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“What can I do?” Mama asked, her voice empty, small, tired. Weak. She stood up, the broken glass wrapped in the wet dish towel.

I crossed the room and wrapped her in a hug.

“It’s too late, isn’t it?” she whispered into my hair.

I held her tighter.

•••

Ernesta was gone for so long that I had time to set up the crucible, mix a tonic, and feed it to Papa before she returned. I could hear her and Mama whispering outside Papa’s room, but I couldn’t make out their words.

“Finally,” I said.

“I couldn’t find any.”

I looked up at my sister. “I even went into town. No rats. No kittens. I couldn’t find anything.”

I growled in frustration. Papa hadn’t slipped into the coma-like sleep of a late-stage victim. He didn’t moan, but I could tell he was in pain.

“Fine,” I said, nodding my head, my decision made. I held Papa’s hand in one of mine and gripped the edge of the empty crucible. I muttered the runes, and they glowed dimly in the dark room.

Ernesta watched in silence. She didn’t know how alchemy worked; she was never interested in the old textbooks I’d get from Papa’s stacks of books. She didn’t know what I was about to do.

Pain flowed from my father’s body, through me, and swirled into the base of the crucible. I frowned, concentrating. With no vessel to take the pain, there was only one other place for it to go.

Into me.

I gritted my teeth, tugging at the pain. Its presence in the crucible felt like rain falling gently, but when I directed it back intomyself, it burned like acid, white-hot heat spreading through my veins, seeping into my bones. Agony soaked into me, lingering on my skin, tearing through my joints.

I gagged, choking for air, and Ernesta made a move toward me, but I shook my head. I couldn’t let her touch me; I couldn’t risk breaking contact. I had to take all the pain, and I had to do it now before I lost my nerve.

My breath came out in rattling gasps, and I forced my mind to focus, my body to accept. Pulling the pain from Papa’s body was like pulling water from a river by pinching it between my fingers.

Black spots dotted my vision, and I collapsed.

•••

I woke up in the chair I’d placed beside Papa’s bed, the crucible in my lap.

“I couldn’t move you,” Ernesta said. She’d pulled up another chair beside me.

“Papa?” I asked.

“He’s sleeping.” Her voice was low.

I tried to stand, and my back seized with pain. I collapsed back into the chair. Pins and needles prickled through my flesh, burning in agony.

“You pushed too hard,” Ernesta said.

“I had to do something.”

She helped me stand up, and we walked gingerly down the hall. She tried to take my crucible from me as she helped me into bed, but I couldn’t relax my grip; my fingers were frozen like claws. I curled up around the warm metal and fell asleep.

When I woke, it was dark, but according to the clock on my wall, only a few hours had passed. I let go of the crucible. The pain was fading from me, which meant it must be re-emerging for Papa.

It was so dark in the hallway I almost couldn’t see. Mama had a firegoing in the hearth in the front room. It was stifling hot, the orange glow of the flames casting eerie shadows around the room.

“Has he woken?” I asked.