The Alchemist's Apprentice Read online

  I took the ingredients and slipped them into my pouch, then helped her brew a handful of salves until we heard the sounds of people returning from the ball. It was surprisingly early - it was only eleven o’clock - but I slipped back to my room anyway. Reginald had had me bring him hot chocolate from the kitchen over the last two days. This time, I had the feeling it would be a little different. He’d been in a grouchy mood all day.

  “Rebecca,” Reginald called, as soon as he returned. “Fetch me a bottle of wine.”

  “Yes, My Lord,” I said, hurrying into his room. He’d already shed his outer layers, dumping the clothes on the floor for me to pick up. Thankfully, he still looked decent. He could have gone to the ball wearing his inner layers and no one would have noticed. “I’ll see to it at once.”

  Reginald nodded and headed into his bedroom. I went downstairs, collected a couple of bottles of wine and a glass from Cook, then slipped back upstairs. I could hear Reginald muttering to himself in his bedroom as I poured him a glass of wine, then carefully added one of the ingredients I’d borrowed from Cyanine. The wine was strong enough, I hoped, to cover the taste. Reginald probably wouldn’t notice. He regularly drank enough to fell a horse.

  And neither of the ingredients do anything on their own , I thought, as I carried the glass into his room. Reginald was sitting at his desk, studying a book on wardcrafting. Together, however ...

  Reginald looked up at me and glared. “I said a bottle,” he snapped, as I passed him the glass. He swigged it back in one smooth motion and banged it down, hard. “Give me the rest of the wine!”

  “My Lord,” I said, carefully. “You cannot drink too much when we have ...”

  “Give me the rest of the wine,” Reginald repeated. Sparks danced around his fingertips as he jabbed them at me. “Now, or by my ancestors I’ll ...”

  I hurried to get the wine before he could finish his threat. The second ingredient was already waiting. I dropped it into the liquid, swirled it around to make sure it was dissolved properly, then picked up the bottle and hurried back into the bedroom. Reginald yanked it out of my hands, put it to his lips and took a long swig. I shuddered, inwardly, as red liquid splashed onto his white shirt. It was not a pleasant sight. I was just glad I wasn’t responsible for cleaning his clothes.

  “Stay there,” Reginald growled.

  He took another swig, then another. I watched, wondering how long it would be before the makeshift potion went to work. Reginald’s protections would probably notice if I tried to feed him an active potion, but if the two ingredients only combined in his stomach ... I told myself, firmly, that it would work. Reginald thought I wanted - I needed - him to take control of his house. I wouldn’t get my shop if he failed.

  And I won’t get it anyway , I reminded myself. He won’t let me live .

  “Complete waste of time,” Reginald growled. His voice slurred. He’d clearly been drinking heavily. “House MacDonald won’t give me the time of day. Idiots, the lot of them. So drawn to House Aguirre, but not to us. Idiots.”

  “Yes, My Lord,” I said, soothingly. I didn’t know much about House MacDonald, beyond the fact it was a Great House, but agreeing with Reginald was never a bad idea. “I’m sure they’ll come to regret it.”

  “Yes, they will,” Reginald snapped. “Do they think - do they really think - that they can go on bended knee to Aguirre and plead for a few scraps from their table?”

  You and your grandmother have a lot in common , I thought, as Reginald continued to rant about House MacDonald. They had an elder daughter, apparently, who’d shunned the idea of marrying Reginald. She sounded like a very sensible girl. You both see danger for the house in the unification of two other Great Houses .

  “I know who my father was,” Reginald said. “I know who my mother was. And she, damn her, thinks...”

  He swayed, then fell forward. His head hit the table with an almighty thump . I winced in sympathy as I leaned forward to check he could breathe properly. He would have a nasty headache in the morning, but otherwise he’d be uninjured. He’d drunk more than enough to pass out. He wouldn’t see anything odd about falling asleep mid-rant. Or so I told myself, as I carefully moved his head to one side and placed his hand on the table. I could recover his journal from the chamber of horrors - he’d keyed me into the wards - but I needed time to read it properly. He had to remain unconscious until morning.

  The potion should keep him asleep , I told myself. I donned a pair of gloves as I entered the chamber, then carefully picked up the journal. I had a feeling that touching it with my bare hands would end badly. And I just need his hand to open the book .

  Reginald didn’t move as I pressed his hand against the journal, then carefully opened it with a pair of tweezers. I shuddered in disgust - he was drooling - and then sat down to read. It was easy to parse out the words - his handwriting was better than Master Travis’s - and he hadn’t bothered to encode the text, but every paragraph was so elliptical that it was hard to work out what it actually meant . And when he’d sketched out the spell diagrams - and a handful of potions recipes - he’d been careful not to link them to the text. It would be hard to argue that the notebook was proof of anything.

  Reginald would have no trouble coming up with an innocent explanation , I thought, as I worked my way through a complicated set of diagrams. They were so far beyond me that I was reduced to guessing what they meant. He was studying wards and wardcrafting at school .

  I scowled in frustration, then worked my way to the last page. Reginald had turned his attention, in the last few months, to studying an immensely complex set of wards. He hadn’t bothered to title them, but - given what his potion actually did - I had no doubt that he’d been diagramming out the hall’s ancient wards. He was good at it too, I noted; he’d carefully plotted out each and every part of the network, figuring out how it actually worked. Master Travis’s wards had been nothing like as complex. But then, Master Travis hadn’t been a wardcrafter. Reginald had surpassed him long ago.

  The wards are centred on the wardstone, which is linked to the family bloodline , I thought, slowly. If the wardmaster dies, the oldest living member of the right bloodline becomes his successor ... unless, of course, someone else is designated Heir Primus before the wardmaster dies.

  Reginald’s plan slowly unfolded in front of me. His older brother was dead. If he used the potion, before his father died, he would be the oldest member of the main bloodline. The wards would transfer to him automatically. And then ... I had to smile at the sheer audacity of Reginald’s plan. Nearly every member of House Bolingbroke was staying within the hall, within the wards. They could swear loyalty to Reginald or die. Reginald would have no trouble snuffing out resistance to his rule.

  Wesley is in for a nasty surprise , I thought. If his brother holds on long enough, Reginald - not Simon - will be the default Heir Primus .

  I worked my way through the rest of Reginald’s notes. He’d been very careful in planning his scheme. It would have come off without a hitch if Master Travis had been allowed to complete the potion, then give Reginald the recipe. He’d certainly not have had to try to brew the potion himself. I snickered to myself as I finished the journal, memorising as much of the details as I could. Reginald didn't need anyone to sabotage his plans. He was his own worst enemy.

  And he’ll overreach himself, sooner or later, when he takes control of the house , I told myself. I’d heard stories of shopkeepers who’d inherited their parent’s shop, only to discover that they hadn’t inherited the business skill that had allowed their mother or father to build it up in the first place. The Great Houses wouldn’t be that different. Reginald certainly wouldn’t have been given the training that had been lavished on his half-siblings. What will it do to the city if Reginald manages to run House Bolingbroke into the ground?

  I shook my head, then carefully picked up the journal and returned it to the chamber of horrors. It didn’t matter. House Bolingbroke’s future was none of my concer
n. All that mattered was completing the potion, grabbing the notebook and running for my life. Maybe I could snatch some money too. Enough to pay my debts? Enough to get me out of the city?

  Perhaps I could just blackmail Reginald from a safe distance , I thought, as I closed the chamber. If there is such a thing as a safe distance where he is concerned .

  It wasn’t a pleasant thought, I decided as I walked back to the bedroom. It wasn’t easy to levitate Reginald out of his chair and into bed, let alone undo his shirt so he wouldn’t choke, but I made it. He was going to have a very unpleasant Morning After the Night Before, and I was probably going to have a bad day too, yet ... I’d just have to cope. Better he thought he had a hangover than anything more sinister.

  I cleaned up the mess, careful to ensure that I disposed of the remainder of the wine myself, then walked into my bedroom. The books were still where I’d left them, under the covers. I opened a textbook, then shook my head. My mind was spinning. I was in no state to read, let alone remember what I’d read. And I needed to figure out why the potion hadn’t worked properly. I was sure I was missing something, but what? The geas wouldn’t let me stop thinking about it.

  I undressed for bed, still considering the problem. There was no way I could tell anyone. The geas would ensure that I kept my mouth firmly closed. I couldn’t tell anyone about the geas itself, either. I didn’t think I could remove it on my own, even if it would let me try. If Clive actually did find a spellbreaker ... could I jam it to my head before the geas stopped me? And what would happen if I tried? My spells would be cancelled, of course, but would the geas also be cancelled? There was no way to know.

  If someone figured out the spell was there, they could remove it , I thought. Wesley hadn’t noticed, damn him. He’d been right in front of me and he hadn’t noticed a thing. And no one else is going to even look at me ...

  I froze as a nasty thought crossed my mind. The wards would certainly notice the sudden appearance of a new Heir Primus. It was possible they’d just decide it was a glitch and ignore it, on the grounds that no one could be within the wards without permission, but it was equally possible that they’d alert the wardmaster to sort out the contradiction. Reginald’s father would not be amused when he found out what had happened. And then ...

  He’s going to have to kill his father , I thought, numbly. And that will have to happen before he takes the potion .

  I swallowed, hard. Reginald was going to kill his father ... I gritted my teeth, trying to tell myself I didn’t care. Of course I didn’t care. Lord Anton was nothing to me. He’d raised a son who’d turned into a monster and ... and besides, there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t even deliberately hint without the geas shutting me down. He was going to die and ...

  And then it hit me.

  What would happen, I asked myself, if I took the potion?

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  It was absurd. It was outrageous. It was dangerous beyond belief. And yet, once I’d had it, the thought refused to fade. What if ... what if I took the potion myself?

  My mouth was dry at the very thought. It would hurt, although I was used to pain. Lucinda might slap and spank her subordinates, and I’d heard terrible things about the butler’s belt, but I doubted either of them could match my stepfather when it came to drunken sadism. I’d survived him, just as I’d survived a string of potion experiments that had gone horrendously wrong. And yet, this was different. Every cell in my body would be rewritten to match the main bloodline ...

  I lay in my bed, considering the implications. Reginald already had half of the main bloodline. He didn’t have to change so much, did he? I wished, once again, that I knew more about the healing arts. I was so far out of my depth that it wasn’t even funny. I thought a regeneration potion only repaired cellular damage by regenerating the cells themselves, but Master Travis had clearly found a way to modify the original recipe to allow it to change a person’s cellular structure completely. I wondered, suddenly, if Reginald would find himself a girl . He’d taken blood from his sister to complete the recipe.

  Probably , I thought. I closed my eyes, willing my body to sleep. And if that’s the price of power, Reginald will pay it without a second thought .

  The wards shifted, what felt like seconds later. I jerked awake, half-convinced that Reginald - or someone - was breaking down the door. I glanced from side to side, then looked up as I realised what was happening. Reginald was calling me. I jumped out of bed, pulled on a robe that hid my curves and hurried into his bedroom. He was lying in bed, clutching at his head. The stench of vomit filled the room. I shuddered. My stepfather had been much better at taking his ale.

  But you never slipped something into his drink , I reminded myself. By the time you knew what you were doing, you were well away from him .

  “Water,” Reginald hissed. “Get me water before I die.”

  “Yes, My Lord,” I said, with the private thought that he could have climbed out of bed himself if he’d needed water that desperately. “I’ll fetch it for you at once.”

  “And a healing draught,” Reginald added. “Something to purge the blood.”

  I nodded and fetched him a glass of water, then recovered a hangover draught from his wine cabinet. He’d never touched the bottles inside, much to my surprise. I made a mental note to check what was actually in them at some later date, before walking back to his side and helping him to drink the potion. His body shook violently, poisonous sweat beading on his skin. I wondered, nastily, how he intended to cope with the bloodline potion. It was going to be one hell of a lot worse than a hangover.

  Reginald finished his water, then clambered out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. I heard the sound of vomiting - I carefully didn’t look at his bed - as the alcohol left his body - and then a running shower. Reginald’s head would be clear, when the potion had finished its work, but his memories of the night before would be hazy. I allowed myself a moment of relief that he’d drunk the potion. It would conceal any traces of foreign magic in his system.

  “I’ll be having breakfast with my father,” Reginald said, as he stumbled out of the shower wearing nothing, but a towel. I looked away, embarrassed. “You can clean up this mess and then go have breakfast yourself.”

  “Yes, My Lord,” I said. Was Reginald going to kill his father now? The potion wasn’t even ready . “I’ll have the room cleaned up by the time you return.”

  Reginald dressed rapidly - I silently credited him for mastering a skill every child in Water Shallot learnt before they turned five, although I wasn’t convinced that Cyanine knew how to dress herself - and then left the room. He looked unwell, but - thankfully - not hungover. I wished I’d known how to brew the hangover cure - and another potion that prevented the drinker from ever touching alcohol again - when I’d been a little girl. I could have slipped it into my stepfather’s beer and put him off drinking for life.

  And then he would have beaten us when he was stone-cold sober instead , I thought, as I stripped the bed. I’d have to dispose of the sheets myself, just in case someone took an undue interest in Reginald’s vomit. The idea of someone being interested would have been funny if it wasn’t so serious. It wouldn’t be so amusing if someone found a trace of the drug .

  I finished cleaning the room, cast a couple of spells to clear the air and then hastily showered myself before changing into clean clothes. I’d have to get more outfits, I told myself, or find a way to adjust the older clothes so they weren’t so revealing. I disliked the thought of walking around looking like a streetwalker, even if no one actually saw me. Reginald would see me, whatever else happened. I really didn’t want to give him ideas. Shaking my head, I hurried down to the kitchens. Maybe Jill would have a few ideas.

  “Your young man is here,” Cook said. She looked faintly displeased to see me, although it could have been my imagination. Two of her apprentices were in trouble over something when I walked into her domain. “He’s waiting in the parlour.”

>   “Thank you,” I said. “Can I get something to eat?”

  Cook smiled, rather thinly. “I’ve already given him a snack,” she said. “And you can get your breakfast when you come back.”

  I nodded, then hurried into the parlour. Clive was seated at the table, munching his way through a plate of potatoes and meat. I had to smile as he waved to me. Cook hadn’t given him a snack, she’d given him an entire meal ! Clive probably hadn’t eaten so well in his entire life. The food the family upstairs rejected, every day, could have fed an entire street of families in Water Shallot. They wouldn’t care about pieces of gristle or burnt meat.