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“But if that is true,” I said slowly, “how can we fight it?”

He leaned back in his chair. “How indeed,” he said slowly, his eyes glittering as they appraised me. Then he frowned. “You disagree with me? Even after today, after reading the book, you doubt this is necromancy?”

He made this conclusion a long time ago,I realized.He just didn’t trust me with it until now.

“No, what you’re saying makes sense,” I replied. “But who could be the necromancer? It’s nearly impossible to make an iron crucible.”

Master Ostrum barked with bitter laughter. “Oh, it certainly is.”

Something about the way he said it made me feel uneasy. He noticed my change and shook his head. “No,” he said gently. “I don’t have one. I am no necromancer. I am just a scholar.”

“Of necromancy.”

“Of all forms of alchemy.” He did not break his gaze.

“But no one has practiced necromancy in almost two hundred years.”

Master Ostrum’s eyes widened. “Two hundred—you think Bennum Wellebourne was the last necromancer? No. There have been others, although none so advanced or well-known. Anyone who has come even close to creating an iron crucible has been put to death. Itisrare, though,” Master Ostrum allowed. “It requires a specific type of individual. Not everyone can be a necromancer. In Bennum Wellebourne’s private journals, he called it ‘death in the blood.’”

“You mean, you have to be born with something inside of you?” I asked, frowning.

Master Ostrum shook his head. “That part is unclear. It could be an inherent trait. Or it could be merely a willingness to allow oneself to be infected by death...”

My eyes shot down. I thought of how Death had felt in my hands as I tried to save Dilada. How I had invited it inside me.

How I wanted more.

“The Fourth Alchemywasn’t clear,” I said, keeping my tone even, “but to make an iron crucible... it seemed extraordinarily difficult.”

“It’s not a matter of difficulty,” Master Ostrum said. “It is a matter of sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice?” I repeated, the word barely audible.

Master Ostrum nodded. “There are other books than the one I gave you. Most of them focus on the sacrifice the necromancer must make himself. The more sensational volumes say that the necromancer’s soul is traded for the power.” He dismissed this. “But they all mention that the necromancer does have to give up something. Health. Blood. Something.”

I thought of the painting of Bennum Wellebourne hanging in the quarantine hospital. I wondered what he had given up.

“The older books are clear,” Master Ostrum continued. “Truth gets watered down over time. The more I go back to the earliest texts on necromancy, the more I see that the necromancer must sacrifice more than himself.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Runes, for one.” Master Ostrum didn’t look at me; he looked at a book on his shelf, but I couldn’t tell which one. “Carved into the flesh of someone you love, or who loved you. The books differ.”

“Carved into theflesh?”

“Dead flesh. You start with the death of a loved one. And then a knife.” He picked up a scalpel from the table. “The runes mark the body for sacrifice.”

“But if the person is already dead, that doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice.”

“You’re treating the desecration of a corpse rather lightly, Nedra,” Master Ostrum said, but he didn’t sound as if he were chastising me, merely commenting. “Could you so easily carve into the flesh of someone you loved?”

I thought of Ernesta. I caught my reflection in the glass covering Master Ostrum’s potions cabinet, and I imagined that it was her, not me, looking back. I imagined her eyes empty, the scalpel slicing into her skin, a trickle of blood between her eyes.

I looked away. “No,” I said slowly. “No, I don’t think I could do that.”

TWENTY-NINE

Nedra