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Story: A Forbidden Alchemy

Theo shook his head at me, exasperated. “Nina,” he pleaded. “What other choice is there?”

Therewasanother, looming there in the dark. “We could refuse,” I said. “You and I. We could refuse to be their weapons.”

I watched a shutter fall over his eyes. The knife sunk deeper. “What?”

“We could do it, Theo,” I said, taking him by the wrists. “We have minds of our own. Why should we let them take that from us?”

“Shh,” he hissed, looking over his shoulder, disentangling his wrists from me and raising his hands as though to fend off an animal. “Lower your voice. We’re surrounded by every lord of the nation.”

“Theo.” And now, it was me who pleaded. “Please. Think about it.” Beneath my collar was the emerald he’d gifted me a year previous, when the future had seemed very, very distant. I reached to grip it through the fabric, a habit I’d developed. “The only thing that I want… is you.” I was painfully aware of how pitiful I was.

His head dropped on a sigh. He shook it, and when it rose again, he looked tired. Sad. “Nina,” he said. “Once we’ve graduated, I’m leaving for Thornton. I—I’ll take my ordainment there.”

In plunged the knife, to the depths of my pulsing heart.

I tried to identify Theo in the person who stood before me and failed. He seemed a stranger. “What?” A gasp escaped, I was afraid my lungs were caving in. Theo looked away.

“When?” I managed.

“The day after the ceremony.”

“And you’ve already decided?”

“I have,” he said. His chin shook, but his eyes—they were steel. “I have to, Nina. I have to go.”

“For… for how long?”

“Two years.”

It seemed an uncrossable amount of time. “Does—did your father—?”

“My father suggested it, yes,” he answered. “If a revolution breaks, he thinks they would need a force there to man the docks. This is my duty, Nina.”

I reeled. “And what of us? Of me?”

Theo met my eyes, and for a second his facade broke. “Tanner wants you here.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

His chest rose, swelling with that final missile. I wondered how longhe’d kept it loaded and aimed. “Nina, we’re only eighteen. I think it best we part ways.”

There was more. More about the nature of change, and how it creeps up on a person. He apologized and apologized until I was riddled with his reasons. I stared at the earth beneath his feet as he spoke and wondered why I could so easily move it, but I couldn’t movehim.

CHAPTER 34NINA

When Theo collected me at dusk, as he promised he would, he did not hold out his hand.

His eyes widened at the dress I wore. A dress that, I feared, had been purloined from some sorry wife’s wardrobe. It hugged my waist in romantic red and lined my spine in buttons. At first glance in the wardrobe mirror, I thought I looked striking. On second glance, I was scandalized by the way my breasts threatened the sanctity of the bustline. I had to wrap a shawl around my shoulders to look properly decent.

Theodore cleared his throat, keeping his eyes dutifully ahead.

We walked by Sam down the treacherous stairs, out through the pub, out to a blanket of stars close enough to touch. In dim light, the town’s lanterns looked like magic.

The trolley rattled past, brimming with passengers—a train’s carcass trundling down Main Street, following a gentle curve out of sight. Steam rose from the pavement, starlings swarmed above, and a chorus of pounding feet passed us by, everyone headed in the same direction.

Theodore drew a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, and I raised an eyebrow.

He shrugged in response. “At first, I couldn’t stand them. Now I can’t stop.”

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