The Alchemical Child

Chapter Two

The University's narrow corridors were glacial despite the weak sunlight leaking onto the marble floor. It made an abrupt change from the Alchemical Library's wooden shelves and leather chairs, but helped to cool Sage's head as the flush retreated down her neck and her ribs released their grip on her lungs.

She balanced her pile of books awkwardly down a tight, spiral stairwell, emerging on the ground floor near the professors' rooms. It was mid-afternoon, so Sage expected most Scholars would be taking their lunches privately, giving her a moment to slip into a recess and pack up her books. She hadn't wanted to spend any more time at the library's front desk—not with the new librarian glaring as she tried to jostle the grimoire into her satchel. Sage pictured the dark eyes glittering down at her and shivered.

She slumped into the bay window by Newton Courtyard and arranged her books beside her. Her two notebooks and the copy of Advanced Hermetic Principles that she had loaned at the start of term slid into her satchel easily, but she suspected the grimoire would split the seams if she tried to shove it in alongside them, and didn't even attempt it after a glimpse at its thin, yellow pages.

Sage sighed, setting the grimoire back against the window. The bells seemed a little quieter now that she was out of the library, the courtyard's arches slicing up the blue sky and cotton clouds, an illusion of privacy. She started counting and her breath misted the glass. Pressing her cheek to the window, she forced her eyes shut and her anxiety down, though it only seemed to claw closer to her chest.

"Sage! I thought I saw you pass outside. Come on in, you look exhausted."

Sage flinched at the sound of her name, even though she knew immediately that it was Professor Andrews. As one of the few female Scholars in the University, she spoke in a sharp and brusque voice that didn't match the wild, red ringlets always springing around her face. After three years of her Primary Hermetics lectures, Sage had practically begged the professor to be her thesis supervisor in September.

"Hi Gillian," Sage said, still getting used to using her professor's first name. "I'd love to, thanks."

She grabbed her satchel and followed Gillian into her office. It was built into a converted closet under the stairwell, and although Sage had always found the close-stacked journals and stout fireplace cosy, she knew that Gillian deserved more space and greater respect than the remnants of dusting apparatus allowed her.

"That'll be fine, Corinthia. Thank you," Gillian said to the woman boiling tea over the fire. The Steward bowed her head, and as she did, Sage saw a scabbed burn that traced a thin line down her neck. It looked almost as if someone had struck the fae with an iron rod. But when she caught Sage staring, she ducked her chin and scurried out, closing the door behind her to keep the warmth in and the distant chiming of bells out.

"That damned ringing is sending me mad." Gillian bent to hook the kettle out of the fireplace. "I was right in the middle of transcribing Chymes when they started and I knocked a fresh inkwell onto the rug."

As Gillian poured two cups of tea, Sage peered at the work on her desk. It was mostly diagrams—hermetic glyphs arranged into sigils too complex for her to understand. There was also a line of cursive writing still wet from its ink.

One is the All, and it is through it that the All is born.

Sage shivered again, just as Gillian bustled over with a steaming mug and herded her into an armchair. "Poor thing, you must be half-frozen walking around this drafty place. They really should install some fireplaces up in the library."

"It's not too bad," Sage said, taking a sip of the spicy tea to distract her mind from the thought of a book being left to singe beside an open fireplace. "The bells are so loud though. I think I'm just going to go home. I don't have any seminars today."