The Alchemist's Apprentice Read online

  “They’ll be pleased,” I said. I’d never really understood the urge to cheat. I knew why students wanted their qualifications - it was their only hope of a good job - but there was no way to pretend to be competent if one wasn’t . I shuddered to think what would happen if someone tried to brew a potion that was out of their league. “But what will it do to their grades?”

  “It depends on where and when they use it,” Master Travis said. “I do offer good advice.”

  He covered the cauldron and started to return the ingredients to the shelves. “I miss the days when it was easy to experiment,” he added. “These days, I have to pay for everything I use.”

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  Master Travis smiled at me. “You will have some extra money of your own, when the project is completed,” he said. “Without you, I couldn’t have done it.”

  I looked up. “Reginald’s project is finished?”

  “Not quite finished,” Master Travis said. “But I can see the endgame now. The pieces are falling into place. It was really quite a fascinating puzzle.”

  I heard a hint of disappointment in his voice and nodded, understandingly. The truly great potioneers loved solving puzzles, from finding a new cure for a disease to figuring out just what was missing from an ancient recipe. Master Travis - and I - enjoyed trying to solve the mysteries. But afterwards, when the puzzle was solved, it no longer felt like fun. Instead, actually brewing the potion and testing it felt like hard work. I knew it was a dangerous attitude - allowing one’s mind to wander while brewing was a good way to end up dead - but it was difficult to overcome. Master Travis was old enough to feel that he was wasting his life by brewing the same potions over and over again.

  Master Travis sat down, facing me. I felt a sudden surge of affection for the old man. Who else would have taught me the trade? He could have just used me as a shopgirl and housekeeper, if he’d hired me at all. I could have had a far worse master. He was my father, in every way that mattered. My stepfather was a pig. There were times when I dreamed of turning him into one. Or simply slipping him a potion that quelled his fires forever.

  I took a breath. “Master,” I said. “Can I ask a favour?”

  Master Travis lifted his eyebrows. “It depends,” he said. “If you want the next week off ...”

  I shook my head, hastily. “No,” I said. “It’s something else.”

  “Go on,” Master Travis said.

  “I ... I want an apprenticeship,” I stammered. I knew I was asking for something big . “I ... I want to be a Potions Mistress.”

  Master Travis didn’t look surprised. “You know it will be quite ... difficult to qualify?”

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  “You have a good - no, an excellent - base of potions knowledge,” Master Travis mused, slowly. “Your brewing skills are very precise, for your age, although you haven’t been able to practice with some of the more exotic ingredients. I fancy there isn’t a single recipe that you couldn’t brew, given time. That said, you lack the comprehensive background in magic that you would have had if you’d gone to Jude’s. You’d have to study hard to catch up.”

  I felt my heart sink. “Do I need it?”

  “You might,” Master Travis said. “Potions is normally a class on its own, but it does interact with a handful of other disciplines. I never taught you how to forge and, while you don’t have to be a forger to qualify for an apprenticeship, an understanding of how the different materials interact can be quite useful. And then there are charms that you can learn ... again, an understanding of the background would work in your favour.”

  He met my eyes. “You would have to work very hard indeed. A five-year apprenticeship might not be long enough.”

  “I will catch up,” I promised. Master Travis hadn’t said no . “I’ll study everything and ...”

  “Good,” Master Travis said, cutting me off. “I can take anyone I like as an apprentice, but it is the guild - not me - who will administer the final tests. You can’t avoid going in front of a judging panel if you want your qualification to mean anything. They should judge you on potions, and potions alone, but ... they may try to ask questions about how potions relate to other disciplines. The questions can be quite hard to answer.”

  I leaned forward. “What did they ask you?”

  “They wanted me to discuss how I could use a particular set of brews in defence,” Master Travis said. He pointed a finger at me. “And defence is another field you know very little about.”

  “Yes, Master,” I said. There was no point in denying it. “But I can learn.”

  “You will also be expected to complete a personal project in your final year,” Master Travis warned. “You must either devise a new potion of your own or make a significant improvement to a potion already in common use. It can be quite hard to do the latter, Rebecca. The common potions are well-understood already. Any improvements may already have been discovered.”

  “Or come with unexpected downsides,” I said. I had a feeling that I’d have to try to improve a potion that was already in the standard textbooks. “What sort ... if there are downsides, what will they accept? I mean ...”

  Master Travis smiled, rather thinly. “If it kills the drinker, they will be unamused.”

  “Yes, Master,” I said. “But ... I don’t know what to say.”

  “There’s always a downside,” Master Travis said. “An energy potion may keep you awake and active, but you’ll need to sleep when the potion wears off. If you manage to extend the period of wakefulness, at the price of extending the period of sleep, you may manage to convince the judges to accept it. But, if the benefits are very slim and the disadvantages very great, they may simply reject it out of hand. Trying to brew a new potion is safer, as there are fewer requirements, but you will have to come up with an idea and then outline both the advantages and disadvantages of the recipe.”

  He met my eyes. “But no one will care if the recipe has no practical use. It just has to be something new .”

  I felt cold. “What if ... what if I take an old recipe and make it work? I mean, one of the ones from the old books.”

  “You might manage to get it past the judges,” Master Travis said. “They might well be pleased if the potion had a practical use. But you would have to make it work first.”

  “Yes, Master,” I said. I had no illusions about how difficult that could be. “If I have a year to work on it ... I can do it.”

  Master Travis grinned. It made him look years younger. “There are Potion Masters who have been trying to get some of the more tantalising recipes to work for longer than you’ve been alive,” he said. “Old Master Hubbard was obsessed with an invulnerability potion that he swore would change the world. He spent years trying to figure out how to turn the recipe in the old books into something he could actually brew. And you know what?”

  I took a guess. “He’s still trying to do it?”

  “He tried until the day of his death,” Master Travis said. He shook his head. “Poor man.”

  “Your Master?” I couldn’t help asking. “The one who taught you?”

  “No,” Master Travis said. “He was a renowned theorist in his day, back when I was a little boy. His books were required reading at school. And then he became obsessed and his writings dwindled away to nothing. For nothing! I don’t think he made any real breakthroughs - any new breakthroughs - before his death.”

  He looked at me for a long moment. “Rebecca ... I would be happy to take you on as an apprentice,” he said. I felt my heart leap. “I can take whoever I like as an apprentice, so your lack of formal qualifications isn’t a problem. We can hire another girl once we have Reginald’s payment, someone who can take over most of your duties. But you will have to work very hard to catch up with your fellow students. You will need to master seven years of study in less than four.”

  “I can do it,” I assured him. I’d stay awake half the night if I had to. “I can learn.”


  “You don’t have the background or the experience to know how hard it will be,” Master Travis said, bluntly. “And once you get started, you will be surprised by just how much work you will have to do. It will not be easy.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  Master Travis cocked his head. “Once the project is completed and we are paid, we can perform the formal apprenticeship rites,” he said, firmly. “And find a new girl to run the shop. You’ll have to teach her, of course.”

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  “Now, go to bed,” Master Travis said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I stood. “Thank you, Master,” I said. I felt happier than I had in years. I wanted to dance and sing. But it was late. I needed to go to bed. “I won’t let you down.”

  Chapter Nine

  “You’re awfully cheerful today,” Clive said, as he offered me the broadsheets. “Is something wrong?”

  I grinned at him. I was in too good a mood to let him get to me. “Master Travis has offered me an apprenticeship.” I couldn’t resist the chance to boast a little. “I’m going to be a Potions Mistress.”

  Clive looked downcast, just for a second. I didn’t really blame him. He could marry a shopgirl, but not a Potions Mistress. I would have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t been so annoying . He might have thought he was doing me a favour, when he offered to marry me, but it wasn’t anything of the sort. I resisted the urge to rub salt in the wound even further. I wasn’t a Potions Mistress yet.

  “That’s good,” Clive said, finally. “You’ll be able to brew potions for me.”

  “Maybe,” I said. I had no intention of staying in Water Shallot. If I had the qualification, it wouldn’t be that hard to get a place in South Shallot. I would have to work hard to pay off the mortgage, but I wasn’t scared of that . I’d worked hard ever since I’d been old enough to help my mother wash the windows and scrub the floor. “It depends on the future.”

  Clive nodded, shortly. “Still no letters from up north,” he said, lowering his voice. “Is he still in a bad mood?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. Master Travis must have gone to bed at some point - at least, I hoped he’d gone to bed at some point - but he’d been up and in his workshop before I’d managed to get out of bed. I’d made him breakfast and left it in the preservation chamber. “He’s very busy at the moment.”

  “I won’t hang around,” Clive said. “Good luck if he is in a bad mood.”

  He hurried out the door. I rolled my eyes at his back and turned my attention to my work. The morning customers had bought us out of a dozen different potions and someone was going to have to brew more in the evening. I silently planned out the rest of the day, realising there would be no time to meet Ginny for coffee in the evening. I’d be too busy replenishing our stockpiles. I cursed Reginald under my breath as I listed the ingredients I’d need. We were going to be telling some of our longest-serving customers that we couldn’t meet their needs. There was no helping it. I couldn’t brew and mind the store.

  I felt the wards shimmer in discontent, a moment before the door opened. I looked up and saw Reginald entering the shop, followed by two young men in aristocratic dress. They both wore fine clothes, but neither of them was wearing livery. Their eyes flickered from side to side, nervously, as the door closed behind them. I hesitated, then came around the counter to drop a curtsey. Reginald alone was dangerous. The two men with him ... I didn’t know them. But they held themselves like aristocrats.

  “Rebecca,” Reginald said. He held one hand in his pocket. The wards shimmered again. “I trust Master Travis is upstairs?”

  “He is,” I confirmed, reluctantly. I had never felt the wards react like that before. It worried me. “What can I do for you?”

  Reginald drew his hand out of his pocket. I had a second to recognise the spellcaster before he pointed it at me and snapped a single word. My entire body locked up. I couldn’t move! I wanted to scream, but even that was denied me. Reginald stepped forward, studying my frozen body with a dispassionate stare that worried me more than Clive’s sidelong glances, then shrugged. Behind him, one of his cronies switched the sign in the door from OPEN to CLOSED.

  “Just stay there for a moment,” Reginald said. His other crony laughed, as if Reginald had cracked the funniest joke in the world. “I’ll get back to you soon enough.”

  I struggled, but the spell held me tightly. Panic yammered at the back of my mind as I realised I wasn’t breathing, although I didn’t seem to be in any danger of suffocation. I tried to cast a counterspell, but it was impossible. My magic wasn’t strong enough to cancel Reginald’s spell. He’d used a spellcaster ... my mind raced. What did that mean? Did he have no power of his own? Or was he trying to conserve his power? Spellcasters were rare in Water Shallot. It dawned on me, slowly, that he might have frozen me without triggering the wards and alerting Master Travis. If he’d managed to slip something past our wards ...

  The three men walked around me, out of eyeshot. They knew where they were going, I realised numbly. They didn’t waste time looting the shelves or trying to break into the cash drawer. Instead, I heard them walking up the stairs. I hoped - I prayed desperately to my unknown ancestors - that Master Travis had sensed them coming. Reginald was probably a strong magician, but Master Travis was in his place of power. He’d woven the wards into the warp and weft of the building itself. It would take a very strong magician to dare challenge Master Travis on his home ground.

  I reached out, desperately, for the wards. But they didn’t come to me. Reginald’s spell seemed to have blocked my magic as well as everything else. I could still feel the wards, right at the edge of my awareness, but I was cut off from them. No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t break free. I couldn’t even send a warning. Master Travis might be taken by surprise.

  A thud echoed through the building. I hoped Master Travis had stunned one or all of them. It wouldn’t be easy to explain three dead aristocratic bodies, but we could do it. Or merely dump the bodies in the canal and leave the City Guard to round up the usual suspects. Or ... my mind raced, desperately. What was happening up there? I wanted to run and help my master, but I couldn’t move a muscle. Reginald had frozen me good and proper.

  He wants to steal from us , I thought. It was the only explanation that made sense. Master Travis wasn’t going to deny Reginald the fruits of his project, was he? But Reginald had promised Master Travis a great deal of money. Perhaps Reginald thought he could take the finished potion without paying, then leave the shop in ruins. Our bodies might never be found. But the potion isn’t ready yet ...

  I cursed, mentally, as I redoubled my struggles to escape. Reginald was going to be very disappointed, then angry. He’d shown his hand, for nothing. What would he do when he found out there was nothing to steal? I doubted that Master Travis and I would enjoy Reginald’s anger. It wasn’t as if Master Travis was going to brew the potion for him after Reginald had tried to rob the store.

  I need to get out of here , I thought, as I heard another thud from the floor above. My heart sank as I realised that Reginald and his goons were ransacking the workrooms. They had to have knocked Master Travis out - I refused to consider that he might be dead - and started their search. They hadn’t found the ironhold yet, but it was just a matter of time. The charms hiding the door wouldn’t stand up to a careful search. If Master Travis is injured ...

  My mind ran in circles as the banging sound grew louder. I heard something crashing down the stairs ... a book, perhaps. What could we do? The sign on the door said CLOSED. No one was going to risk entering a magic shop without permission. Even a simple apothecary had powerful protections to punish intruders. And the charms on the window would keep passers-by from looking in. I hoped, desperately, that someone would try to open the door, even though I knew it was unlikely. We were alone.

  The necklace grew warm, just for a second. My body quivered - I felt uncomfortably warm, as if I’d stepped into a sauna - and col
lapsed. I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming as I hit the stone floor. My muscles ached, as if I’d been standing still for hours. Pins and needles stabbed my body. It was all I could do to force myself to stand up. I wanted to stay on the floor until the sensation finally vanished. But I knew I didn’t have time.