A Golden Fury

doesn’t want me, who has already rejected me—”
“That’s your pride talking.”
“Of course it is! Why shouldn’t my pride have a say in this, if it will keep me from any further humiliations?” I demanded. “I have enough experience giving chances to a parent who doesn’t deserve them and will only use them to hurt me!”
Dominic stared down at his plate. I bit down on my lip, regretting my outburst of emotion. Dominic would think I pitied myself, which was the last thing I wanted anyone to think. I opened my mouth to take it back, somehow, but he spoke first.
“You mean your mother,” he said quietly.
I considered brushing it away, but Dominic was looking right at me, for once, with a calm sort of sympathy in his eyes. It wasn’t pity, and I found I didn’t mind it. So I nodded.
“Was she like that before she went mad?” he said.
“Oh yes. The madness had nothing to do with it, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “She was simply…”
I trailed off. There was no single word to describe Marguerite Hope. She wasn’t simply anything. I sighed.
“She is brilliant,” I said. “The only well-known woman alchemist in the world. She had to be ruthless. She never had time to be patient with anyone’s weakness.”
“Not even yours,” Dominic said.
“Especially not mine,” I said. “I had to be as good as she was, from before I could remember. Anything less wasn’t good enough. And of course I was usually less. But then, once I started to be more—”
Dominic nodded like he understood. But he didn’t, not really. Even I didn’t fully understand what had happened. Why my mother had turned on me.
“There was a time when I was simply a part of her,” I said. “And she was hard on me because she was hard on herself. I understood that. I didn’t mind it so much.”
“But something changed?” Dominic asked.
“Yes.”
I knew who had changed things, though not why he had changed them. It shouldn’t have come as such a terrible shock to her that I, at sixteen, would find her charming young apprentice fascinating. She had thought Will was worthwhile enough to employ when he came to us and asked to learn from her. But the moment she caught me expressing an idea that had come from him instead of her, she started to look at me with horror. Like her own hand had started grasping things of its own accord, and without her consent. Finding us together that morning had only been the excuse. Mother had wanted to banish him from the first time I had smiled at him when she had not.
“She discovered that I wished to belong to myself, instead of her,” I said. “And she found that unacceptable.”
“When was that?” Dominic asked.
“About a year ago. I thought it might get better, over time.”
After she threw Will out, I was angry, of course. Rebellious. As harsh as she was, sometimes. But I repented, too. I offered abject apologies more than once. I still remembered the smug expression with which she received them, and then stored them up to fling back at me the next time we quarreled.
“I humbled myself,” I concluded. “And she only used it to make me more ashamed.”
“But you’re not the one who should be ashamed in any of this,” said Dominic. “Your father is. And whatever he seems to you now, he knows that much.”
I thought of my father’s downcast expression as I had left, and I knew Dominic was right.
“His shame is no use to me if it doesn’t change his actions,” I said.
“That’s true,” Dominic said. “But I still think he might change. You’re just the kind of daughter he would want. You’re talented, and strong, and sharp as glass, and I know he sees that. He’s going to regret sending you away. Maybe he does already.”
I shook my head against the painful hope tightening in my chest. Unwelcome tears pricked my eyes. I scowled them away. Dominic had seen enough of those today. He wouldn’t think I was so strong if I broke down in tears every time he said a kind thing to me.
“Please, Miss Hope. Just a few days. You need the rest anyway, before you attempt a journey,” he said.
I cleared my throat thickly, and took a deep drink of my ale.
A few days wasn’t so long. Dominic knew my father better than I did. Perhaps he would be sorry tomorrow. What harm was there in finding out?
“A few days,” I agreed. “Just a few days.”

7
I spent that night in Dominic’s room. He took the skull out and slept in the parlor. His mother would not arrive home until well after we were both asleep. She worked long hours, he explained. Came home late, left early. Once he was a doctor, he hoped she wouldn’t have to anymore.
I awoke the next day in darkness, to pounding at the front door. I dressed quickly and opened the door to see my father standing in the glare of noonday. I blinked furiously as my eyes adjusted to the light, trying not to be irritated at Dominic that he had left me to sleep half the day away.
“What do you want?” I demanded.
“Thea,” said Vellacott. “May I come in?”
I peered at him and considered it. He appeared abashed. A small hope nagged at me, planted by Dominic. I felt like a fool to even find it in my heart. But there it was, small but insistent.
Perhaps he was here to apologize, and more importantly, to take me back in. To make it right. I glanced behind me, into the dismal, dim parlor, then back outside. It was a fine, warm day, of the sort I had assumed England never had.
“No,” I said. “We can walk.”
I stepped out and closed the door behind me. My father offered me his arm, and I pretended not to notice. We had turned off Dominic’s street when my father spoke.
“I want to apologize, Thea,”