The Alchemical Child

Chapter One

Sage was deep in the Alchemical Library when she heard the bells. The Crown Prince was dead.

Burrowing further into the stacks, Sage breathed in the familiar scent of dry pages and stale ink. She closed her eyes, fingers clinging to leather-bound spines, and started to count. One, two, three. The mourning bells continued to ring. Even the University's labyrinth of a library couldn't smother the sound of them splintering through the city.

Sage inhaled sharply. Dry pages, stale ink. Her hand was fumbling against a large encyclopedia, so she dragged it against her chest instead. She thought she could feel her heart beating itself ragged against her ribs. She worried that her face had flushed scarlet and that someone would turn into the aisle and see her slumped between Menstruum and Mercury.

The idea of a librarian finding her—or worse, another Student—was enough to force Sage upright and slow her breathing. She counted again, touching one book after the next until she had reached Ouroboros three aisles down. Her anxiety was getting worse with each day that the skies darkened earlier. It always became harder during the winter.

She had hoped that she would manage better this year as a Magister Student. Graduating with a Baccalaureate in Alchemical Arts had come with the relief of fewer seminars and more research hours, which Sage had invested entirely in the Alchemical Library. She had heard her peers joke more than once that she had made a secret home for herself somewhere on the second floor, which honestly hadn't sounded too terrible to Sage. Hermes would love the vestibule's vaulted ceiling, and she wouldn't have to worry about overdue book loans ever again.

Best of all, the library was always silent. For Sage, it was one of life's rare comforts to know that no matter where she went, she would always be able to rely on a library to have perfect peace and quiet. 

Quiet, that is, until monarchs decided to drop dead in their palaces.

It was an unfair thought and Sage knew it. Usually, she only felt anxiety as a steady hum beneath her other thoughts, but when it suddenly reared she had to fight against the sharp temper that came bubbling up her throat like a titration gone horribly wrong. She tried to remember the mindfulness book she had annotated last week.

"I may feel anxiety and anger, but I will choose to be calm and kind," she muttered to herself.

Unbidden, Valerie's voice slipped into her head. "Absolute drivel," Sage's older sister said. "If you're afraid of something, you've got to face it. Get out of this library for once or else you'll eventually drift away like a dust mite."

"I'm not afraid," Sage replied to not-Valerie. "And I do get out of the library. If you were ever actually around, you'd see for yourself."

"I've always been around," not-Valerie said, her airy voice crowding Sage's mind. "I've always been right here."

But that wasn't true at all. Sage hadn't seen the real Valerie in over eight years. Her sister had sent her congratulations when Sage was accepted to the University. She had promised she would visit at least once a term. After all, Valerie had travelled constantly while Sage was growing up. When Sage had been studying for exams and running through ink cartridges, Valerie had been mastering new languages and riding through deserts. She had occasionally telegrammed home and was infamous for being late, but ever since Sage had moved to the city, she hadn't received a single postcard.

Sage expelled her sister from her brain, and the bells immediately filled the empty space. They continued to ring. One, two, three. 

She moaned, "Goddess' grace!"

If the bells wouldn't stop ringing, then Sage wanted to be as far away from their clamour as possible. She began to return to her desk, then cursed and swung back around. Tempting as it always was to get lost amongst the stacks, she hadn't left her notes for nothing. One of her two classes this term had John Faustus on the required reading list, which Sage had been putting off for weeks.

All of the older books kept better in shade, but the stacks towards the front of the library caught the light streaming in from the vestibule's tremendous crystal window. Sage could see the motes dancing between her fingers as she searched the alphabetised theorems. Hartshorn (spirits of), Hepatic air, and finally, Höllenzwang. She groaned; the day was just getting worse and worse.

The only Faustus text left was a grimoire as thick as her head. Sage stifled a cough as she pulled it down from its shelf with a cloud of primaeval dust. The grimoire was bound in scratched, brown cloth, but she only had to look at the printing on the spine to know that it was written in the original German. She had given up on the language by second-year, so it would take her hours to get through one chapter of the grimoire.

Sage couldn't even bear to look at the contents, so she heaved the grimoire under one arm and staggered back to her desk in the farthest, shadiest corner of the vestibule. It was exactly as she had left it: orderly, spotless, and completely secluded. She wasn't surprised—the winter's snow hadn't fallen yet and the sun was out, so the majority of Students would be stretched out on the front lawn or sipping coffee by the pond.

Once the weather got colder and the university migrated to the relative warmth of the library, Sage's peace would be entirely ruined until March. She shuddered and gathered up her pens.

Without the stacks to muffle them, Sage's footsteps echoed with the bells around the high ceiling as she walked to the front desk. She passed the polished busts of long-dead alchemists, and the crystal window looking out at the hawthorn tree circled by the University, but stumbled to a stop at the grand double-doors.

There was a new librarian behind the front desk. Tall and lithe with large, sunken eyes—he was unmistakably fae. His all-black stewarding outfit matched the dark hair falling around his face; the exact opposite to Sage's white student coat and blonde bun.

She clutched the grimoire to her chest to keep from dropping it, and thought she saw a smile curl the corners of his mouth. Oh Goddess, had he heard her talking to herself with the stacks? She wasn't sure she could face him if he had—he probably suspected she was deranged—but now he was looking at her and the ancient grimoire she had crammed between her elbows.

It let out another puff of dust as Sage hoisted the grimoire onto the desk. She wondered if she had imagined the librarian's smile, because now his face was flat and disinterested. He flipped the book around as if it wasn't hundreds of years old, noting the title before he turned to sort through a cabinet for its loan sheet. Sage peered over his hunched shoulders as he scrawled the date; his long, sloping writing suited his slender fingers.

He folded the paper back into the cabinet and glanced at Sage again. "You can reserve the book for as long as you like, it hasn't been taken out for years."

"Oh, thanks," she stuttered. She could feel her heartbeat picking up again, and blurted, "Are you new?"

His eyes shot to hers, no longer passive but flaring black. Sage shrunk away from the desk, stumbling to amend her poor phrasing. "New to the University, I mean."

He continued to glare at her, the endless ringing the only sound to break the awful silence between them. Sage noticed a red mark beneath his eyebrow where he must've recently removed a piercing. Her fingernails dug into her palm.

"Yeah," he finally replied. "First time in the University."

Sage nodded once, grabbed the grimoire, and fled from the Alchemical Library.

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