Page 30 of Alchemy of Secrets

It didn’t feel like morning.

It felt like a late summer afternoon, when the light was a grainy sort of bright, and the day was so warm that everything had turned a little hazy.

Holland was awake, but she couldn’t quite open her eyes. They were heavy with sleep and leftover dreams. For a second, she couldn’t remember where she was. The room smelled like the ocean, and there was another person entwined with her.

She panicked, briefly flailing, and the arms around her tightened.

“Babe, relax, you’re safe.” His hand rubbed a circle over her stomach.

Then she felt his lips on her shoulder, her neck, her ear.

This was a bad idea.

This was a really bad idea, for too many reasons to list, reasons that would only make her more nervous, because she would only do this with him if she knew she really was going to die today. And she didn’t want to die today.

“We can’t do this.” She wiggled out of his arms and turned on her side to face him, which was definitely a mistake.

Adam looked beautiful in the morning. He was softer in the grainy light, with his hair mussed and his eyes still hooded from sleep. “Good morning, Bright Eyes.” He put a hand on her hip. It was confident and warm and—

A drop of blood fell from his nose, followed by another, and another.

“Adam—” Holland reached for him, but he didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch as more blood poured onto the bed. His eyes were still open, but they had gone glassy.

“Adam!” Holland screamed his name as she shook his shoulder, but the only thing that moved was the blood. “Adam! Adam—”

“Holland—” he said, but his mouth wasn’t moving. He was still frozen and bleeding.

“Adam!” She continued to shake him.

“Holland!” his voice cried, louder this time. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. “Holland, wake up! Wake up!”

For a second, her eyes were still shut, refusing to open. Trapped in that broken space between dreams.

“It’s all right,” Gabe coaxed. Not Adam. Adam was just a dream. Gabe was real. “I’ve got you. I’m here.”

Her eyes finally blinked open. Gabe was sitting up in the bed. One hand held her shoulder, the other held a pillowcase, soaked with her blood.

She tasted it then: blood on her lips. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked.

“I don’t know. You—” Gabe hesitated, jaw briefly clenching. “You were screaming Adam’s name.”

Holland felt a wave of mortification, followed by alarm.

She didn’t want to tell Gabe she’d had a very realistic dream that she was in bed with Adam.

Especially not right now, when Gabe had a look on his face that said he’d very much like another chance to shoot Adam.

Instead, she said, “I was probably just reliving yesterday. And I should probably go clean up.”

Holland rose out of the bed on wobbly legs and hurried to the bathroom.

After washing her face, she opened January’s backpack again.

Underneath her sister’s miscellanea, Holland found a surprising number of clothes along with a very complete bag of toiletries.

Holland pulled out an emerald-green silk dress with cap sleeves, a plunging neckline, and a wrap waist. It looked dressy for a visit to a bank, but Holland had a feeling the Bank was fancier than the average savings and loan.

Next, she tried on her sister’s heels. They were black patent leather and higher than she would have liked. But at least they were a little chunky, with cute retro buttons on the sides that went well with the green dress.

They would not be great for running, but Holland hoped she wouldn’t need to run.

There was a small black purse in her sister’s backpack as well.

Holland pulled it out and put a few personal items inside, including her sister’s plastic Motor Hotel key.

She felt another burst of static when she touched the key and, once again, wondered what it was for.

Gabe knocked loudly on the bathroom door. “You almost ready?”

There was a different scent wafting through the beach house when Holland opened the door. Butter. Syrup. Cinnamon. Bacon. Coffee. Had Gabe cooked her breakfast?

The kitchen was just off the living room.

Like the rest of the house, the little nook was primed for photos.

The cabinets were a freshly painted mid-century shade of green, the appliances were glossy vintage cream, and retro vinyl diner chairs—with thick cream stripes down the center—surrounded the table.

Holland stepped closer, taking in the mountain of cardboard take-out containers.

If she was reading the scrawl correctly, then Gabe had ordered pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin French toast, pumpkin sausages, pumpkin waffles, and her favorite pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

All of a sudden, she remembered it was Halloween. Had he ordered all this for her?

The back of her shoulders prickled with a feeling of being watched. She spun around to find Gabe leaning in the doorway.

He was dressed in a pinstripe blue suit she was certain he wasn’t wearing last night. She would have remembered how brilliant it made his eyes look. Or maybe she was just painfully aware of the way he was looking at her, gliding up her bare legs before taking in the short silky dress.

Then he was striding toward the table, as if checking her out had been an accident. She wondered if he thought sleeping in the bed with her had been a mistake as well. Instead of feeling more comfortable around him, she felt as if everything was a little more awkward.

Holland had a fleeting thought that it would be nice if certain relationships came with care instructions like clothing labels:

For emergency use only.

Avoid close contact.

Do not put in bed together.

Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “You look like you’re worrying.”

“What’s there to worry about?” Holland said flippantly. “Besides not making it out of the Bank, not finding the Alchemical Heart, having another bleeding episode. Wait—what happens if I start bleeding at the Bank?”

“Don’t start bleeding there.”

“But—”

“You only have twenty minutes,” he cut in.

“Actually, it’s just fifteen.”

“Did they tell you to get there five minutes early?”

“Yes.”

“Then you have twenty minutes.” He handed her a white ceramic watch. “Put this on. It’s accurate to the millisecond. You’ll need every single moment you have to get in and out with the Alchemical Heart.”

“But what if it isn’t in the box?”

“I will still get you out.”

“How?”

Gabe looked offended she was even asking. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a disposable phone. “This has my number.” He placed it in her hand.

“Do you just carry multiple burner phones around with you?”

Ignoring her question, Gabe said, “I’m the only contact. Call me as soon as you have the Alchemical Heart or you need to get out of the Bank.”

“Wait,” Holland said, realizing they actually hadn’t talked about this last night. “Can’t you go in with me?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Your appointment only protects you, sweetheart. Speaking of that appointment—” Gabe eyed her backpack.

“You’re not going to want to take that in.

The Bank is going to look for ways to waste your time, to make it more difficult for you to escape.

If you carry in a backpack, they’re going to check every item inside to make sure it’s not imbued with any magic. ”

“It’s just a backpack of clothes,” she said, which wasn’t entirely true, but she felt reluctant to part with it, since it also now contained the Professor’s journal.

“You don’t have to leave it here. You can leave it with me while you’re inside.”

“What about the phone you gave me?”

“They won’t care about that, it’s clearly a piece of junk. Come on—we should go.”

“Hold on—speaking of the phone. Have you heard anything from my sister yet?”

Gabe shook his head.

Holland felt a small pang of worry.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll hear something soon.”

Holland also knew her sister was in another country, but it still made her uneasy. “Can you at least give me her number for my phone?”

“You really think your sister is going to reply to an unknown number that claims to be you?”

He had a point, but Holland said, “I’d like to try all the same.”

Gabe pulled out his phone and rattled off a number.

Holland quickly typed a message.

Hey! It’s me, Holland—your friend Gabe tossed my phone out the window so I’m texting from a new one. And

She mulled over just how much more to say. Holland had so many questions, but a text didn’t feel like the place to ask them. Finally, she settled on I’m going into the Bank this morning.

“Come on,” Gabe repeated. “We need to go.”

“Just one more second.” Holland turned back to the table and grabbed an iced coffee and the entire bag of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

Gabe stood in the doorway without touching a thing.

“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Don’t really like pumpkin.”

“Then why did you order all this?”

He shrugged. “You seemed like someone who likes to celebrate holidays.” He walked away quickly, as if saying or doing something nice might cause him to break out in hives.

Holland missed the weight of her sister’s backpack as soon as she put it in the trunk.

“It will be in there when you get back,” said Gabe.

But suddenly all Holland could think was that when people said things like this in movies, they never actually made it back.

“Are you nervous?” Gabe asked.

“Why would I be nervous?” Holland said. “I’m just going into an evil bank to retrieve an object that may or may not be there, and I’m just now realizing that I don’t even know what it looks like.”

“ No one knows what it looks like. Some people suspect it can change form.”

“Not helping,” Holland said.

Gabe frowned, and then he reached into the pocket of his suit coat and pulled out an old bronze coin.

“What’s that?” Holland asked.

“Just something I picked up,” he said, in a way that made clear it was definitely more than just something. “Now I need you to put out your hand.”

“I feel like I need a little more to go on,” Holland said.

Gabe sighed. “I’m going to give you a quick lesson in sensing magical objects, just in case you don’t really understand what’s in your father’s box. Now put out your hand.”

This time Holland obeyed.

“When I set this in your palm, I want you to tell me if you feel anything or sense anything when you touch it. The tricky thing about magic is that it doesn’t always feel the same.

Sometimes it makes goosebumps rise up on your arms, other times it might make the world around you go quiet for a second.

It does things that people notice all the time, but they don’t really notice why unless they’re paying attention.

So”—Gabe paused, and his dark eyes locked onto hers—“I need you to pay attention.”

Holland nodded, but she felt inexplicably nervous.

Gooseflesh broke out across her arms, but he hadn’t even set the coin down, so clearly it wasn’t from that.

Then Gabe pressed the coin into her palm, and she felt it.

A sharp, icy breeze cut through the warm morning air.

It was only for a moment. Then Holland felt the sun shining on her again.

“I think I felt it.” Holland smiled. “I felt a change in the air.”

Gabe nodded once and reached back for the coin.

Holland tightened her fingers around it. “Not so fast,” she said. “I want to know what it does.”

Gabe looked at her seriously. “If I step into a bar, as long as I have this coin, I never have to pay for drinks.”

“Are you joking?”

“I’m not really known for my sense of humor, sweetheart.

” But now Gabe was grinning. It might have been the first time she’d seen him properly smile, and it was a really good smile.

Holland might have felt just a little bit dazzled, and Gabe seemed to notice.

She expected his smile to immediately fade, but instead he reached out for her fingers and slowly peeled them back from the coin.

“When you get out of the Bank with the Alchemical Heart, drinks are on me tonight.”