The Stone Demon (14 page)

The Demon King wanted them to deliver the Stone to him in the Ironwood. So, they would meet him in the Ironwood. It seemed as appropriate a place as any to go to war.

War
. Donna’s stomach cramped just thinking about it as she forced a sandwich down. She needed to find Navin and Xan, tell them what was happening. Warn them as soon as possible. Part of her wanted them safely out of the way when the shit hit the fan—which it was absolutely bound to, because this was her life and they were dealing with a
demon
, after all—but she also knew there was no way they’d leave her to face things alone.

Then again, as much as she hated to even think it, she might need their help as she tried to create the Stone. With the various alchemical Orders trying to make plans across continents, she was pretty much on her own. Robert Lee wouldn’t be able to arrive until Imbolc; other alchemists would join them when they could, but their numbers were severely diminished in these modern times—and too many of them were elderly and unfit for battle. Yet despite the long odds of winning a battle with the demons, the alchemists had given up on trying to create the Stone before they’d even started. They figured that it was impossible.

But Donna had a lot of experience with the “impossible,” and she wasn’t giving up any time soon. Not while there was still a chance to save two cities filled with millions of people. Not while she was still breathing.

She looked around at the gathered alchemists. There was still no sign of Aunt Paige or Maker. As soon as the others paused for breath, she spoke up. “To return to the topic of the Stone for a moment … tell me more about these artifacts that we need and who has what. There are four ingredients total, right?”

Rachel shook her head. “Five, actually—it’s complicated. The fifth ingredient is a problem.”

“Well, what is it?” Donna waited.

Quentin cleared his throat. “Let’s start with the more straightforward items. The Ouroboros Blade is in Faerie. Queen Isolde holds it safely.”

Donna stared at him. That was “straightforward”?

Miranda continued. “And the wood elves are the keepers of the Cup of Hermes. The Philosopher’s Stone is made from a liquid that needs to be drunk from that cup.”

Donna’s mind was already working, trying to figure out how she could possibly bargain these things away from the fey.

Simon wouldn’t meet her eyes when he spoke. “The Underworld protects the Gallows Tree. On that tree grows a silver pear, the only one of its kind—a single piece of fruit untouched by time. The Gallows Tree stands in the Grove of Thorns, which is the one place in Hell that no demon can enter. Even a king. Only one piece of fruit grows at a time, and without it the Philosopher’s Stone can’t be created.”

“So Demian
can’t
actually get us the fruit himself,” Donna mused. “Convenient.”

Rachel spoke up. “There are legends—different versions, so nobody really knows the true story—as to
why
the Grove is a sacred space. I don’t think the reasons matter right now. If we even attempt to create the Stone, we’ll need that pear. Yet there’s no easy way to enter a place of death.”

“Not without dying,” Simon muttered. It was a totally unnecessary thing to say, but also totally a Simon thing to say.

Everybody glared at the Magus.

Donna ignored him and counted the items off on her fingers. “We need the blade, the cup, the gallows fruit, and I have the first matter already—the spark that binds it all together.”

Quentin nodded. “The
prima materia
guides whomever holds it. If you follow your intuition, you should be able to create the Stone on instinct alone. However, the Silent Book also holds the instructions for
how
to create the Stone—the method for the recipe, if you like. Our copy is right here in the library. You’d better take a look at it, if you’re determined to follow this course of action. You’ve seen it before during your studies. It also has a map of the Ironwood that shows where the most powerful ley line is located.”

“Ley line?”

“You’d need to be standing as close to it as possible when you activate your powers and make the Philosopher’s Stone. The two energies combined trigger the Blackening,” Simon said.

Donna took a steadying breath. It all seemed so far away, almost unreal. She tried to focus on one thing at a time. It was like a math problem. Okay, so she hated math, but she could get by if she concentrated.

“So, just what is the fifth ingredient?” she asked.
And how much more complicated could things get?
That was the question she really wanted to ask.

Quentin fixed Donna with a serious expression. “The fifth ingredient will prove the most … challenging.”

She laughed, but the sound came out angry rather than amused. “I already have to go to Hell to get the Gallows Fruit. You’re saying there’s something more difficult than going to Hell?”

Miranda joined in, nodding. “The fifth ingredient is a mystery. That’s the point. No living creature knows what it is—every copy of the Silent Book has a blank space where that item should be listed.”

“Or,” Rachel put in, “perhaps it’s been blurred or erased with magic. No alchemist in modern times has been able to figure out what this ingredient is. It’s believed that only the spirits of the dead have the information, and of course not all of them. Only those who reside in the Otherworld, Demian’s realm.”

Miranda pulled her briefcase onto her lap and began to open it. “Which could be where this comes in.” She produced what looked like a lump of polished black stone. It was flat, and roughly circular in shape, lying in her hands like something innocuous yet potentially filled with dangerous power.

The object looked remarkably like John Dee’s scrying mirror, which Donna had seen photographs of on the British Museum’s website.

“I thought that was destroyed in the fire along with everything else!” She couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice.

Miranda’s lips twisted into a smile. “You don’t really think that the Order of the Crow would leave original alchemical artifacts unprotected in a public museum, do you? Dr. Dee’s work was certainly controversial, but it was also important. We keep his true grimoires safe—along with this.”

Donna nodded. “His scrying mirror.”

Quentin and Simon exchanged glances. It was the Archmaster who spoke. “Donna, it will have to be you who uses the mirror to contact the Otherworld spirits. Since you hold the
prima materia
, it will make the communication that much easier. None of us here are mediums.”

Donna remembered that John Dee had to work with a medium named Edward Kelley in order to contact the “angels” and spirits whom he sought alchemical knowledge from. Some stories said that Kelley was a fake, nothing more than a charlatan, while others seemed to indicate he was very much the real deal. Donna also recalled reading a theory that while Dee and his medium thought they were contacting angels, they were in fact speaking with demons.

Of course, she had to go and think about something like that right now. She sighed, gazing at the glossy black surface of the scrying mirror where it rested on Miranda’s lap.

Her mentor tucked her blonde hair behind her ears and fixed Donna with a serious expression. “This is a powerful artifact, but only as powerful as the seer who wields it.”

Donna shook her head. “I’m no seer.”

“Although I hate to agree with the Demon King on anything,” Miranda replied with a smile, “I think you’re going to discover that you are capable of far more than you believe.”

Quentin nodded agreement, although his face was filled with concern.

“Okay, hand it over,” Donna said. “I’ll try communicating with the dead while you guys continue your war council.”

The Archmaster pushed himself painfully to his feet, shaking off Simon’s supporting hand. “I’ll get you set up in my study, then leave you some privacy. Spirits are often more inclined to speak when they don’t have an audience.”

“What about all those public séances you see on TV?” Donna asked.

He raised his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

“Ah … ” She joined him at the door.

Quentin turned back to the room’s occupants. “When I return, I suggest we move upstairs, to a larger space. Other alchemists will be arriving soon.”

There was a murmur of agreement behind her, and the sound of people gathering their things together as Donna followed the Archmaster.

This is my life now
, Donna thought. She hated it, but maybe if they could get though this—impossible as it seemed—
she could finally be free.

She gripped Dr. Dee’s scrying mirror in her hands, feeling its surprising weight, and let Quentin lead her to a room suitable for a one-girl séance.

Ten

X
an waited in one of the back rooms of Maker’s workshop. The old guy had insisted he hide while he got Paige Underwood to go away. She’d apparently come to collect Maker for a meeting—a meeting he said he couldn’t attend until later. Xan hadn’t exactly wanted to be sneaking around back here, but at the same time … who was he to argue? He didn’t give a crap about Donna’s aunt. Not after everything she’d done to the girl he cared about.

His thoughts were all over the place, contemplating the future … and the potential consequences of his choices.
Is this what it was like for Donna, during the days leading up to the procedure that added the magical iron to her flesh and bones?

But no. Donna’s experience was entirely different than his. She’d been a child, near death, in danger of losing her hands even if she did survive. She probably didn’t even remember much of her time with Maker—not in the beginning, at least. And “choice” hadn’t exactly come into it.

“You can come back in now, young man,” Maker called.

Xan saw that the old alchemist was fussing with schematic drawings spread out across a huge table. He was muttering to himself and rubbing gnarled fingers across two-day-old stubble on his chin. Xan tried to push back the doubt that was gnawing at him like a pack of hungry rats. Could this man really do the kind of magic Donna spoke of with such reverence? Was it even
possible
? Xan had seen a lot of things in his life so far, things that had left him full of pain, nightmares, and shadowy memories of events that might or might not have really happened. Torture. Cruelty. But this? A human who could make metal come alive?

Despite his reservations, he knew he had to try. His world had been empty for so long. And although he was grateful for Donna’s friendship—more than friendship, he hoped—the breathtaking, soul-deep yearning he lived with every day refused to ease up, even when it made him act in ways that cost him Donna’s trust. Xan had tried to stop wanting, but he wasn’t sure it would ever be possible.

How can you give up the very thing that keeps you alive?

In Xan’s case, the dream that he might one day fly.

Sometimes, especially during the summer, he would lie on the grass and stare hard enough at the sky that the sun’s afterimage was still imprinted on his vision hours later. Sometimes he thought the sun might blind him, but he didn’t let that stop him. He couldn’t seem to stop gazing at that blue expanse of freedom, beautiful and cruel in its perfection.

He’d been born to have wings. It sounded like pure fantasy, admitting it to himself, but his scars and fractured memories offered a kind of proof that he found hard to toss aside.

Maker was rapping his knuckles on the counter and brandishing some very ordinary-looking measuring tape. “Are you ready? I need to check my calculations.”

“Again?”

“We can’t afford any mistakes, lad.” The old man’s voice was gruff but not unkind. “We need the prototype to be right. It’ll be ready soon enough.”

Xan’s throat tightened. It had been years since he’d revealed his scars to anyone—and now he’d been regularly showing the second person in as many months. Revealing that part of himself to Donna, when they’d met, had seemed surprisingly natural. But showing evidence of his fey heritage to Maker still filled him with dread. He used to be so careful about sharing anything this personal. So potentially devastating. Yet Xan felt that there had never been any other choice. His scars … the murmur of power that still ran through his veins—weak, yes, but still
there
… always having to back away from people because they couldn’t possibly understand.

And then he’d met Donna, and his inbuilt sense of self-preservation just … melted away. Or maybe he’d just gotten tired of all the secrecy.

Maybe, just maybe, he believed that this man could really help him.

Taking a deep breath that caught in his throat, Xan turned his back and pulled off his coat before he could change his mind.

Stripping off his sweater and shirt, he stood waiting for Maker’s assessment. There was a long moment of silence. To Xan, it seemed to stretch out into minutes, even hours. His spine tingled and there was a slow, painful pulse beating at the base of his skull. Something cold touched his back, and he realized that Maker was taking the measurements. The plastic coating of the tape was smooth across his shoulder blades.

The cold contact stopped and Xan listened as the alchemist shuffled away. He cautiously turned his head. “Are you done?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Maker replied. “Don’t stand there half-naked. You’ll catch your death in here.” He continued to mumble under this breath, but Xan could make out enough of it to understand the basics—something about “young people today” and “hopeless.”

Xan bit his lip to keep from smiling, but at least he felt a little better. He was immensely relieved to be able to cover up again as he gratefully pulled his clothes back on. If Maker could really help him—if this wasn’t all some sort of elaborate plan against him, considering his faery heritage and the group the old man was a member of—he would be willing to keep his mouth shut for as long as it took. Maker had warned him that there would be consequences, but he hadn’t exactly gone into specifics. Not yet. Xan had told him they could discuss the small print later; he’d only wanted to move forward as quickly as possible, before anything could happen to get in the way.