Give the Dark My Love(72)

“No,” I said.

Papa’s jar was empty.

The rope I’d intended to use as a lead for the mule now tied my sister to her chair. “Try not to struggle,” I said. “It’s instinct, but . . . try.”

I took Nessie’s hand in mine, turning it palm up, and stretched her arm on the table. Oh, Oryous. How quick could I make this? I couldn’t take her pain, not now, not when I needed my strength. I could only be fast. Fast as I could while still getting the job done.

“Neddie,” she whispered.

I shook my head. I couldn’t be Neddie right now. I had to be Nedra Brysstain, the top alchemical student at Yūgen, the girl who volunteered at the quarantine hospital.

There had been blood on my hands many times before. Just never my sister’s.

“Here,” I said, running my finger over an invisible line above her elbow, more than three inches from the faintest tint of black under her skin.

Ernesta nodded.

A human thinks of the pain, of the suffering. A human sees a hand and also sees the person attached to it. I couldn’t be a human in this moment. I had to be an alchemist. An alchemist sees the skin that must be sliced apart. The arteries that must be tied off. The bone that must be sawed through. An alchemist knows to hold the arm down so it doesn’t wiggle too much.

An alchemist folds the flaps of skin and flesh over the raw wound and stitches it. An alchemist moves to the stove quickly, picking up the hot cast-iron skillet and pressing the bottom against the wound to cauterize it.

An alchemist doesn’t hear the screams.





FORTY-FOUR


    Nedra



When i finished, Ernesta was still awake, staring at her hand on the table. I untied her from the chair, then moved through the scent of blood and burnt flesh to pull the golden crucible from my bag. She watched me with deadened eyes as I clutched her shoulder and pulled the pain out of her and into me. I took it all without a drop of hesitation. It roared over me like an ocean wave, and I fell to the floor, whimpering. Nessie sighed and slumped against the table.

When I woke the next morning, she was gone. The hand was gone, too.

I staggered to my feet. I ached, my entire body tense, my bones flowing with fire. The kitchen was stifling hot. The lamps and the candles had long since died; the fire in the hearth smoldered.

I crept down the hall. Nessie lay curled in my bed, her severed arm held carefully out. I inched my way forward, looking at her skin for signs of infection, feeling her forehead for fever. Her skin was clammy, but she was going to be okay.

She might never forgive me, but she was going to be okay.

I lay down in the bed beside her. Without thinking, I reached my hand toward hers, but I stopped before my fingers brushed her wound.



* * *



? ? ?

When I woke the next morning, I went to my parents’ room.

I opened the book I’d found earlier—the old alchemy text—and laid it beside the one Master Ostrum had given me. Wellebourne’s journal was, at its heart, instructional. Step by step, in clear, simple terms, it outlined the journey to become a necromancer. The first step I already knew: Create an iron crucible, formed of blood and bone and ash, melded together through sacrifice.

Sacrifice was described in Papa’s book as well. In fact, it seemed to be a central theme. “Should the alchemist determine to cross the god-placed boundaries twixt life and death,” the book warned, “his very soul may prove to be the price paid.” But just in case the reader was willing to be such a heathen, the book suggested a chant, one that mentioned both the power needed and the willing trade for it. There was no chant in Wellebourne’s book, just runes that had to be drawn prior to developing the iron crucible.

Papa’s book warned of how addictive necromancy could be. “Once a crucible is made,” it said, “the necromancer’s voracious need for death will be all-consuming.” I shuddered, remembering the strange hunger that awoke within me the first time I danced too close to Death. “Should the necromancer grow powerful enough to form a reliquary and become a lich, he will be invincible in the mortal realms.”

I forced myself to analyze both texts, trying to find some connection, some knowledge I’d not been aware of, something. Anything. The most I found was in Wellebourne’s book, but while it spoke of necromancer curses, it wasn’t specific to the plague. My heart sank as I read, “There are ways to free the undead, should the necromancer be weak. But even if the necromancer’s crucible is destroyed, a curse will linger as long as the necromancer lives.”

Master Ostrum’s book also included detailed charts and diagrams. I opened to one of a crucible cage, but immediately closed the book in disgust. I’d held Bennum Wellebourne’s crucible cage in Master Ostrum’s office, but now the image reminded me too sharply of my sister and what she had lost. I thought of her severed hand resting on the dining room table my mother used to roll biscuits on.

“Ned?”

I shoved the books under Papa’s bed and turned around. Nessie stood in the doorway, her silhouette blacked out against the light in the hall.

“What are you doing up?” I said.

“I missed you.”

She had the quilt wrapped around her.

“Go back to bed.” I tried to make my voice kind, but it was strained with worry. And guilt. Reading that book made me feel as if she’d caught me doing something deeply wrong.