And then softly, I muttered the words as I grabbed the paring knife from my basket. “Spiritus sanguinis mei, et cor meum: ut quod fuerit ferrum, et hoc in clara.” I pricked my finger, and I smudged my blood into its rough surface.
It soaked into the rock, staining its surface. And slowly, where once it was dark red, it changed to gold. Like veins running through the rock, it turned from gray to shimmering yellow.
Within seconds, I could perfectly see my own reflection in the surface of the shining lump of solid gold.
Once more, I closed my eyes, and reached out to every sense of earth I could find around me. Which was a lot. I could feel all the dirt on the floor. I could feel the salt stuck to the outside of the windows. I could sense the sand out on the beach, and the lapping waves of the ocean outside. I felt the bedrock beneath the house, and the grass along the ground outside.
Let it be changed, I thought out to whatever might hear me. Whatever might listen.
Something tingled in my blood. I felt all the hairs on the backs of my arms stand on end. It felt as if something rushed up the back of my neck, up and over my scalp.
My eyes slid open, and I looked at the gold in my hand.
It looked exactly the same as all the other times I had done alchemy, but it felt different.
With excitement, I sat at the desk, and I opened my grimoire to the first blank page. I scrawled out what I’d just done, what I’d thought. I accounted everything I’d felt and done.
Let this be the one, I thought to myself and to the gold and all the earth around me.
When I was finished recording, I closed the book and took hold of the next rock.
I did exactly the same thing. The same process. And I felt the same way.
I repeated it with the third.
By the time the sun started to set behind me, I had three shimmering gold rocks.
I couldn’t explain it. It just felt different.
So, with nervous anticipation, I went home and I went to bed that night. I didn’t sleep well. I had stress dreams all night long.
But when I woke in the morning, my three rocks were still gold.
Chapter Sixteen
On Friday, we all needed a break from the normal. Classes were getting harder and more intense. Mid-terms were one week away. So, the four of us decided to go out to the movies.
It wasn’t a very good one. Really, it was probably the most ridiculous and low budget movie I’d ever seen in my life. So, my mind started wandering as Nathaniel’s hand slid over my thigh.
Through the dark, my eyes slid over to him. He was staring straight forward, his eyes fixed on the screen. But his hand ran a little higher up my thigh.
I leaned in closer to him, appreciating his body heat in the cool theater. I crossed my legs, angling my entire body a little closer to him. And as I leaned in, our lips gently searched for each other in the dark.
I sometimes missed when it was just the two of us. When we could spend hours making out whenever we wanted. When we could sigh heavily and take up all the space we wanted. Now Mary-Beth and Borden were almost always around. Now we were restrained to holding hands and quick pecks, so we didn’t embarrass anyone.
But here in the dark, I didn’t care for a minute. I relished it as Nathaniel’s hand slid up my neck, his fingers headed for my hair. I felt adrenaline flood my system as I parted my lips and his tongue lanced into my mouth. I ran a hand up his chest, appreciating every rise and fall of his body.
I was alive here in the dark, and I loved every second of it.
In the end, I couldn’t have told anyone what that movie was about. But I came out with wild hair and swollen lips, and I didn’t even care.
“Well, that was uncomfortable,” Mary-Beth said as we walked out once the movie was over. She grabbed a handful of popcorn left over from her bin and threw it at me with a smirk.
“Don’t be jealous,” I said as Nathaniel and I walked hand in hand. “We’re going to find you your bad boy someday. Do you want him to be a mage, or just normal?”
“Like it matters if he’s a mage,” she said as we walked through the lobby and pushed our way outside. “I’m most likely human anyway. You’re all going to forget about me soon.”
“Yeah, right,” I said as I hooked my arm through hers and hugged her in closer to me. “Who could ever forget the insatiable Mary-Beth Foster.”
She smiled, scoffing at our ridiculousness.
“How about you, Borden?” she said. “Do you hope the future Mrs. Stewart is a mage or a human?”
“I’m not exactly looking to hide what I am from the love of my life,” Borden said, barely entertaining our game. “If such a woman even exists.”
“You don’t think there’s someone out there for everyone?” Nathaniel asked.
Borden just shrugged. “I’m not so convinced that there’s such a thing as ‘the one.’ I think two people with common goals and attraction can be happy and in love, so long as they’re committed.”
I couldn’t say I disagreed with him. But he was stealing so much of the magic out of love.
“We’ll find her someday,” I said, and Mary-Beth bumped his shoulder with hers, as if we were the same person. “I’ve been thinking anyway. We’re going to have to eventually start testing other students. I think that maybe, come fall, we could manage taking on another mage.”
“Expand the circle?” Mary-Beth said. “What if I don’t like them? What if it’s someone horrible, like Marie Duncan?”
I knew what she meant. Marie Duncan was always chasing after David Sinclair, even though she was rich all on her own, considering her family. But she was mean and nasty, and she and David totally deserved each other.
“Well, if it’s Marie Duncan, we can let her continue to exist in ignorance,” I said with a laugh. “But let’s go into it with a good attitude. It’s going to be someone amazing, who we’re all going to love as family. Maybe it will even be someone one of you will fall in love with.”
“Doubtful,” Mary-Beth and Borden said at the exact same time. Which caused everyone to laugh.
We were most of the way back to Alderidge by this point. It was pitch dark out, and the hour was pushing eleven. We should all be going home to bed, but it was the weekend, and the vibe certainly wasn’t pointing us in the direction of separating.
So together, we all headed toward the solarium, the one place one of us lived that had any kind of privacy.
The weather was getting warmer by the day, and even a few daffodil starts were poking out of the ground here and there on the university grounds. A few more weeks and we could start dressing in fewer layers.
Nathaniel held the gate open for all of us, and single file, we worked our way down the stone path.
And then I bumped right into the back of Borden, who had stopped right in his tracks, just before the door.
“What are you doing?” I asked, taking a step back, only to step right into Mary-Beth.
A curse slipped from Borden’s lips, and my blood instantly turned cold.
I stepped around him to see what was wrong.
A few dim lights glowed from inside the solarium. So even though it was dark, I could still see just enough.
The entire solarium was starkly empty.
Chapter Seventeen