A Golden Fury

me forcibly into a chair. Shock silenced me, and I stared up at him with hatred.
“You must calm yourself, Thea.” My father looked abashed as he attempted to slow his breathing. “There is nothing to be gained by this shouting.”
“Give me back my papers,” I repeated.
Vellacott ignored this. He took his own seat, behind his desk, and rubbed his face with his hands.
“Miss Hope. I was rough with you, not like a gentleman. For that, my apologies.” Bentivoglio inclined his head, then turned to my father. “But, Professore Vellacott, she may be a spy, perhaps of her mother’s. These notes prove she lies to you.”
“What?” I cried.
“No, no,” demurred my father. He folded his hands in front of him on the desk. “I should not like to think you a spy, Thea. But clearly there is something to what Professore Bentivoglio says. It does at least seem you have not been telling me the whole truth.”
Heat rushed to my face. My mind thrummed with outraged retorts. I wanted to scream at him, but I clenched my jaw shut until I was in control again.
“I am not the liar here,” I said.
My father flushed.
“Sir,” Dominic began. He was still standing by the door. I did not have to look at him to sense his unease. “Sir, I saw what happened. Professore Bentivoglio attacked her. Don’t you see the blood, Professor? He did that—”
“Yes, thank you, Dominic,” said my father, shooting him a forbidding look. “I am quite aware of what has happened.”
“But—how can you be, sir, when you’ve only had his word—”
“Enough, Dominic,” said my father. “Thank you for assisting Miss Hope. You may go.”
Dominic hesitated. I felt his eyes on me, but I stared ahead, stone-faced.
“Miss Hope—” Dominic said to me, but then my father was on his feet.
“Are you Miss Hope’s apprentice or mine?” he demanded. “Get out!”
The door opened and closed, and I knew he was gone. Vellacott held out his hand to Bentivoglio, who handed him the papers with evident reluctance. I saw my letter from Will, removed from its envelope and unfolded. My stomach plunged.
“Where did you get this text, Thea? And the notes?” asked my father.
I ground my teeth together and said nothing.
“I assume the notes are your mother’s? It looks as though—” He stared intently at the bottom of the paper with my incomplete decryptions. “It can’t be, of course, but it seems as though Meg thought she had reached the final stage for making the Philosopher’s Stone itself.”
“She did,” I said. “Right before she went mad.”
“Mad? Oh yes. Do you mean that her notes are unreliable? The steps she took seem clear enough. Fascinating, in fact. She was operating under the mercury-sulfur theory of the elements—though in a form with which I am not quite familiar—and seems to believe that it worked.”
I remembered the shining, ruby-red substance. It was exactly as every famous alchemist had said it should be. In another minute or two it would have hardened into the Stone, just as Jābir described.
“That’s not what I mean.” I sounded faint to myself, as if I were speaking from under a blanket. “She went mad after the notes. And he will, too,” I said, looking up at Bentivoglio. My anger was draining out of me. “You can tell it’s happening, can’t you?”
The light from the stained-glass window behind him made Bentivoglio’s dark hair glow orange. His eyes narrowed, but there was fear there, mixed with anger and hatred. No, he wasn’t worthy to make the Stone. If it had rejected my mother, of course it would reject him.
“You need help,” I said to Bentivoglio. “You do not want what is coming next. Believe me. I’ve seen it.”
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about, Thea?” Vellacott demanded.
“The curse,” I said. “The madness. Cave Maledictionem Alchemistae, Professor.”

6
Professore Bentivoglio’s face twisted into an expression of rage that was too familiar. I did not smell the sulfur, but I could imagine it. My hands tightened on the arms of the chair. But it was only an instant, and then the lines of rage twisted again into an expression of terror.
He knew. He could feel it. But he stormed from the room, throwing the door open with a violence that made my father wince. Bentivoglio pushed past Dominic, who was standing just outside.
“Keep him out of your laboratory,” I said to my father without looking at him.
“He needs rest.” Vellacott sat heavily in his chair. “A good night’s sleep will set him right.”
“No, it won’t,” I said, but without energy. I was suddenly tired, too tired to fight a doomed battle to convince my father of things he refused to believe. He shifted in his chair and glanced at the door.
“Dominic—shut the door, will you?” he said.
Dominic stepped back inside the office and closed the door behind him.
“Miss Hope,” my father began, twisting his hands together on the desk in front of him. “I have been thinking about your position here…”
I knew at once. He was going to try to send me away. My low spirits sank further.
“It’s difficult, very difficult.” Vellacott glanced up at Dominic and frowned. He seemed to consider sending him out again, but perhaps concluded that having a witness to the shameful things he was about to say was better than being left alone with me. “Even though you are my niece, there is a certain lack of propriety to your staying in my rooms. And there are no rooms to be spared at the Tackley for you to have your own, for the moment. And in any case, I find myself somewhat low on funds…”
I felt weightless, floating above myself. I belonged nowhere. I could drift away from the earth, into the void, and leave no mark behind. Merely some uncompleted work that my father would finish if he could, and take the credit for. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at Dominic, whose pity I felt from across the room. I looked out through