The Alchemical Child

Chapter Nine

Sage sat hunched over her desk in a pair of bottle-glass goggles. Her hands moved delicately over Hermes, cogs no longer turning and eyes unfocused. She didn't like working on him when he wasn't awake—it made the house feel as empty as it had during her first lonely weeks—but to mend his wing, she had to tinker inside his body cavity.

As soon as the mainspring in his tail had wound down, Sage removed his feathers, his wing struts, and their pivots. It was one of the dual cranks in Hermes' chest that was damaged, so she replaced it with a similar cog from the embankment, then reattached his struts and tested the flapping mechanism with her fingers. Satisfied that his wings would move symmetrically, she smoothed his feathers into place and he once again looked like the perfect copper starling.

Evening had settled over the city by the time Sage rewound Hermes' clockwork. As his cogs whirred into motion, she dipped a brush into ink and painted a triangle struck through with a line on his wing. She surrounded the shape with a circle, binding the sigil for air as Hermes struggled upright. He shifted his body stiffly at first, then unfurled his wings to their full span and dove into the air. Chirping triumphantly, he turned somersaults around Sage's head, stalling one way then the other, before swooping for the window.

"Oh no you don't." Sage caught him in mid-air and he wriggled indignantly. "It took hours to fix that wing, so if you fly off into the dark and ice up your clockwork, I'll refuse to rescue you."

She set Hermes down on the windowsill so that together, they could press close to the glass and feel the sting of frost. The snow was coming down in thick flurries, mounding up beside the river. The sight of it closing in made Sage shiver, so she went downstairs and stoked her stove with a can of coal, praying that the heat would rise by the time she went to sleep. Spooning soup into a bowl, she clambered up to the attic and bundled herself in blankets.

It was a plain sort of bedroom, with most of the floor taken up by the chimney and her bed. But there was also a silver mirror on the wall—which Sage had found at the market and thought was all the prettier for its tarnishing—and a sketch of her family's cottage in the countryside that her father had drawn when she was very young. In the picture, two little girls leant against a gatepost, one stepping out into a field of dandelions.

Next to her bed was a pile of books from the Alchemical Library. Sage grabbed one from the top—Going in Circles: A Sigilist's Struggle—and began to read. But once her soup was finished and she had kicked off several blankets, Sage discarded the book, frustratingly restless. Her mind had wandered to her family, to Valerie, and to the letter still locked inside her desk drawer.

She padded downstairs to find a pen and paper, then returned to the attic and reached under her bed. The wicker keepsake box had grown grey with dust, but she opened it and began rooting around. It took several minutes to find the scrap addressed with her family's nearest telegram office, but she folded the paper, copied out the address, and flipped it open again.

To Mum and Dad, Sage wrote before realising she had no idea how to begin. Thank you for sending your congratulations in September. I was really pleased to get the Magister scholarship, and it means I get to stay in my house for the next year (maybe longer if the University allows me to become an apprenticed Scholar after graduation). I know you were worried about that, but Hermes and I are doing fine here. It even started to snow today. Speaking of the University, I received an odd letter from Valerie yesterday. Do you know when she was in the city? Is she living with you now? I would really like to write to her. Sage.

She folded the paper in half again and tucked it under a book, out of sight. If she forgot it was there, it might slip beneath her bed and be lost for decades. It might never be read again.

Sage descended to the workshop and began pacing laps around the room, past the sheets of snow falling outside the window, and past thrice more. Hermes watched her from the desk, squawking when she abruptly halted next to her chair and sat down. Grabbing the closest pencil, she began to copy out a table of hermetic sigils from memory. They had to be drawn with absolute concentration, each shape precise and in the correct order. Sage usually found it meditative, but tonight her mind was whirling and her pencil was blunt.

Leaping to her feet again, she charged upstairs and snatched the letter to her parents. She wrapped her thinnest blanket around her shoulders, pulling it over her ears like a long muffler, and then stuffed her coat over the top. The door was open and she was stepping out into the cold before she had a chance to decide otherwise.

The snow had settled quickly and Sage's boots sank inches deeper with each step. She could feel it leaking around her toes and cursed herself for not pulling on more socks. Around the back of the house, the faint lamps leading towards the city glowed through the night. Sage trudged along the cracked remnants of a pavement, where her boots had better grip, and turned left when the stone began to smooth.

She had only been walking for ten minutes, but her fingers felt frozen in place around her letter. By the time she reached the telegram office, she was worried it may have to be ripped out of her hand. But when she opened the door, the office was blessedly warm and there was only one man behind the bureau.

He startled when Sage cleared her throat, clearly unused to customers so late in the evening, though telegram offices in the city remained open all night. "Oh, sorry. Are you expecting a letter? I haven't been at the receiver."

"No," said Sage, rigidly holding out her hand. "I need to send one."

The man jumped towards the transmitter, an immense machine that took up an entire wall of the office. Wires, dials, and wheels covered a frame of metal, along with a roll of paper which was fed into the machine like a tongue.

"Is it an emergency?" he asked, checking his watch and he slipped on a set of headphones connected to the machine.

"Not at all, please don't worry. I just wanted them to receive it by the morning."

The man slowed his hands on a dial, looking reproachful now as Sage handed him the letter. He wrinkled his nose. "It's long."

"Sorry," Sage said meekly as he began to clack the letters out on the switches.

When he was finished, Sage fished through her pockets to find enough change. Her eyes felt heavy and the telegram was expensive, so it was a relief when she stumbled out into the dark to head home. The only sound came from the snow crunching beneath Sage's feet as she felt for the pavement, unable to see properly through the darkness. But when light finally rose ahead, it wasn't from her house, but from across the river where sparks of orange and gold leapt into the night like the sun was being forged in a crucible beyond the horizon.

Sage heard the bridge creak beneath her as she stopped and stared, the rush of the river carrying away the words of a faraway song. The fae in their village were singing, soft and sweet so that only they and Sage could hear the tune that fell around them like snow. Inexplicably, tears pricked her eyes, searingly hot in the bitter cold. But when she staggered into her house and closed her door on the song, her tears had all been iced away.

A/N A day late as I had some trouble with my connection, but I'm back with Chapter Nine as we approach the end of Part One! Thanks so much for reading!!