The Alchemy of Forever (2 page)

I am momentarily disoriented by my mask, not sure if the reflection I see is really me. I tentatively touch my hand to my cheek, and the mirror-girl follows.

Satisfied, I turn around and follow my parents and the sound of the music—lyres and lutes, tambourines and drums—until we arrive in the ballroom. I stand there for a moment, watching the masked dancers: women in silk and velvet gowns that brush the floor as they twirl in a circle, men forming a larger circle around them, the sinuous glow of the candelabras glinting off their headpieces. Although I have spent my entire life in London, I don’t recognize anyone.

I feel a presence at my side and turn to look. A young man, all in black, with a red mask and white-blond hair, is standing next to me. He offers me a goblet of pomegranate wine, and I take a sip, feeling the burning sweetness in my throat. “You should dance,” he tells me.

“But I don’t recognize anyone,” I answer, wondering if I know him.

“That’s the point,” he replies, his blue eyes vivid beneath the scarlet mask. “The disguises are meant to offer freedom, to let us do things we wouldn’t normally do, to let us be someone entirely different for one night.”

I study him for a moment. “Do we know each other?”

He tilts his head back and laughs. “I don’t think so. I would remember you, I’m certain. But then again, maybe we do. We’ll never know.” He offers me his arm and leads me toward the dancers.

We are partners only briefly, soon separated as we move down the line in formation. But I glance up at him more than once, and each time he is looking at me, following me around the room with those vivid blue eyes. I am grateful that my face is covered, as I feel my usual blush heating up my cheeks. But when the song is over, he is gone.

I wander alone through the crowd, feeling hot and dizzy. The wine, the dancing, the press of people—it is too much. I follow torches down a stone-walled hallway through a courtyard, then outside to the garden, where a magician is entertaining a group of people. I watch, amazed, as he produces a dove from the empty air, then releases the bird above his head.

“He’s a charlatan,” says a voice behind me. I whirl around to see the man with the scarlet mask.

“It’s amazing!” I exclaim. “He conjured a bird.”

“He did no such thing. He merely tricked you. But”—he holds out his hand—“if you will join me, I will show you something truly amazing.”

I am intrigued. I take his hand and let him lead me away from the crowd. When we reach the palace gates, I hesitate.

“I should not leave. My parents will worry.”

“It is just here, on the street,” he promises, and I reluctantly follow him around a corner toward a garden of rosebushes just opposite from the Thames. I can smell their sweet blooms mingling with the torch smoke. We stop next to a stone bench, and he lets go of my hand.

“May I?” he asks.

I am not sure what he is going to do, but I nod my assent. He reaches for my hair, gently pulling out one of the roses and cradling it in his palm. It is still deep red, but wilted, the edges of the petals already drying out.

“People are always looking for magic, when the natural world holds true miracles,” he says, pulling a small glass vial from his pocket. “This flower is dead. No offense meant, my lady.” He smiles. “But the roses here in the garden are still very much alive.”

He opens the vial and lets a few drops of liquid fall onto the base of the dead rose’s stem, then holds it up to a thorny branch of the living rosebush. After a few seconds he takes his hand away, and I gasp.

The red rose I had once worn in my hair is in full bloom, the velvety surface of its petals no longer dried or wilted.

“Magic?” I whisper.

“Science,” he replies.

I am astounded, and delighted. “I don’t care what you call it,” I say. “It’s still magic to me.”

“Will you take off your mask?” he asks, looking deep into my eyes. “I must know who you are.”

“Only if you remove yours as well.”

He nods, and I untie the ribbons that hold the butterfly mask to my face, and pull it aside. He does the same with his scarlet mask, the same color as my rose.

We look at each other and let out small gasps of surprise.

“Seraphina,” he says breathlessly.

“Cyrus,” I say wonderingly. Cyrus is the apothecary’s son, and I’ve stolen more than a few glances at him when he and his father come to the house to visit. He is handsome with his white-blond hair, solid cheekbones, and vivid eyes. When I dream of my marriage, I often imagine Cyrus as my husband.

“You are even more beautiful than I remember,” he says, and it is clear that he has thought of me, too. “And so I give you a promise. I will come to your home to speak with your father. And next time I will bring you something more than flowers.”

There is no holding it back; I blush a deep crimson. I am overwhelmed, dazed, dazzled. The roses’ heady scent fills my senses and I close my eyes. Is this my destiny?

We hardly notice when the two figures appear from the shadows and approach us: a man and a woman wearing filthy clothes, their faces half covered with cloths to conceal their mouths. The swords strapped around their waists, however, look well made and sharp.

“Sir!” spits the man, addressing Cyrus. “Pass me your purse.”

I stiffen with fright, and Cyrus shields me with his body. “Be gone,” he commands. “I have nothing for you.”

The man draws his sword. “Your lady, then.”

I am not carrying any money either. But I do have a jeweled crucifix that I always wear around my neck, and I hurriedly unfasten it to hand it to the man.

He grabs it roughly, nearly breaking the chain. “Is that it?” He grunts, turns his head, and spits on the ground.

“It is all I have,” I tell him in a tremulous voice.

Before I can move he has me pinned under his arm. His teeth are rotten, and I can smell alcohol on his breath.

“Get away from her!” Cyrus screams, springing to action. In one swift movement he grabs the woman’s sword, kicks the man with his boot, and sinks the sword into his belly. His blood, sickeningly warm, splashes onto the front of my gown. We watch his body slump to the stone.

Cyrus locks his eyes with mine, and I see his expression change, his eyes grow round, terrified. And then, for the second time in an evening, my world changes forever.

To say that the woman’s small dagger pierces my back sounds too delicate, as if she is preparing my earlobes for jewelry. It is an eruption of pain. I feel the knife go in, feel it scrape against bone, feel a hot gush as blood starts pouring down my back, pumping in unison with my alarmed heartbeat.

Cyrus knocks the woman over. She falls hard, her head cracking against the stone. She does not get up.

I sink to my knees, looking up at the moon shining brightly, as if nothing horrible has just happened.

I feel Cyrus’s arms encircle me, feel his breath as he leans close, putting pressure on the wound, see my blood running over his white fingers, turning them completely scarlet.

In a haze, I see him rip open his tunic and pull out a small vial. The world grows dim as I close my eyes.

“I will save you, Sera. Don’t leave me!” He pours a drop of liquid from the vial onto his finger and holds it to my lips.

As it touches my tongue, I cry out in pain. “What is this poison?” I gasp.

“It is an elixir,” he explains hurriedly. “My father and I created it during the Black Death. He fell ill, and we used this to save him. The body you know—he was not born into it.”

I feel a tug as something in my throat burns. “I am on fire!”

“It’s the silver cord that binds your soul to your body,” he says urgently, “and this potion is unraveling it. You’ll soon be free.”

I begin to feel weightless, like I could drift toward the sky, like I could join the planets in their joyful arcs.

“Sera. Don’t go.” I hear Cyrus’s voice, but it sounds so unimportant. I want to explain to him where I am going: to the stars. He could join me.

When he holds the filthy woman up to me, I rouse myself from my thoughts. He wants me to kiss her. What a ridiculous, revolting idea. Isn’t she dead? Aren’t I dead?

No, I realize slowly, coming back to Earth. She is alive; she merely lost consciousness when she fell. I don’t know why, but I obey Cyrus. I kiss her until I taste something sweet. Then suddenly it feels as though the world has exploded. Thunder cracks, and it sounds as though an entire fleet of ships is firing its cannons. I shift, careening through space and time, and then all is still. Miraculously, the pain in my back is gone.

“Sera. Open your eyes,” Cyrus commands.

I obey, with great effort. The view is all wrong. I can see my body, laying on the stones, so pale and cold, blood soaking my gown.

I am a ghost,
I think wildly. It is the only explanation. Except that when I reach out, my hand makes contact with my own cheek. But it is not
my
hand that I reach out with—it is dirty, with ragged nails. Somehow
I
am now the filthy female thief.

I jump to my feet, suddenly strong. “I don’t understand.”

Cyrus stands in front of me. “Sera, you’re alive. And if I am correct, you’ll never have to die.”

“But my body . . .”

Cyrus hesitates a moment, thinking. Then he scoops it up and drops it in the Thames. It lands with a loud splash. “It’s the only one you’ll ever leave behind. Your new body is different, no longer human or attached to your soul. When you are done with it, it will break into dust.”

Cyrus’s words wash over me, but I cannot comprehend what he is saying.

Just then I hear my mother’s panicked voice cut through the silence of the street.

“Seraphina Ames! Sera, where are you?”

Cyrus turns panicked. He grabs my hand, pulling me away from the sound. “Seraphina, we must go.”

Not knowing what else to do, I run after him.

“Good-bye,” I whisper to my mother, but she doesn’t hear. She will never see her daughter again.

The late autumn day is oddly hot for San Francisco. The morning fog has lifted and the sun’s rays reach my pale skin, but do not warm me. For the past year I’ve stayed bone white, no matter how much time I spend in the sun, and I’m freezing, all the time. It is always this way when death is near. I’ve put this body through hell, and it’s finally catching up with me.

I wince as I lean back on one of the steel chaise longues scattered around the pool on the roof of my apartment building, a brash glass tower, all angles and blue tints, jutting upward over the SOMA neighborhood. The sunlight glints off the surface of the pool; it’s almost too bright for me, even behind my large sunglasses. I blink, watching a hummingbird makes his way to the roof deck, zigzagging madly between the ruby-colored morning glory blossoms spilling out from galvanized planter boxes I had bought at the local flea market. I am always amazed when birds appear here, twenty stories up in the middle of the city. How did he know there were flowers? Was it instinct that drove him upward, or blind luck?

When I try to fly away, will I be as lucky and find what I am looking for?

Living like this—the persistent cold, the pain radiating through my joints at a constant interval, the shortness of breath accompanying my every movement—has made my choice for me. For once my body is as weary as my soul. I’ve dragged it all over the globe for six hundred years—it’s time to let go of this life and figure out what comes next. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified, but a thrill of excitement runs up my spine every time I think about it. It’s been so long since I’ve ventured into the unknown.

“I know that look. What are you thinking about?” Charlotte, my best friend, asks as she comes through the glass door to the deck. She carries a tray of iced tea, moisture already beading like wobbly diamonds on the outside of the glasses. When I take one, the little droplets fall to the ground and immediately turn to steam.

I push my sunglasses up into my dark hair and smile at Charlotte. “Nothing,” I lie. “Just enjoying the sun.”

I can tell no one of my plan to die, not even Charlotte. Cyrus would never let me leave. Not without a fight, and one that I would surely lose. More than anything I want to be free of the man who controls me with his fists, his words, and his iron will—the man who made me what I am.

Charlotte narrows her hazel eyes at me, but says nothing. After two centuries of friendship, I can’t get anything by her, but I also know she won’t pry. I cherish her understanding and acceptance; it is what I’ll miss most when I leave. That and the sunshine, but I can’t afford to think about what I’m leaving behind if my plan is going to work.

Moving around the deck, Charlotte offers drinks to our other friends. Jared pulls out a flask to spice up his, looking every bit the pirate he was when I first met him in 1660, a row of studs and hoops trailing up his earlobe like a rocky coastline. Amelia declines, her white-blond hair gleaming in the sunlight and her deep tan a stark contrast to my milky skin.

When Charlotte approaches Sébastien, his long dread-locks pulled back in a low ponytail, a shy smile flickers across her face. He leans on the orange metal railing that encircles the deck. I notice his fingers grazing hers as he takes his tea, making her shake her head, slightly embarrassed, her copper curls falling forward in her face.

I have always loved her red hair, which is not so different from the hair she was born with. All of us have had a similar experience: When Cyrus made us Incarnates, we went through periods of trying out different kinds of bodies. Old, young, male, female. But we all found the experience too disorienting, and eventually settled in forms that reminded us of our former selves. I’ve been a different incarnation of myself—brown eyes, long brown hair—for centuries.

The glass doors open once more, and Cyrus, our leader, joins us on the deck. He’s wearing a well-tailored black shirt that sets off his platinum hair and tall, lean frame. Around his neck is the vial of elixir he used to make us Incarnates. I can’t say he’s not beautiful, though the magic I once felt when looking at him has long since dissipated.