Chapter Twenty-three
The house had emptied by the time we regrouped.
The scent of burnt sage and spilled wine hung faintly in the air, mingling with the acrid sting of ozone. Someone had set the kobold, who was named Dirk, on the kitchen counter like a misbehaving cat, and he was now sulking among the coffee mugs, tail twitching irritably.
Olga crouched beside the table, examining the elixir I’d brewed earlier. The liquid shimmered faintly, a soft gleam under the lamplight.
“Ja—it looks good,” Olga murmured, tilting the vial.
Dirk snorted. “It’s beginner’s work.”
Wanda bristled immediately, one hand planting on her hip. “You’ve got some nerve, lizard-boy, mouthing off after you trashed half Poppy’s house.”
I cut in. “He’s right. It is beginner’s work, because I’m a beginner. But it’ll do.”
I wiped my hands on my brewing apron, drew in a slow breath, and picked up the phone. My fingers hovered for a moment before I punched in the number Dirk had reluctantly provided.
“Everyone hush,” I said. “Let’s see if our dying alchemist answers his phone.”
The room fell still. I dialed the number with one hand, using the other to scratch Burns under the chin. The fairy dragon was beginning to grow on me. If Smith wasn’t careful, I was going to dragon-nap his cuddly companion and start an inter-city incident.
“Hello? Who is this?” a scratchy voice asked. His voice held a vague German accent, but it was very faded, no doubt owing to all the time he’d spent here, in the States.
“My name is Poppy Morton,” I said evenly, though my annoyance was clear, “But I suspect you knew that already. Which is why you didn’t approach me directly.
And that was silly of you. You could have just asked for your books back if they’d been stolen from you.
There was no need to send your little minion to wreck my home and terrorize my family. ”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone, then Klaus’s voice rang through—sharp and skeptical. “Do you really expect me to believe you’re sincere and that this isn’t some kind of trick?”
I sucked in a frustrated breath. “This isn’t a trick and, yes, I am sincere. I’m also sick and tired of people assuming the worst about each other. I like to think I was given the gift of alchemy to do good for others, not play petty games.”
There was silence on the other line for a second or so. “I am listening.”
“Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll give your kobold back. He is safe and he’s unharmed. I’ll even try as best I can to help you with whatever is killing you.”
“You… know about that?”
“Dirk was forced to tell us. Don’t blame him. In fact, I won’t help you at all if you take any of this out on him. I want your word that you won’t.”
“I will not harm Dirk.”
“Good,” I answered and then paused. “But if you want your books returned, you’re going to have to earn them.”
There was a lengthy pause. If not for the steady rattle of his exhale, I would have thought he’d hung up. “And how exactly do you propose that I earn them?” Klaus asked, doubt dripping from every word.
“You help me brew all the stock Dirk destroyed,” I shot back. Klaus grumbled something unintelligible.
“I would agree save for the fact that I am so sick, I can hardly leave my bed.”
“Well, I think I have a remedy for that. If I can heal you, will you help me restock my supply that you destroyed?”
“Yes, I will. You have yourself a deal.”
I paused. “There’s more.”
“Oh.”
“I would also like you to teach me how to hone my own alchemy skills while we work on replenishing my stock. And I need you to help me turn ashes into a gemstone. That’s the first task. So, if I agree to heal you and I succeed in healing you, will you take me on as a student?”
There was another pause. Finally, Klaus’s reluctant sigh came through. “Fine. Yes, I will. But let it be known that I don’t take students for a reason. I am not an easy man to stand. I am ornery and…”
“Grumpy and an overall scrooge. Yes, I already know,” I answered. “But you also have the knowledge I need to hone my abilities.”
He sighed. “You’ll curse your decision to put me in your debt, Poppy Morton.”
I allowed myself a small smile. “At least we’ll be doing something productive instead of breaking into each other’s homes.”
“Fine. I suppose you will have to come to me as I can hardly come to you.”
“I will, and I’ll bring Dirk with me.”
“Very good.”
The call ended with a soft click.
“You’re not going to face him alone,” Wanda said at once.
I blinked at her. “I wasn’t planning to drag anyone else into this. I’m the one who has to heal him.”
“Tough shit,” Wanda said.
“And you wouldn’t be dragging us,” Violetta added.
“Ja. Ve’re volunteering,” Olga put in.
“And there is no way I will let you go to that man’s home alone,” Andre said as he stepped closer and put his arm around me. “He sounds like quite the old grouchy badger.”
I gave him a sharp look. “No. You’re still overcoming a concussion.”
“I was overcoming a concussion,” he corrected with a crooked grin. “Past tense. But you healed me, remember? Just like you’re going to heal this gentleman.” Then he cleared his throat. “Although I do hope you won’t be healing him in quite the same way you did me.”
I gave him a look, and then Wanda started laughing. “Interesting, Poppy. Very interesting.”
Lorcan folded his arms over his chest, nodding once. “We are all coming with you, Pops,” he started, making me grateful that I’d just managed to dodge a conversation that I absolutely did NOT want to have. Thank God Finn was still in the other room.
“You need us. You don’t even know what state the man’s in,” Smith said. “And if he’s desperate enough to send something in to scare you, he’s desperate enough to do worse.”
“And if he’s as sick as zee creature says,” Olga added, “he may not even be rational.”
I sighed. “Fine. I guess I’m not going to win this one.”
***
Light slanted across the yard from my front porch, a trickle of gold and green through the trees.
It might have been a picturesque sight, if not for the man who was leaning over a wooden cane, barely managing to stand on the front lawn.
For a delirious second I thought he might be a ghost—he was that thin, pale, and weak looking.
Why he’d even gotten out of bed, I didn’t know.
But the man who hobbled up towards us looked like he’d been dragged, protesting, from another century.
His coat was long and black, the cut several fashions out of date.
A pair of brass-rimmed spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, and his hair—once dark, was now shot through with iron-gray.
It was tied back with a ribbon that had seen better decades.
Up close, he appeared both sickly and harmless.
His skin was the color and texture of parchment, eyes sunken, movements economical as if every gesture had to be accounted for.
He looked like an actor dressed up as Ebeneezer Scrooge.
But I knew better. This was no actor. This was our culprit. Which meant he was dangerous.
“Good evening,” I called, voice steady. “I’m Poppy Morton.”
“So I assumed,” he said. His voice was deep but roughened from disuse.
“These are my friends,” I said as I motioned to the small crowd behind me. We’d taken two cars to get here.
“I assumed that as well,” he grumbled.
“And I’m assuming you are Klaus Schwarzkopf, the author of the alchemy books?” I asked.
He gave me an irritated expression. “Do you know another Klaus Schwarzkopf?”
I tried not to be offended. If I were dying, I’d probably be grumpy too.
“You didn’t have to wait out here for me,” I said.
“I don’t know you, do I?” he asked. “Had to get a good look at you before I invite you in.”
Then he took about five seconds to turn around and began hobbling back up his lawn, looking like he was going to keel over any second. Figuring this was the only invitation I was going to get, I turned to face the group behind me and shrugged as if saying I guess we should get a move on.
“Well, are you coming?” he asked, still moving at turtle speed.
***
The house sagged like it was tired of being a house at all.
The porch boards were soft and they splintered underfoot.
When we walked through the front door, I noticed every window was filmed over with grime, letting in only the weakest smudges of daylight.
Inside, the air was stale, thick with dust motes that drifted through the narrow beams of light.
Furniture sat where it must have been placed decades ago, covered in a thin gray pelt of neglect, the fabric now faded to the color of old bones.
Meanwhile, the floor was littered with brittle leaves that had blown in through a cracked pane in the door that no one had bothered to fix.
The silence was oppressive, broken only by the faint groan of settling wood, and the place smelled faintly of mildew and old secrets—like a house long abandoned, even if someone technically still owned it.
The group of us crowded into the small living room as Klaus wobbled over to his couch and then sort of dropped himself into it. The thing responded with a cushion of dust that nearly choked me.
“Well then, where is Dirk?”
I glanced behind at Smith, who produced the cat carrying cage we’d managed to scrounge up. Dirk was inside and once we put the cage on the ground, Smith opened it and out popped Dirk, who immediately approached Klaus.
“Dirk apologizes to Master,” he started.
Klaus waved his concern away. “It’s all forgiven, Dirk.” The little creature seemed mollified at that and disappeared into the darkness of the house.
I straightened, brushing the dust from my palms as I approached Klaus. “I wanted to talk to you about what’s been happening to me. The power I can feel within me. It started when I joined Scapegrace coven.”
“A gypsy in a coven?” Klaus asked. “Never heard of that.”
“No one has,” I answered.
“Tell me about this power of yours.” He patted the couch seat next to him, and a fit of dust billowed into the air. I reluctantly took a seat. Then Klaus faced everyone else. “The rest of you can find whatever seats you can. Or sit on the floor.”
It was funny to watch Lorcan, Andre, and Smith all saying nothing as they opted to sit on the floor in front of us.
Wanda chose to stand, eyeing everything around her in distaste, and Violetta took the arm chair across from us, which also erupted into a fit of dust. As soon as everyone was seated, I explained how I’d come across my own alchemy and how I didn’t have a handle on it to say the least.
“You shouldn’t waste your time and forgiveness on old monsters like me,” Klaus said, surprising me.
“I don’t think it’s wasted.” I met his eyes. “I need a teacher, and I’d like it to be you.”
For a moment, he said nothing. Then, quietly: “You realize what you’re asking for? Alchemy is not a gentle art. It burns what it touches.”
“And so do I, when I have to.”
Klaus’s mouth twitched. It wasn’t quite a smile, more the ghost of one. “Poppy Morton, I would say you’re a fool,” he said at last. Then, after a beat, “but a daring fool. I can respect that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“As you should,” he said, adjusting his spectacles. The light caught the silver rims and made his eyes look almost opaque. “If you’re set on this, I agree to your terms, as I said. I’ll teach you what I can—if you truly can do what you claim.”
“You mean heal you.”
He inclined his head, a wry flicker of amusement ghosting across his expression. “I doubt your ability to do it, but one will turn to any port in a storm. Dirk has told you about my predicament then, yes?”
“You drank a corrupted version of the elixir from your philosopher’s stone and it poisoned you, right?”
“That’s the shortened version of it. I’ve been extending my life for centuries with that stone—something which is now polluted. I can’t make a new one until my body has been purged of the poison within me. At this rate, I only have a few months left to live anyway.”
I held out a hand to him. He hesitated and then, with a resigned sigh, he reached for me. His hand looked like porcelain left too long in the kiln: pale, fissured with thin red lines of alchemical scarring, the veins underneath shimmering faintly.
“Not pretty, is it?” he muttered.
“It’s not meant to be,” I said softly. I took his hand, my warmth against his cold, almost brittle skin. “Alchemy isn’t about being pretty. It’s about transformation.”
His magic answered my touch, a warm golden thread twined with green vitality.
There was rot clinging to his soul, but with the smallest of nudges from the goddess, I was able to peel it back and reveal the unblemished spirit beneath.
The faint scent of crushed herbs and ozone filled the air.
The sigils tattooed on his knuckles shimmered, reacting to my aura and to the energy within me.
Klaus sucked in a breath. The faintest hint of color returned to his cheeks, but he didn’t pull away.
“Interesting,” he murmured, eyes flicking down to where our hands met. “Your energy… it’s honest. Warm. Kind.”
“Just like she is,” Andre said proudly. “And I don’t think it needs to be said, but if you have any negative intent towards her—“
“—I do not. So you can save yourself the lecture, Romeo.”
I couldn’t help but giggle at that.