it out.”

“Max, really—”

I feared what he’d find inside. With solid stone covering a larger portion of Dorian’s body each day, he might not be able to transform himself into the proper shape people had seen. I was already thought to be “quirky” for carrying my large gargoyle sculpture to different rooms of my house on a regular basis. That was fine. But how would I explain a strangely contorted gargoyle sculpture?

Ignoring Max’s pleas for me to wait outside, I followed him up the stairs. Max cringed as each successive step groaned under our feet. Stealth was impossible in this old house.

The attic was crammed full of artifacts for my business, but empty of life. There wasn’t even a stone gargoyle anywhere in sight. However, there was a pile of books scattered across the floor, even though I’d lied about a precarious stack. Was my house alive now? That was all I needed.

My attic was the exact opposite of Max’s house. Instead of his sparse decor, in which an iron tea kettle, a white couch, two scenic paintings, and two personal photographs gave the house its personality, my attic was an involved mess of relics I’d accumulated over the centuries. For the decades in which I traveled across the United States in my truck and trailer, these books, artwork, and alchemical artifacts had resided in a storage facility in Paris.

The hardwood floor was pockmarked with water damage from the winter rains. You’d think that after all these years I’d be good enough at home repair that I could fix the damage quickly and resume my alchemical work on saving Dorian’s life. But in my defense, I’d rarely lived in my own home. Most of the time I hadn’t even lived in a proper house. This Craftsman house in Portland was a luxury.

“Wow,” Max said, taking in the room.

I couldn’t tell if he meant that in a good way or a bad way.

“These are all real antiques?”

“They’re not exactly antiques. At least I don’t think of them like that. They’re all related to the science of healing. That’s why the store is called Elixir.”

“I didn’t realize you were still working at your business.” He shook his head. “I guess we don’t know each other as well as I thought.”

“Max—”

“I thought you were working as the chef at Blue Sky Teas.”

“Part-time. Why did you think I wasn’t running Elixir? You knew I shipped the storage crates to the house when I moved here. I wasn’t hiding anything.” Well, I wasn’t hiding that. “Is it because I haven’t invited you up to the attic before? As you can see, it’s not the kind of room where I’d invite a guest. I haven’t gotten properly settled in yet.”

“That’s not it.”

“No?”

“I checked out your website.”

I groaned.

“It looked like you hadn’t updated it in the last decade,” Max said sheepishly.

Three comments on my website in as many days? I was definitely going to take Veronica up on her offer to update the site. But I couldn’t seem to care much at the moment. Dorian was dying an unnatural death. I was getting sicker by the day as I tried to save him. A murderous alchemist was in town, seeking his stash of loot, a stash which had led to the death of a guard and which had now washed up on the banks of the nearby Willamette River. And a man spying on the alchemist had been murdered, the body found in front of my eyes.

So yes, updating my website so I could make enough money to fix my house and pay Ethan back wasn’t my top priority. I gave an involuntary shiver as I thought back to that damned theater, with Dorian’s foot caught on the catwalk and the volunteer’s dead body tumbling out onto the stage.

“You’re thinking about the dead man, aren’t you?” Max said. “I can see it on your face. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

I nodded, but didn’t trust myself to speak. I’d seen more death than I wanted to in my lifetime. It doesn’t get easier. But that’s a good thing.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Zoe?”

My throat tightened and anger flushed my face. Why was Max simultaneously the easiest and most difficult person to communicate with? “You really think I had something to do with his—”

“I didn’t mean it like that! Of course I didn’t mean that. Sometimes I feel like you understand me better than anyone, but sometimes … I can tell you’re keeping something from me.” He frowned as something in the corner caught his eye. He set down the cookbook of herbal remedies he’d picked up, and walked up to a whitewashed hutch that held glass jars with original vintage labels. “Imported herbal supplements? Really? After everything that happened last winter, how can you—”

“God, Max!” I snapped. “I don’t know the man who was murdered, and these are vintage jars. With nothing inside. Nothing. These glass vessels were once used by famous scientists. That’s why they’re worth a lot of money.”

“Really? People will believe Louis Pasteur used one of these vessels? Are his fingerprints on them?”

“Isaac Newton, actually, but yes. I don’t have fingerprints, but I have documents that show—”

“You actually believe papers have survived that long and aren’t faked? Jesus, Zoe. You do.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. Look, can we change the subject?”

“Back to the dead man you think I have something to do with? I told you, I don’t know the man. He has nothing to do with me.”

“Are we fighting? How did that happen? I came over here because I wanted to make sure you were okay, that you hadn’t gotten mixed up in—”

A cough sounded from the closet behind me. I knew that cough. I quickly coughed, hoping Max would think the first one was mine.

“I could use some tea for my allergies,” I said. “They’re affecting my throat. Why don’t we go downstairs?”

“I can see myself out.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“We don’t seem to be communicating very well today. I’ll leave you to clean up this mess.” He paused, a veiled look I couldn’t place passing over his face. “Where’s that gargoyle statue of yours? I didn’t see it when I came through the house.”

“Why?” My intuition kicked into high gear. Max knew I “moved” my statue around, but he’d never seen Dorian move on his own.

“Never mind. It’s nothing.” He paused. “I hope it’s nothing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I have to go, Zoe.”

And with that, he left. Why did he want to know about Dorian?