Chapter 23 Like Falling
LIKE FALLING
The fire burned, felt like it would rip through skin and bone and turn him ash from the inside out.
But Apollo kept his arm in the flame, holding the transmutation ring, which had probably fused to his palm.
His right palm. He should have chosen better.
Now he’d have to stroke his cock with his left hand while thinking of Sybil every damn night and morning, because he couldn’t do that with a protruding metal device stuck to his palm.
Surely it was hot enough now. He retreated from the flames and placed the ring on the table, thankful it had not fused to his skin, so he could put his good hand to use later.
A door banged against the wall, and everyone in the forge jumped. Stone swooped in, the manic gleam that had been in his eyes since Apollo’s return bright enough to rival the forge flames. His hands already glowing, he snapped up the ring, shoving Apollo out of the way.
“Prick,” Apollo mumbled.
Another apprentice snickered.
“It will work this time,” Stone said. “I’ll tune the heat to my own temperature first.”
Apollo spoke out of the side of his mostly closed mouth. “If he put the damn thing in the fire himself…”
The apprentice guffawed.
“Quiet!” Stone’s bellow bounced off the walls.
His hands trembled as he raised the ring above his head.
For a second, it looked like a distorted crown, poised and ready to anoint him.
Then he lowered the device to the table, placed his mouth at the opening, and blew.
And blew and blew until he was just as red in the face as he had been the hundred times before when he’d tried exactly the same thing.
At least a hundred.
And every time, failure.
He exploded upward, shoving his chest against Apollo’s. “You said it worked!”
Apollo put one fingertip against Stone’s chest and pushed him away. “It did.” For Sybil. “Perhaps if you let me try—”
“Useless!” Stone paced away, shoving his hands through his hair.
It was useless. He’d already tried. Several times from the privacy of his own rooms before surrendering the device to Stone. And several times since then, right here in the master’s forge. But lead remained lead for him.
And for Stone.
But he liked trying. It made him feel closer to Sybil knowing he put his lips so near where hers had been. Like kissing.
Only now if he did that, it would be like kissing Stone, too, and… No thank you.
Stone yelled, and Apollo winced. The apprentice beside him jumped.
“What do we do?” the apprentice asked, as if Apollo had a damn clue. Ever since he’d returned, the others treated him as if he’d eclipsed them in status and skill. But without Sybil, Apollo’s heat was gone. Dwindling at least. It took for-fucking-ever to call it up, to make it work.
He rubbed his chest with one hand and stuck the other hand in his trouser pocket, wrapped it around the gold there.
Half of it. Did she have the other half?
Had she found it, too, on the stables floor?
He liked to think she did, and that she kept it in her pocket.
On a chain dangling between her perfect breasts. Likely she’d thrown it away.
He slipped his half onto one finger. A week of shaping it aimlessly had formed it into a slender but rough-hewn ring.
It was warm, warmer than the heat of his own body, and he felt dizzy from a roiling storm of emotions.
All new. He could barely pick through them.
Fear, yes. He knew that well. And… and… courage?
Bloody hell. Something else. So many other things.
Bitterness. The sharp edge of sorrow. He felt each emotion to his core, but they—he somehow knew—were not his own.
He pulled his hand out of his pocket, studying the crudely shaped ring.
“What in Hades…” he whispered.
The apprentice jabbed his elbow into Apollo’s ribs. “Well? What do we do?”
“Hell if I know.” The answer to so many problems in his life right now—he had no bloody clue.
“Why won’t it work?” Stone screamed. His voice rumbled with rage as he snapped a hammer up and reared his hand back.
Apollo and the apprentice ducked under the worktable and winced when they heard the metal hit the walls.
“We have to do something.” The apprentice winced again as another tool clanged behind them.
“Well, Tom… Tom, isn’t it?”
“Michael.”
“Well, Michael, if Stone were a reasonable man, we’d remind him that turning lead to gold is a myth, and—”
“But you said it happened.”
It had happened, but Apollo had begun to question why it had happened, how. And he had to keep Stone from making the same leaps of thought. God, he’d mucked things up. He should have listened to Sybil.
Another clang of metal against stone made Apollo and Michael jump.
Apollo hit his head on the bottom of the table and cursed.
They couldn’t hide out here all day. He reached into his other pocket, found a vial there.
The stuff had become necessary since Stone had begun to lose what few wits he’d had to begin with.
After the next slam of a tool against the wall, Apollo popped out of his hiding place, holding his arms above his head, potion bottle secure in one hand. “Peace!”
With another primal scream, Stone hurled every bit of metal within reach at Apollo.
Who ducked. But got hit in the shoulder with a mandrel anyway.
“Bloody hell, man!” He sprinted for Stone before he could procure more projectiles, and when he was close enough, he un-stoppered the bottle, shoved it beneath Stone’s nose.
One inhalation was all it took, and Stone’s shoulder’s slumped, his strained features relaxed.
“That’s a good boy.” Apollo dropped an arm around his shoulders and guided him to a chair as Michael peeked out from under the table.
Though he seemed gentle as a lamb, a predator prowled beneath Stone’s skin. As he sat, he said, “You’re hiding something from me, Chester. You’re a transcendent nob at heart, and you don’t want to see an alchemist succeed.”
Apollo put the bottle to Stone’s lips. “Drink up.”
Under the potion’s control, Stone did. As his eyelids fluttered, his arms hanging loose on either side of the chair, he managed to mumble, “You’re keeping something from me.
Or”—his eyes shot wide for a wild moment—“or it’s her.
” His eyes closed. “Need…” His chin drooped to his chest. “Her.” His snoring tore through the quiet of the forge like a rumble of thunder.
Apollo stoppered the bottle and stepped back. Even if he hadn’t begun to suspect what Apollo did, Stone knew he needed Sybil.
She was in danger.
“Hold down the forge,” Apollo called out, making for the floating chamber.
He barely heard Michael’s “Yes, sir” as he ascended into the stone.
What he needed was dynamite. Several kegs of gunpowder to raze the damn building, to bury the dungeons and forge beneath layers and layers of rubble—preferably with Stone crushed under it all.
Sybil couldn’t be thrown into the dungeons if there were no dungeons to begin with.
And that’s what would happen.
Without greatcoat, without anything other than the purpose setting the pace of each stride, he made for Finsbury Square.
It hadn’t been difficult to find out that’s where she’d been staying since returning to London.
He’d visited Diana as soon as he’d arrived in the capital, and she’d told him everything.
Temple would return soon. With Sybil. And not because it was safe—it wasn’t—but because the queen had demanded to meet her.
A half hour or so later, the potion shop rose before him—clean glass windows shrouded in vines that seemed to crawl of their own accord, the yellow door, the swinging sign above it. Sybil was in there.
His steps faltered. It seemed a lifetime since he’d seen her, touched her, kissed her.
He rocked back several steps, the need to do everything he’d not done for over a week too powerful. He seemed to be able to feel her heart pounding along his own pulse.
It seemed to skip and leap, like it was… happy? No. Bloody elated.
He slipped inside with a group of women. Sybil was not on the first floor, so he made for the stairs.
“Mr. Chester?” Lady Guinevere stood in her office doorway, the dark silhouette of her guard behind her. “Returned to burn the place down?”
“Apologies, my lady. I’m looking for Sy—for Miss Grant.”
“And why is that? The two of you together are rather… explosive.”
The guard chuckled.
“She’s in danger.” No reason to be coy, to play games. Not now. Not ever with Sybil’s life. “Stone has gone mad, and he’s coming after her again.”
“Hmm.” The potion mistress’s brows drew together, and the guard leaned down, whispered something in her ear. She nodded as he straightened, and she pointed toward the stairs. “She’s upstairs, in the roof garden.”
“Thank you.” Apollo didn’t bother bowing, just sprinted all the way up every flight.
There the top landing, there a door, the yellow paint faded near the handle and scuffed near the floor.
He slowed, his feet suddenly reluctant. She wouldn’t want to see him, no matter his reasons for showing his face.
She was going to be enraged. Worse, cold.
Close enough to reach the handle, he stretched out his hand, yanked it back, smoothing his hair back, squeezing his neck. He couldn’t do this.
He had to do it.
He shot his hand out before he could rethink and turned the handle, pushed.
Slowly. No use rushing things. Needed time to get his heart under control.
A wind blew leaves toward him through the crack, and the vines and branches seemed to beckon, calming, so he opened the door farther, feeling steadier.
A narrow walkway lined with plants wound beneath a wooden frame around which curled a riot of vines and blooms. They shivered in the wind, petals dancing.