The Alchemical Child

Chapter Twelve

"Ms Rutherford, I take it?"

The Steward examined Sage down the slope of his nose. When she approached the palace, he had emerged from the fluttering curtains like a black hailstone through snowy clouds. He certainly looked more polished than the Stewards in the University, with shiny obsidian buttons and leather loafers. He was also mortal, not fae.

"That's right, the University sent me. I've got a note here somewhere."

But as Sage scrambled through her pockets, the Steward turned and strode back between the curtains. "No need, you're expected in the Council Chamber."

Sage hurried to keep up, grateful that she had arrived a half-hour early. The moon had still been visible when she had paid for the tram with pennies that Hermes had hidden around her workshop. After a sleepless night, she had scarcely been able to keep awake to hear her stop called, but now she couldn't stretch her eyes wide enough.

The palace was a spectacle of marble and silk, with its pillars soaring far higher than Sage had ever believed while gazing across the city. They would have seemed austere were it not for their silken curtains, incandescent in the morning sun and rippling against a pale sky like mist, pure and clean. Sculpted arches led through to white halls and domed galleries, with colour coming only from the ceiling painted in strokes of periwinkle and peacock, all filigreed in gold.

Sage could only gape as she was woven through a tide of Stewards. Some were as mortal as she was, while others were fae like those at the University. It was easy to tell them apart, for the fae wore short, black gloves. Yet all Stewards, fae and mortal, were strikingly beautiful, and the rumours that the Prince and his bride took private lovers within the palace now came into clearer clarity. Sage tugged at her threadbare sleeves and smoothed down her wrinkled collar.

She was taken through an arch which framed a set of doors larger than Sage had ever encountered. The Steward knocked steadily on a plaque of embossed wood, then held open a door for Sage to creep inside. The Council Chamber was a stark shift into smokey carpet and mahogany panelling, against which circled a dias and table, along with a dozen chairs. Sage supposed that these were for the Council, though there was currently only one man sitting behind a stack of stamps and papers.

He looked up from his work, stared hard at Sage for an excruciating moment, then spoke to the Steward. "Thank you, Walter. We shall be done briefly."

"Yes, Chamberlain," said the Steward.

The door creaked closed behind Sage and she was left alone before the dais and the Chamberlain. He had returned to his work, striking through unseen paragraphs with an occasional grunt. He didn't look up at Sage again, as if she had never entered, and she felt the palms of her hands grow slick. But just as she was about to clear her throat, he set down his pen and reclined heavily in his chair.

"Rutherford, is it?"

Sage nodded as he removed a logbook from his cabinet and rifled through the pages. There was another long pause before he found his place and spoke again.

"Magister of Alchemical Arts, specialising in Sigilism."

He read it out in a disinterested tone, as if the past years of Sage's life were jotted in the footnotes of an addendum.

"Walter will keep a note of your working hours, and you shall be sent a check through the post at the end of each month, including reimbursement for transport costs. You are in residence at"—the Chamberlain squinted down at the writing—"The Tollhouse, East Embankment?"

"Yes," said Sage.

The Chamberlain wrinkled his nose. "Very well. Return on all Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, studies permitting."

"That'll be fine." Sage only had seminars on the last two days of the week, which she suspected the Council had known since first contacting the University. The Chamberlain had evidently interpreted Sage's arrival as acceptance of the placement. Her throat tightened.

"Then you may come again tomorrow morning to begin your work. Walter shall be waiting where you met today and he will take you to Her Highness directly. You are under no circumstances permitted entry to the palace without an escort."

Sage choked on a breath. "To Her Highness?"

"The late Prince's bride," he reiterated with a furrowed brow. "Are you not aware of your position here?"

"There was very little written on the notecard."

"Well, doubtless she will explain it to you tomorrow."

"Not today?"

"Her Highness is fasting, lest you have forgotten the great loss our city has recently suffered. Goddess rest Prince Nicholas' soul."

"Oh, yes, rest his soul" Sage stuttered. But the Chamberlain had returned to his work.

When Sage realised she had been dismissed, she flinched to find Walter already standing beside the open door. She walked past him, the darkness of the Council Chamber fading at her back until she emerged from the arch into the palace of pillars. There were fewer Stewards than before, and Sage felt the cold that rustled beneath the silk curtains.

But then she was through their mist, and the true sky opened overhead in a wash of grey. Walter escorted her down the marble steps to the street, then briskly returned to the palace without another word. She was alone once again, and it felt as if all that had passed had been a vision flurried by snow. But the day's snow hadn't fallen yet, even though the swollen clouds suggested it was soon to come.

Sage used the last of her change on the tram home, arriving at a stop near the telegram office just as the first flakes began to stick. She thought about the meagre stock of food in her kitchen cupboards, her empty purse and unplanned thesis. She did not think about the palace, the Chamberlain, or the fae bride. Sage wasn't sure she would be able to without toppling over and being buried beneath a snowbank.

She counted her steps and was well over a thousand by the time she reached her doorstep. Hermes was chattering in the kitchen, and Sage felt guilty that she hadn't left the coals smouldering for him after breakfast. But when she opened the door, she realised he wasn't complaining about the cold, but the envelope dangling from her letterbox.

Sage caught it before it fell, fingers trembling until she saw the address and remembered the telegram she had sent to her parents. She tore it open before she had even unbuttoned her coat, scanning the letter as Hermes grappled up her damp sleeve. It was filled with the usual platitudes from her mother and anecdotes from her father, but it was her sister's name that she was searching for. It came at the end of the letter, too much like an afterthought for the earth shaking tremor it cast through Sage's body.

Valerie was not living in their family's little countryside cottage. And she wasn't sailing across oceans or camping on mountaintops. For over six months, she had been staying at an address that their mother had scrawled on a separate piece of paper. An address in the west of the city.

A/N The end of part one! Next week will see the beginning of part two, as well as the return of an ongoing fable~!