Over the next two weeks, Sepha spent all of her free time practicing with her roiling beast. It was like starting at the Institute all over again, teaching her body to move through the morning evolution and react during sparring matches. Only now, she was working blindly with an uncooperative beast, with no Destry to help her.

Although her beast drew power from the wind, it wasn’t limited to manipulating air. Sepha found that her beast’s abilities weren’t a matter of possible or impossible; they were only a matter of enough energy or not enough energy. Her beast could manipulate air and hardly expend any energy at all. But when it came to manipulating heavier things, her beast had to work much harder. Its energy would noticeably deplete, and only the wind would replenish it.

Ruhen watched her practice, occasionally offering suggestions, but mostly leaving her be. He seemed on edge during her practice sessions, and Sepha could see why. She was beginning to sense the enormity of her roiling beast’s power. She spent half her time worrying she’d sink the whole damn boat and the other half glorying in the shock of sudden power.

And all the while, in the back of her mind, were the guilt and hate and sorrow that drove her. The undead magician had killed Destry. He’d killed dozens of other people, too, probably, but he’d found Destry because of Sepha. He’d been able to kill Destry because she’d left the Institute to protect Sepha. Destry would never be the Magistrate because of Sepha. Because of the magician.

Now that Sepha had her roiling beast, she could kill him. She knew she could. As soon as she could wrangle it into obedience. Powerful as it was, it was dreadfully unreliable, and she could never quite get it to listen.

She needed more practice. And then a bit more—and a bit more.

On the day of parting, nine weeks after the night in Cell Two-Seven, the Dear Lady slowed to a stop about a mile offshore. In the distance, a wall of mountains rose abruptly from the water. They were blue through the mist that obscured them and seemed strangely unfriendly, as if they’d turned their backs to the sea.

As the Dear Lady’s ropes and pulleys lowered the Institute’s boat into the water, Captain Ellsworth leaned over the side of the Dear Lady. “Sepha!” he shouted.

“Sir?” she shouted back, confused. They’d hardly spoken since the magician attacked, partly because Ellsworth never seemed to be saying quite what he wanted to say.

“Tell Ipha I said hello!” Ellsworth bellowed, and Sepha gaped up at him.

“You knew her?” she shouted, too shocked to say anything else. The Institute’s boat hit the water with a loud slap.

Ellsworth grinned in triumph with an I thought so expression, but his smile faltered. Henric, oblivious or belligerent, turned on the little boat’s engine. Sepha could barely hear Ellsworth’s voice above the roar. “Tell … Blackpool … alive!”

Sepha turned to Ruhen. “Did you hear that?”

Ruhen shrugged and shook his head.

“Me, neither,” Sepha said, and gave Ellsworth a shrug and a wave. Ruhen sent his steady magic out to detach the Dear Lady’s ropes from their boat with a low, garbled word.

“Who’s Ipha?” Henric asked from Destry’s erstwhile seat.

As if she was going to tell Henric about her mother. “No one.”

Ruhen lifted his eyebrows in a silent question, and Fio muttered, “Really?”

Sepha mouthed, so they could both see, “My mother.”

The wind was stronger on the small craft than it had been on Our Dear Lady, but it was wetter, too, and it wasn’t long before Sepha was completely encrusted with sea salt from the damp breeze.

Sepha forced herself not to think about Mother, and how Captain Ellsworth had known her well enough to see her features on Sepha’s face. They were almost to the Spirit Alchemists’ Sanctuary, which meant that she had to keep her wits about her.

Destry had said the Spirit Alchemists were likely to know where the undead magician had come from, after all. This was no time for distractions, and thinking of Mother had never done her much good.

Henric steered the boat along the base of a tall, smooth cliff, looking for the access to the Spirit Alchemists’ hidden cove. When a narrow inlet appeared, Henric deftly navigated into the pinch. The tight waterway, after a claustrophobic minute, opened into a small cove lined by more of the sheer, tall cliffs. Sepha followed the cliffs up until she saw the chill blue sky high above. She couldn’t see a fortress or another way out. The cove seemed like a dead end.

Across the cove’s calm waters, a pair of small boats were docked along a narrow wood-planked pier. Ruhen and Henric briefly allied to dock and moor the boat, and they all clambered out.

The cove was a quiet, lifeless place, as still as the field of dead trees around the Wicking Willow. A chill spread through Sepha. This place felt wrong—almost wrong enough for her to want to risk the Military Alchemists, risk the magician stealing her firstborn, rather than linger where she could sense danger and death and blood among the stones.

“And now we go up,” Henric said, his words barely penetrating the deadened air. They’d barely spoken since he’d attacked her, and he’d grown moodier every day. A few times, he’d approached Sepha and opened his mouth, as if to say something, but he never did. He always walked away instead.

Sepha thought he might have wanted her to chase after him. But she never did.

And now he was walking away again, around the water’s edge toward the face of the cliff. Then, impossibly, he continued walking up it, his legs obscured by jutting angles of stone. Curious, Sepha followed and saw that the stairs were little more than a groove cut along a natural indentation in the cliffs. To her right, the cliff sprang up into the sky, and to her left, an irregular lip of stone came up to her thigh, effectively hiding the stairs from the view of anyone standing on the pier.

The safety of the Sanctuary was questionable, the connection to the Magistrate too direct. But Sepha wasn’t strong enough to fight off all the Military Alchemists—yet—and there might be answers here about the undead magician.

It was bigger than just killing him. Someone had summoned his soul from the After and set him loose on Tirenia, and she had to find out why. Even though the Magistrate wanted her dead, even though Henric was … Henric. The magician-homunculus was a murderer. Sepha would stop him and everyone who’d helped him.

So onward she went, with Henric, Ruhen, and Fio, into the Spirit Alchemists’ Sanctuary.

Even though she had a feeling that whatever was ahead was more dangerous than what was behind.

The four of them labored up the stairs. About three-quarters of the way up the cliff, the stairs turned sharply into the guts of the cliffside and flattened into a wide tunnel. The tunnel was rough-hewn stone, lit periodically by naked bulbs strung along the ceiling.

It was quiet in the tunnel, and cool, and dim. To one side, a few corridors intersected with their own. The other side was smooth and uninterrupted but for the line of copper piping that emerged from the wall and continued along its surface.

“The Spirit Alchemists made this?” Sepha whispered into the silent air. The tunnel had an old feel, as if most of the people who’d walked through it had died a long time ago.

Without turning around, Henric grunted, “It’s been here for ages. Aunt Isolde found it. Decided to use it.”

His clipped tone forestalled any further conversation.

The corridor finally opened into a large room with a high ceiling, dark marbled tiles, and twisting, decorative columns. Tall, paired bookshelves stood sentry on either side of high, narrow doorways in three of the room’s walls. The fourth wall was of raw, gray stone, and there was an irregular, glassless window that opened out over the cove. From the pier, it must look like a pock mark on the face of the cliff.

“Is that you, little Hen?” came a woman’s surprised voice from beyond one of the doorways.

Henric flushed and looked studiously away from Sepha and Ruhen, who were suppressing small grins. “Yes, Aunt Isolde,” he said, a strange hush to his normally loud voice.

There was the sound of soft footsteps approaching, and the Magistrate strode into the room.

Not the Magistrate, Sepha reminded herself, even as her heart beat a terrified rhythm. Her identical twin.

Sepha frowned as she stared at the woman, searching for differences between her and the one who’d stolen her life away. The Magistrate, she remembered, wore glasses; this woman didn’t, which allowed Sepha to see that her eyes were the same blue as Destry’s. This woman’s hair, a mess of mostly gray spirals, was much longer than the Magistrate’s. But for those two details, she was the Magistrate’s mirror image.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, little Hen?” she asked, appraising Sepha and Ruhen with her head cocked to the side. Then her eyes flicked to Henric, and she grinned. The smile did nothing to warm up her expression; in fact, it made her face look sharper, more calculating. “I suppose I shouldn’t call you that anymore, should I? Come here, Henric, and let me look at you.”

Henric obediently strode over to his aunt and submitted to her scrutiny. “Well! What’s ailing you, then?” she said, seeming to have noted his dampened spirits and more-than-usual scruffiness.

“Destry is dead,” Henric said. “She died at sea on the way here. I haven’t been able to contact Mother yet.”

With hardly a flick of her eye, Isolde said, “Well, we can take care of that easily.”

Sepha could hardly keep her jaw from dropping. That was her reaction to her own niece’s death? Not even a moment of grief, of regret?

Sensing Sepha’s gaze, Isolde said, “I apologize for my nephew’s rudeness. Henric, introduce us.”

Henric swallowed, took one quick breath, and said, “This is my aunt Isolde, who is a Spirit Alchemist and matron in charge here. Aunt Isolde, this is Sepha, the Lady Alchemist who is actually an alchemancer, and her magician friend, Ruhen. Sepha used magic at the Institute in front of everyone, which is why we came here.”

“Henric!” Sepha gasped, too shocked to say anything else. Henric hadn’t given them the choice of telling Isolde what they were. He’d laid them bare without any consideration. Ruhen was clenching and unclenching his fists, as if fighting a very strong urge to throttle Henric with his bare hands.

Isolde raised her eyebrows and looked at Sepha and Ruhen again. This time, her gaze seemed greedy. Sepha’s beast roiled protectively up, and she tamped it down. Destroying the Sanctuary would make for a decidedly bad first impression.

“Really?” Isolde said, pressing her lips into another unpleasant grin. “An alchemancer, you say? I suppose that explains the contingent of Military Alchemists that’s been toeing the border since last week.”

Sepha’s face went very hot. “There are Military Alchemists here? But I never saw anyone following us!”

Isolde shrugged. “You came here by boat. They came here by train. By far the faster mode of conveyance. They probably could’ve been here sooner, but there has been quite an uprising in Tirenia of late. Probably kept them busy or at least upset the train schedules. Don’t worry, though; they can’t come here without my permission. And I won’t give them permission.” She paused. “I am, of course, assuming you’re here for asylum.”

The Military Alchemists were outside, not far off. They had come here by train. They had known where she would go, and they’d gotten here before she had.

So much for her clever plan.

Sepha swallowed.

It was fine. Everything was fine.

It had to be.

“Well, you lot seem set up,” Henric said, avoiding everyone’s gaze. “Aunt Isolde, I assume my old room is free?”

“By all means,” Isolde said, still eyeing Sepha. Ruhen eased forward so he was half in front of Sepha. Fio was shifting his scowl back and forth between Isolde and Henric, unnoticed by either of them. “I will need a word with the Lady Alchemist and her companion before I can allow them to stay here.”

“Do what you will,” Henric said and, without so much as a glance at Sepha, disappeared through the door to her left.

That sense of wrongness, of danger, was so strong Sepha’s roiling beast reacted again, prowling beneath the surface of her skin.

But Destry had known Isolde and had still agreed to come here.

The Spirit Alchemists might be dangerous, but Sepha was more dangerous than any of them. Let them think her cornered; let them underestimate her. She had come here for safety and for answers, and she would get what she’d come for.

The room was quieter without Henric in it, and it was a moment before Isolde spoke. “Come with me into my study,” she said, and returned to the room from which she’d come.

After sharing a steadying glance, Sepha and Ruhen followed Isolde. The study was much like the room they’d just left, except it was rather smaller and possessed several large, overstuffed chairs. Against the wall opposite the study’s window, a dark curtain obscured a shallow alcove.

Isolde gestured them to a love seat, which groaned as Ruhen sat down. His weight turned the flat surface into a steep grade, so that Sepha had to lean away to stay upright.

Fio, who had agreed to play the servant-homunculus until they knew what sort of people the Spirit Alchemists were, stood just inside the study’s threshold and didn’t say a word.

Isolde sat across from them. She stared at them over the tips of her steepled fingers as if they were contraptions with cogs and wheels and moving parts, and she was determined to figure out what they were for.

When she spoke, her voice was as decisive and forceful as the Magistrate’s. “It’s curious that you’ve come here. Why not go to ground? Would anonymity in a small town not have been the safer option?”

“I wanted—I mean, I had hoped …” Sepha paused in what she hoped seemed an emotional way. “Destry meant to talk to her mother, once we arrived here. She wanted to convince her I was still useful. I hoped that was still possible.”

Isolde clicked her tongue. “My, you are a child. What use would my sister have for an alchemancer whose secret is out? She’ll never use you now. If she doesn’t kill you, she’ll be exposed for the hypocrite she is, and she can’t have that. She’ll chase you until she kills you.”

Sepha had expected as much, but she forced herself to flinch. Playing the part.

“Now that you know that,” Isolde said, her eyes lingering on Sepha, “do you still think my Sanctuary is the best place for you?”

Sepha shook her head, forcing herself to act confused, helpless.

“Time,” Ruhen said. “We need time to think things through. And somewhere safe to do the thinking. This is the safest place we know of.”

Isolde surrendered a small smile, and Sepha glanced at Ruhen. That bit of flattery was very nicely done. Her contract thrummed, a distraction, and she turned her attention back to Isolde.

Isolde pressed one finger to her mouth before saying, slowly, “Well, you are correct. This is the only place my sister can’t touch. I need assurances from you, however, before I can promise you safety of any kind. Surely you understand the risk I would be taking, letting an alchemancer and magician into my domain. Especially when my sister’s alchemists are so thirsty for your blood.”

Sepha and Ruhen exchanged suspicious glances. “What kind of assurances?” Sepha asked.

There was a strange light in Isolde’s eyes. She rested her elbows on her knees and leaned toward them. “I merely wish to ask a few simple questions. And to receive the truth in response.”

“And if we answer your questions, we’ll be safe here?” Ruhen asked. His voice was stiff.

“If I like your answers,” Isolde said, lifting a breezy hand, “I shall not turn you over to the bloodthirsty alchemists outside. You have my word.”

Behind Isolde, Fio pulled a grimace and shook his head. Sepha knew Ruhen felt the same way, could tell from the way he held himself, from the way he’d edged to the front of his seat.

But leaving was not an option. Not yet, at least.

“Fine,” Sepha said. “Ask away.”

“Have you ever killed anyone on purpose?” Isolde asked immediately.

“No,” they both said.

But not for lack of trying, Sepha didn’t say.

Isolde narrowed her eyes. “Do you mean harm to me or anyone at my Sanctuary?”

Again, they both said no.

“Where are you from?”

“Three Mills,” Sepha said. Isolde’s eyebrows quirked upward.

Ruhen shifted in his seat, more uncomfortable at this question than the first. “All over.”

“Where are you originally from?” Isolde’s eyes were malicious, and Sepha thought of the undead magician. Malice shone from his eyes, too.

“A place called Seacastle,” Ruhen said at last.

Triumph flashed in Isolde’s eyes as she leaned back in her seat and said, “I’ve heard Seacastle is lovely. Never been there, myself.” She grinned as Ruhen went still. Sepha gritted her teeth against the sudden surge of her roiling beast. Isolde was toying with them, but Sepha could not attack her. She couldn’t. “If I allow you to stay, you must be aware that we at the Sanctuary abide by very strict rules. As guests, I will expect you to stay in your rooms unless escorted or unless one of my Spirit Alchemists tells you where to go. I must insist on this point and will not appreciate disobedience in the least. Do you agree to abide by this rule?”

“Y-es,” Sepha said slowly.

Ruhen paused for a second before saying, quietly, “Yes.”

Isolde’s grin was sharp. “Good. One last question, and then we’re done.”

Ruhen was shaking, and Sepha didn’t understand why. She rested a hand on his knee. “All right, one last question.”

“What do you know of Spirit Alchemy?”

Sepha raised her eyebrows. “Almost nothing.”

Isolde grinned. “Well, during your stay here, we’ll ameliorate that. Of course, you are free to leave, Sepha, if you choose. The Military Alchemists may only be here to retrieve you.”

Sepha swallowed. Being retrieved sounded worse, somehow, than being killed. Retrieved, and then delivered to the Magistrate. Even if the Magistrate didn’t kill Sepha—if—life under the Magistrate’s thumb would just be another contract. Just another Ludov. Just another thing-that-wasn’t-Sepha controlling Sepha’s every move.

“What about Ruhen?” Sepha asked. “What would they do with him?”

“Do they know what he is?” Isolde asked.

Sepha and Ruhen exchanged a quick glance. “I don’t think so,” Ruhen said.

“Well, then,” Isolde said, “if he was relieved of any associations with you, he’d be as free as any other Tirenian magician.”

Sepha loosed her breath in a huff. Ruhen, at least, might recover from all of this. Might have a life worth living, a life not spent on the run.

But Sepha wouldn’t. The Magistrate knew what she was. Henric and the Military Alchemists knew what she was. She’d been too distracted until now to realize it, but she would never be safe. Never.

Isolde clapped her hands onto her knees, stood, and motioned to the door. “Rivers will show you to your rooms, if you choose to stay.”

Her unspoken question lingered in the air.

Without bothering to glance at Ruhen, Sepha said, “Yes, thank you, we’ll stay.”

A short woman with smooth umber skin and hair that twisted into long, knotted locs was waiting for them outside Isolde’s study. She introduced herself as Rivers, and with a smile and a jerk of her head, she led them through the third doorway and toward their rooms.

 

 

 

 

Under Rivers’s watchful eye, Ruhen and Sepha retreated into their separate rooms. Fio, following Rivers’s instructions, scuffed down the corridor toward the homunculi’s barracks, pulling an annoyed grimace when Rivers’s back was turned.

Accustomed to the minuscule berth aboard the Dear Lady and the stark asceticism of the Ten before that, Sepha sighed with relief when she saw her room. It was spacious, comparatively—although most any room would be. The bed was tall and soft, and it sank wonderfully when she pressed her hand on it. The smooth, carved-stone floor was scattered with thick, patterned rugs and the walls were streaked with veins of colorful ores. There was an overstuffed chair beside the irregular, craggy window, and behind an open door in the corner was a gleaming white bathtub filled to the brim with gently steaming water.

“Oh,” Sepha whispered. Without another thought, she stripped off her salt-hardened clothes and leapt straight in. It had been weeks since she’d had a proper bath, and even longer since she’d had a place to luxuriate in privacy. She took her time and only emerged from the water when her fingers were purple and wrinkled.

Red-cheeked and warm, she slipped into a change of clothes and sat for a few minutes in her overstuffed chair, trying to re-center herself. Her thoughts flitted from the Magistrate to Destry, to Isolde, and finally to Henric. Three troublesome, one dead. All four bound so tightly to Sepha that she was suffocating under the strain.

With a huff, Sepha got up and knocked on Ruhen’s door. It opened at once, and Ruhen, as fresh and clean as she, gestured her in. His room was the mirror image of hers, although it was somehow already messier.

“Well?” Sepha said, sitting on the edge of Ruhen’s bed. Ruhen sat beside her. They hadn’t kissed again, hadn’t so much as held hands. But there was still something between them, something invisible but undeniable, something that pulled and pushed. “What do you think?”

“She’s a snake,” Ruhen said. “I wouldn’t trust anything she said. Including that she’s heard of Seacastle. There is no Seacastle in Tirenia.”

“I thought she seemed strange, too,” Sepha said. “But what about the Military Alchemists? Do you really think they’re only here to retrieve me?”

“I don’t know,” Ruhen answered. “There’s no way for us to know until it’s too late.” He paused. “How long do you think it’ll be before we can leave?”

“I don’t know,” Sepha said. “I’m sure Destry was right about them knowing something about the magician. And beyond finding that information, there’s still the fact that the Military Alchemists are out there.”

Ruhen leveled a look at her. “I really don’t think you have to be afraid of them. And if you’re not ready to face them head-on, I have a lot of experience living below their notice.”

“That is true,” Sepha said, chewing on her lip.

They were quiet for a moment, but then something changed, and that heavy silence welled up. Sepha leaned against Ruhen, an experimental touch, and said, “At least you can go free, if everything goes to Darkest After. They still don’t know what you are.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I know the headaches would be a problem,” she went on, ignoring him, “but maybe if you were gone for long enough, the contract would give up and choose someone else. Then you’d really be safe.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

There didn’t seem to be a good answer to that question. Instead, Sepha said, “I’m sorry you got sucked in to all of this. I don’t know how you’ll be a Court Alchemist now.”

“I can’t,” Ruhen said, scrubbing at his mouth. “Not now that Henric knows what I am.” Guilt hollowed Sepha out, and she wanted to fold in over herself. Her fault. “I don’t blame you, Sepha, really. To be honest, I don’t think what’s between us has anything to do with the contract. It’s too big a magic for that.”

Sepha frowned. “But what else could it possibly be?”

Ruhen shook his head. “No idea.”

Sepha hazarded a glance at Ruhen just in time to see him look down at her. To see his throat bob, his lips part and close again. His thunderhead eyes roved across her face, and his voice was hoarse when he said, “But it’s something.”

Someone knocked on the door and immediately opened it, and the moment was broken. In a habitual but now unnecessary move, Ruhen leapt off the bed to stand in front of Sepha. But she wasn’t defenseless anymore. Hadn’t been for a long time. Sepha stood beside Ruhen, giving him a look that dared him to argue.

A man with waist-length brown hair was peeking around the door. He peered at them and smiled. “Oops,” he said, opening the door wider and coming into the room. “Hope I didn’t startle you. It’s just so rare that people who aren’t criminals come here.”

Sepha frowned. “What?”

“Our principal occupation is criminal rehabilitation. And since the Sanctuary is so isolated—again, because of all the criminals—well, we hardly get to see anyone new. I’m called Meadow,” he added, striding forward to shake their hands. His hand was soft and pliable in Sepha’s, and she fought the urge to wipe her hand on her shirt.

Meadow tipped his head to study the pair of them. His eyes were an unsettling amber, and he had a thick, close-cropped beard that obscured most of his face. “Rivers made me wait before coming over here, but damn me to After if I was going to hang back for too long! An alchemancer! A real, true alchemancer! And a magician,” he added, with an apologetic glance at Ruhen.

Meadow went back to staring at Sepha as if she was some exotic beast. “And you’re a Spirit Alchemist?” she asked, giving him the same rude stare. He was wearing long pants that were several sizes too big and a shapeless shirt that might once have been colorful but was now faded to several almost-browns. His feet were bare.

No Court or Military Alchemists would ever allow themselves to be seen like this.

That thought made Sepha smile. A little.

“Yes. Yes!” Meadow said. The tip of his hooked nose angled sharply down when he smiled. “I am! One of a few dozen! There aren’t many of us. Isolde asked me to show you around and teach you a bit, believe it or not. I hardly believe it myself. But she thought you could use the distraction, Military Alchemists out there and all. Spirit Alchemy is a very complicated subject, and I hardly feel qualified to explain it to anyone, let alone to an alchemancer!—And a magician!—But I’m sure I know more than you do about Spirit Alchemy, and that’s a good enough place to start.”

Sepha’s smile grew. She couldn’t help it.

Meadow, in need of no such encouragement, went on. “I think it’s an excellent idea—not just because it’s a distraction, but because I think anyone would choose Spirit Alchemy over typical alchemy when given the right information. I’m going to show you what we do, and we’ll see how you take to it.” He paused and eyed Ruhen, twisting his mouth to one side. “You won’t be able to learn it, what with your … limitation. But you’re welcome to watch, if you want.” He smiled again, then seemed to remember his manners. “You must be exhausted from your journey. If you follow me, I’ll show you where the kitchen and dining room are. Dining cave, I guess. Ha!”

Sepha and Ruhen followed Meadow through the Sanctuary until they reached a cavernous kitchen. Every surface shone metallic and clean. In the middle of the room was a long metal table, with half a dozen stools on each side.

“Sit here,” Meadow said, and they sat. Without warning, Meadow banged on the table so hard Sepha jumped. “Hey!” he bellowed. “Food!” He gave them a calm smile. “They’ll be here in a minute.”

Presently, three homunculi slouched into the kitchen and began cooking. Accustomed by now to Fio’s commentary, or at least facial expressions, Sepha found their flat silence disconcerting.

“We get shipments of meat every so often,” Meadow said, pulling out a stool across from where Sepha and Ruhen were sitting, “but the produce, we grow here. Topside, of course.”

In the interest of getting as many answers as fast as possible, Sepha steered the conversation away from food. “So. Rehabilitating criminals.”

Meadow slammed his hands on the table again. The homunculi paused, as if waiting for another directive. “Criminals!” he exclaimed, and the homunculi resumed cooking. “Yes! So. To start, we have to ask, what makes a criminal a criminal?”

It was a moment before Sepha realized Meadow’s question wasn’t hypothetical. “Crime?” she tried.

Meadow laughed. “But what makes a person commit a crime? More importantly, what makes a person a habitual committer of crimes?”

“Necessity,” Sepha said, thinking of the crimes she had committed. Planned to commit.

“Circumstance,” Ruhen said. Then, probably thinking of his brothers, he added, “Or a bad nature.”

“I like that one,” Meadow said, nodding at Ruhen. “We posit that the habitual criminal is possessed of a defective spirit—a bad nature. A good person might steal bread to feed his family, but as soon as he is able to provide the bread on his own, he will stop stealing. In that case, the crime was certainly one of circumstance and necessity. But if he goes on stealing the bread when he can afford to pay for it, then that, my friends, is indicative of a bad nature. A defect in his very soul.”

Behind Meadow, the three homunculi worked together, standing on step-stools to reach the counters. A pot of something was boiling on the stove, and the steam rose in swirling tendrils up to the ceiling.

“So …” Sepha began, unsure how to put her question into words. “So, Spirit Alchemy is a religion?”

Meadow let out a short, loud laugh. “No! Of course not! I think you are under the misconception that a soul is so incorporeal as to be unaffected by alchemy. That could not be further from the truth.”

Meadow broke off suddenly when Rivers walked into the room. Like Meadow, she was barefoot. Meadow beamed at her and beckoned her over. With a half-smile, she sat beside Meadow, slipping her arm around him.

“Anyway,” he said, “Spirit Alchemy is used to replace the undesirable parts of the soul.”

“How?” Sepha asked, furrowing her brow. “How is that alchemy? And how is that possible?”

Rivers leaned forward. “Think of a soul as a collection of characteristics. Love, hope, and joy. Wrath, gluttony, and selfishness. Everyone is made of a mixture of characteristics, any of which can be bad when exercised to excess. We identify the evil that afflicts the criminal’s soul and replace it with a corresponding good. It’s a transmutation, of sorts.”

“Oh,” Sepha said. It made sense. Sort of.

“How do you identify the evil?” Ruhen asked.

“Meditation,” Rivers said, “and lots of it. The most successful transmutations occur when the criminal and the alchemist meditate in tandem. Unfortunately,” she said with a laugh, “the criminals are usually unwilling to meditate. So, we have to restrain them in a room with us while we meditate on their behalf. Sometimes, the evil is immediately apparent; sometimes, it takes hours, even days, of meditation before we can identify where the soul’s defect lies.”

The homunculi finished with their cooking and brought over four bowls of vegetable stew and a large, crusty loaf of bread. Meadow started eating as soon as the bowl appeared in front of him.

“Thank you,” Sepha said to the homunculus who’d delivered her bowl. His gaze flicked briefly up to meet hers, then he looked down and walked away. Ruhen thanked his homunculus, too.

“To perform Spirit Alchemy,” Meadow went on, pausing to slurp another spoonful of stew, “you must have an alchem, but you must also have a name.”

“A name?” Sepha asked. “Whose name?”

“The name of the soul you want to affect,” Rivers said, floating her spoon on the stew’s surface. “Unlike material things, which only have to be inside the alchem for you to affect them, a soul is immaterial. It’s as impossible to put inside an alchem as air. So, if you want to do anything to a soul, you’ve got to know its name.”

“Is the soul’s name the same as the person’s name?” Ruhen asked. He hadn’t touched his stew.

“Almost always,” Meadow said.

“Almost?” Sepha asked.

“The soul’s name is always the same as the person’s name, but isn’t always the same as what the person is called.” He saw Sepha and Ruhen exchange a confused glance, and continued, “I’m only called Meadow, and Rivers is only called Rivers. To know a name is to have power over a person, and we Spirit Alchemists would never work in harmony if we were afraid of each other. I find meadows to be very peaceful, which is why I took this name.”

“And I was born by a river,” Rivers said.

Sepha’s eyes narrowed. “But you know our names,” she said, and her words came out like an accusation.

Meadow grimaced. “We do,” he said, “but it can’t be helped. We’ll try to forget them, but you can be sure we won’t try to harm you. Incidentally, Isolde has never taken a false name. She’s not a bit threatened by any of us.”

The wrongness she’d felt in the cove came back in full strength. Her roiling beast uncoiled, pressing outward, and she forced it back down.

“Should she be threatened by any of you?” Sepha asked.

Rivers’s smile was a bit too sharp. “Of course not,” she said. “We are utterly harmless. Isolde doesn’t let violent people become Spirit Alchemists, you see. She hardly lets ambitious people in, either. We’re as placid as dairy cows and completely uninterested in hurting anyone. Each of us became Spirit Alchemists because we want to see a better world: a world without criminals, a world in which people who were born criminals have hope. Because of our research, we will one day be able to erase serial crime without capital punishment or even imprisonment. We want the most peace for the most people, so surely that should put you at ease. Peace precludes harm.”

“Well said, my dear,” Meadow said, beaming. Rivers smiled at him with a doting gaze, as if he were a pet she was particularly fond of.

Sepha shot a look at Ruhen. His eyes met hers with a look that said, nearly audibly, Not good.

Sepha agreed. Rivers’s wording had been too careful. Being uninterested in hurting anyone wasn’t the same as actually not hurting anyone. Voice carefully calm, she asked, “You believe people are born criminals?”

Rivers and Meadow held eye contact for half a beat. Meadow turned to Sepha and said, “Some. Not many. But yes. Some people are born criminals.”

Was it her imagination, or had Meadow been very careful not to look in Ruhen’s direction?

Sepha was saved from having to respond when Henric walked into the room. He stopped just inside the threshold, saw Ruhen and Sepha, and scowled. He turned to leave, but Ruhen said, “Don’t go. We’re done.”

Together, Ruhen and Sepha stood.

A frown flashed across Meadow’s face, so quickly that Sepha thought she might’ve imagined it. “I’ll show you back to your rooms,” he said, smiling. This time, his smile seemed forced.

“I remember the way back,” Sepha said.

“So do I,” Ruhen added.

Meadow hesitated, and his eyes shifted from Sepha to Rivers and back again.

Rivers spoke for him. “If you do know your way back, that’s fine. Just be careful not to wander. We harbor criminals here. Walk down the wrong hall, open the wrong door, you could let a murderer loose.” Her gray eyes were wide and guileless, her face apologetic, as she continued, blandly, “You could be killed.”

Ruhen clenched the loose fabric of Sepha’s shirt in his hand, suddenly rigid at the almost-threat, and Sepha moved to stand between him and the Spirit Alchemists. “Thanks for the warning. We’ll go straight back to our rooms. No nighttime wanderings.”

Meadow smiled, seeming relieved. “It really is for your safety.”

Sepha returned Meadow’s smile with a tight one of her own. “Tomorrow, then,” she said. “I can’t wait to learn more about Spirit Alchemy.”

It was a lie and a truth. She did not damn’er-to-After want to learn how to perform Spirit Alchemy; but there was a pull in her mind that told her she’d better learn to stomach it. After all this talk of souls, Sepha was sure the Spirit Alchemists had something to do with the undead magician. And she would find out what.

Henric stepped aside as they walked out the door. He didn’t meet Sepha’s eyes.

The walk back to their rooms was a quiet one. Sepha was horrified at what she’d heard, but she couldn’t imagine how Ruhen must feel. These Spirit Alchemists thought he was a criminal. And their job was to rehabilitate criminals like him so they wouldn’t be criminals anymore. By ripping their souls apart.

And he had come here for her.

When they got to their rooms, they stood outside Sepha’s door, each leaning a shoulder against the dark wood. Unable to say what she needed to, Sepha reached out and rested her hand against Ruhen’s chest.

His heartbeat quickened.

He folded one hand over hers and reached up to trace her jawline with his thumb—a touch that sent relief and rightness thrilling down the length of her. Sepha closed her eyes but opened them again when she felt that awful contract thrum beside her heart. Ruining everything, as always.

Oblivious, Ruhen leaned down to rest his forehead against hers. An achingly familiar touch. A touch she had missed.

“This is bad,” he said.

“Very,” she agreed. She closed her eyes, tried to focus on Ruhen’s sea smell, his autumn wind smell, instead of on the fact that his mouth was only a few inches away from hers. “We’ll give ourselves a few days to find out what we can, and then …”

“We leave,” he finished for her. “Together,” he added, and his voice lilted upward.

“Together,” she agreed. There was no point pretending. With things the way they were, wherever one of them went, the other wouldn’t be far behind. “Find somewhere safe, a hundred miles from the nearest alchemist.”

“Mm,” he agreed, and his hands slid around her waist. She moved closer to him until they were pressed against each other, closer than they’d been since that night in the wheelhouse. Her hands strayed up his arms to his shoulders, down to his chest and up again, and his hands began a circuit, too, rising until his thumbs grazed along her ribs.

Sepha felt a surge of desire, and the contract thumped gleefully beside her heart. Releasing a ragged breath, she said, “I’m really tired. I—I’ll see you tomorrow.”

His hands tightened briefly, but then he released her. He said, huskily, “Goodnight, Sepha.”

He was still so close, looming over her, his thunderhead eyes saying too much, too loudly. And the tether had cinched so tight. “Goodnight.”