“But she was so strong,” I said. “Stronger than you. How could a disease of the mind have done that?”
“The mind has power over the body that no one fully understands. Put those down, Thea.”
I stared down at the heavy tongs in front of me, then lowered them.
“She made the Stone,” I said, looking back at the wall where the ovum had smashed. “It was in the last stage.”
The Comte looked at me sharply.
“The last stage? The Philosopher’s Stone? Are you certain?” He frowned. “She did not say so. Surely she would have told me.”
“She was keeping it secret from both of us. It is why she barred me from the laboratory.”
“Perhaps—perhaps she was waiting until she was sure. Perhaps she did not want to disappoint us—”
His eyes briefly met mine, then flicked away. We both knew that, whatever her reason, it wasn’t that.
“It could have cured her! If only she hadn’t destroyed it!” I went to the wall and touched the remains of the Stone with one finger. It was still warm. Tears of frustration pricked at my eyes. The Philosopher’s Stone. The dream of every alchemist. Whole lifetimes of work, centuries of unfulfilled hopes, had nearly been realized in front of my eyes. But beneath the frustration, there was a spark of excitement. She had done it. At the very least, that meant that it could be done. My hand went to the pocket of my gown. She had done it, and I had her notes.
“You don’t know that, Thea,” Adrien said. “Even if it was the Stone—which I rather doubt—no one really knows what it does. Who can say what is myth and what is fact?”
I shook my head in irritation. The Comte was given to making pronouncements he had not earned the right to make. He had not labored over the texts, pieced together the fragments, or spent untold hours over the fires in the laboratory. The Comte was a patron, not an adept. All he truly knew about the practice of alchemy was how much it cost.
“Call the doctor,” I said. “But if he can’t help her, then I can, once I’ve made the Stone.”
I started to hunt around the laboratory. If she had left any of the White Elixir, I could do it in a matter of weeks. If not, it would be months—months of Mother’s madness. But there was none left that I could find. At least there was a good deal of the transmuting agent left. That itself took months to prepare, and it was essential to the last stages of the White Elixir. I tilted the red transmuting agent into a vial, corked it, and slipped it into my pocket with the notes. The Comte watched me, a mournful look on his handsome, beak-nosed face.
“I can do it,” I said. “You needn’t look so worried.”
“No, Thea,” said the Comte. “You cannot stay here. It is time for you to go.”
I looked up at the Comte in alarm. “Not you, too!” I exclaimed. “I’m not going anywhere with the Marquis. I can’t leave at all, not so close to achieving this! And Mother can’t travel this way.”
“Your mother will stay here. And you will not go with the Marquis. But you must go, your mother was right about that much. I wish she had broached the matter with you differently, but…” He sighed. “I have procured you a passport to leave France—”
“I will not go! If I leave now I might not be able to come back! I have a British name—”
“Precisely, Thea, you are a British subject. The National Convention grows more warlike by the day. You don’t know how dangerous the situation has become. Even I—” He paused, then shook his head. “You must go while you still can. If Britain declares war, you could be arrested.”
I stared at my mother, limp on the ground with her mouth open. If the Comte was so certain I was in danger here, perhaps it really was why she had wanted to send me away, not simply to be rid of me. A welt blossomed on her forehead where I had hit her. My stomach cramped with guilt.
“You’ll go to Oxford,” said the Comte. “To your father.”
I knew very little about my father. Only that he and my mother had made their first forays into alchemy together when they were very young in England, and that now he was a respectable fellow at Oxford. This was quite a bit more than he knew about me. My mother had never even told him of my existence. She did not wish to share me with him.
“Won’t that come as rather a shock to him?”
“He will recover. He could hardly refuse to take you in under the circumstances.” This was very little reassurance, and my face must have shown it. The Comte’s voice changed. “Any man would be proud to have you as his daughter, Thea. If he has half your wit, he will see that.”
The Comte looked at me with strangely bright eyes, and it occurred to me that he might cry. Mother often complained of Adrien’s excessive displays of feeling. Though, to be truthful, the occasion did seem to call for some emotion. Still, I looked away.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
Even if my father turned out not to have half my wit, he was an alchemist. He would have a laboratory. I could work as well there as here, and with no danger of the National Convention interrupting, either to arrest me as a British spy or to make me work on their weapons. I would make the Stone. Then, I could bring it back to heal my mother. I looked down at her limp form. I would succeed in all we had ever dreamed of doing, and then save her from herself. She couldn’t deny that I was a worthy alchemist in my own right, then. Not when I had succeeded without her and given her sanity back to her in the process. Everything would change between us. It would have to.
Just imagining it was as satisfying to me as anything I had ever done.
In any case, I could do my mother no good here.
England had always loomed in the background of my life. I’d been born there. My father was there. I would never have admitted it to my mother, but I did want to meet him.
And he wasn’t the only one I wished to see in England.
I helped the Comte carry my mother back to her room, and then took to mine.
I went to my morning table and took out yet another sheet of paper. Finally, I knew what to write to him.
Dear Will,
My mother has gone mad. I am coming to England now, because of the war. I will stay with my father. He does not know I was ever born. I miss you. Perhaps we will see each other soon.
And perhaps we would.
4
I watched the Oxfordshire countryside roll by from the window of my coach. Thus far, I was not at all impressed with the English spring. I had left Normandy at its best, the air sweet with apple blossoms and bright with fresh grass and sunshine. Here, the sun hid resolutely behind low-lying clouds, and all you could smell of spring was the musk of recent rain. Everything from the gray sky to the damp taffeta strings of my bonnet promised disappointment.
I had left France only two weeks ago. When my mother woke, and remained as mad and violent as the night of her attack, what was left of my hesitation vanished. Little as Adrien and the doctor could do for her, I could do even less. She was violent and malevolent as a demon, and the sight of her made me wild myself, as though I could not possibly get far enough away from her. Her animal screaming echoed in every corner of the chateau. I packed in haste and did as the Comte had arranged. And though the English would believe I ran from the dangers of the Revolution and war, in truth it was my mother and her madness I fled.