A Golden Fury

broke.”
“Ours broke last time, as well,” said Dominic, earning a furious glare from Professore Bentivoglio.
“Are you saying you know what the Decknamen mean, Thea?” asked my father.
I went back to the table and opened Basil’s book to the first woodcut, showing a king, a bridge, and a wolf jumping over a fire. An old man stood nearby, holding a crutch and scythe. I pointed to the king.
“The king of metals, obviously gold,” I said, and Ludovico made an impatient noise.
“Ovviamente,” he muttered. Obviously.
“Before his marriage, the composition, the king must be purified by the wolf—see how the wolf is jumping toward him over the fire with his jaws open? The fire is the purification process and the wolf is the substance that will devour the king before his ‘marriage.’ This”—I pointed to the old man holding a crutch and scythe—“is Saturn. He represents lead. See how the wolf springs from him? So the wolf substance is related closely to lead. What substance related to lead devours impurities?”
“Stibnite,” said my father. He and Dominic shared a meaningful glance. “And you tried this, Thea? It worked?”
“It worked.”
My hand went to my pocket involuntarily. My mother’s notes began after this step, taking the White Elixir as a starting place and working from a different text. I scanned the shelves, but didn’t see anything of Jābir’s—nothing in an Arabic script at all. That wasn’t unusual. Jābir was a Persian scholar and alchemist, and the reason my mother had seen to it that I learned Arabic. She’d been convinced that he had achieved the Philosopher’s Stone itself, and that ignorance of his work was the reason no alchemists in Christendom had reproduced it.
I turned back and found Professore Bentivoglio’s eyes on my skirts, where I clutched at my mother’s notes. I released the papers and withdrew my hand from my pocket.
“You do not have much time before it breaks,” I said.
Dominic was at the cabinet already, sorting through glass vials. He brought one out, but before he could bring it to me Professore Bentivoglio crossed the room and snatched it from him. He uncorked the vial and leaned over the brazier, so that his face was wreathed in the thick white smoke. With one last narrow-eyed glance at me, he tipped the stibnite into the brazier.
The result was immediate. The smoke ceased entirely, while the stibnite ate through the compound like wildfire, leaving it momentarily black. Bentivoglio whirled on me with a silent fury that was nonetheless obvious and threatening enough that my father stepped in front of me. I held up my hand.
“Watch,” I said. “It isn’t finished.”
Dominic pushed past Bentivoglio and hovered over the brazier. He exclaimed, and the professor turned back to the hearth.
“It’s kindled again, yes?” I tried not to sound smug. “When it has burned through, it will turn gray.”
All three of the men now stood staring into the brazier. I stood back and took the opportunity to examine them. My father was the tallest of the three, and he looked out of place amid the dark and dust in his well-cut suit. Bentivoglio was broad and almost as tall, though not now, as he was hunched over the brazier with an avid gleam in his eyes. Dominic was the least physically imposing: slight, and not much taller than I. He stared at the composition without the keen, greedy look of the other two. He appeared interested, thoughtful, and serious; no more. He stepped back and turned to me before the others could tear themselves away.
“It’s gray,” he said. “Now what?”
“You keep the temperature constant for two days.” I had stayed up watching it for nearly thirty-six hours before the Comte had come to insist I go to bed. That was the last I had seen of it. After I slept—for almost two entire days—my mother had barred me from the laboratory. “Simple enough, but tiresome.”
“I will do it,” said Professore Bentivoglio. I wondered how long he had been awake already. The shadows under his eyes suggested it was too long.
“Professore,” said my father, evidently coming to the same conclusion, “this is drudge work. There is no need for you to exhaust yourself. Dominic can do it quite well, I’m sure. Perhaps … a rest? Certainly you deserve one.”
Bentivoglio seized his talisman again and glared at Dominic. He muttered something in Italian that did not sound complimentary.
“I’ll take care of it, Professore,” said Dominic in a flat tone. Bentivoglio grunted and jerked his head toward me.
“Keep the zocolla away from it.”
And then he left.
The three of us couldn’t quite meet one another’s eyes after that. There could not have been much doubt in any of our minds as to what zocolla meant, but as none of us had revealed a great knowledge of Italian to the others, we could pretend.
“Signore Bentivoglio is really very tired,” said my father, with a tentative look at me. “I think he must have stayed up all night last night.”
“And the night before,” said Dominic.
I did not reply to this. I had gone without sleep for alchemy’s sake many times and never behaved so rudely to those around me. My mother’s patrons may have occasionally come in for a sharp word or two, but Bentivoglio had seemed nearly on the verge of violence.
“Well, well.” Vellacott cleared his throat, covering my disapproving silence. “You certainly did not disappoint, dear Thea. If anything, your mother’s letter may have sold you short!”
I looked up at him sharply. Sold me short? Then it was as I feared, and my mother had complained of my shortcomings to him. She must have mentioned her concerns about my lack of dedication, my occasional rebelliousness. Perhaps she had even told my father about Will …
“Alas, I can’t stay.” Vellacott pulled a watch from his pocket. “I have a tutorial in—oh dear—”
He cast an uncomfortable look in my direction. With another pang of disappointment, weaker this time now that I was becoming accustomed to them, I realized he did not want to be seen walking back