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“Not your strong suit, I understand, but don’t worry.

I’ll start with the terms of your discipline, so you’re not confused.

” And so Sciona could set a strong framework for her salvation.

She was not strong in the humanities, after all.

If there was a way out of this darkness, she had to build it from what she knew: magic and science.

“As an alchemist, you siphon matter and transmute it into new forms.”

“Yes, of course.”

“There’s considerable power in that. You can break down poisons, make them benign. But a given matter sample is limited in its nature and potential. It must either be dangerous or benign, poison or remedy, and, dependent on its composition, there are finite ways you can transmute it.”

“Yes, Highmage. These are all very basic alchemical principles.”

“I know,” Sciona snapped. “I’m reviewing the 101 material to make sure you follow as we get to more abstract concepts.”

“Excuse me, Highmage! I have never in my life—”

“My magical specialization is trivially similar to yours,” Sciona forged on, worried that if she let the doctor slow her with his insipid interjections, she would lose this tenuous lifeline forming up in her mind.

“Where you siphon and reapply matter, I siphon and reapply energy . Now, you are limited here by your role as an alchemist. Beyond your personal limitations as a stringent adherent to Ayerman, matter is inherently limited in its potential. Energy is not.”

“I don’t know that my discipline is limited.”

“Stop interrupting me, Doctor. We’re getting to the good part.”

“The good part?”

“Yes! Here, we come to the decision point. Because here we have my current affliction. Here, we must conceptualize this horrible feeling inside me one of two ways: as a problem of matter or a problem of energy—as poison or power. Earlier, I got stuck conceptualizing my condition as an alchemist would, in the limited terms of matter, as poisonous decay stitched into my skin and flesh, inseparable from my body and not transmutable to something less insidious. I know this is an underpinning of medical magic. It was in the texts you and I both studied, so this was the cage I put around my mind. I was trapped, just like you are.”

“How am I trapped?” Mellier asked, indignant.

“When you apply alchemical theory to psychology, you confine yourself to the characteristics of your patient’s emotions, just like you confine yourself to the nature of the matter you siphon.

You ask yourself: how can I chemically transmute this sadness into happiness, this manic woman into a submissive one?

How can I transmute Carseth Berald into the boy his parents loved?

How can I transmute a soul as I would a toxic chemical compound? ”

“That is how medical alchemy works, Highmage. Of course we seek to transmute the darkness of the soul into light.”

“Ah, but what happens when you run into your limits? For example: when the darkness is born of irrefutable truth? What way is there to transmute that darkness except to spit in the face of God and lie?”

“I… I’m not sure,” the doctor confessed. At last, a flicker of introspection.

“And therein lies the problem with alchemical thinking! I know this feeling in me can’t be transmuted into something positive any more than I can be transmuted into a stable woman. But who said we must treat emotion as matter, Doctor?”

“Archmage Ayermen, obviously,” Mellier almost laughed, “the father of modern alchemy.”

“Alright, but what if Ayermen was wrong?”

“Um—” The doctor just shook his head, the suggestion clearly not computing.

“What if we don’t treat emotion as matter?” Sciona continued. “What if we treat it as energy? Not as a poison, limited in its potential, but as a power source, infinite in its potential?”

“There’s no precedent for that. It’s not in the teachings.”

“No, but there’s ample precedent outside the teachings.

Consider: This irrepressible energy you call mania.

I’ve always had that. Now, maybe it is a defect.

Maybe it isn’t good for my body or my tender female soul, but it can’t be transmuted into womanly subservience because it fundamentally lacks the necessary characteristics.

Maybe there’s nothing an alchemist can do to remedy mania short of destroying a woman’s mind.

But I’m not an alchemist; I’m an energy siphoner!

And an energy siphoner can apply mania to greatness—which I have.

Obviously.” She spread her arms to indicate her white robe. “It’s how I got where I am.”

“None of what you’re saying is consistent with Ayerman’s model.”

“No, it’s better than Ayerman’s model!” Finally, finally, Sciona’s prison was splitting open as she put the thought into words.

She could breathe. “You see, in my model, the nature of the emotion isn’t important—just as the nature of the energy one siphons isn’t important.

Only the power. If I just think of this problem like an energy siphoner, I don’t need to stop feeling this way.

I just need to take control of the energy it’s created inside me.

Then it won’t matter what’s in my heart.

” She put a hand to her chest with passion where before there had only been only pain, fingers crunching the lacy front of her nightgown as she finally drew a deep breath.

“What I’m experiencing—this evil feeling—doesn’t have to matter if I can just do tangible good with it. Maybe Heaven isn’t out of reach.”

“That is not how God measures goodness, Highmage.”

“Not the god of Tiran, no,” Sciona said, “but some god somewhere.”

“Highmage Freynan, if you speak heresy, I am legally obligated to treat you for mental instability.”

“On the contrary, Doctor: all this—everything that’s happening to my mind—has been in pursuit of Truth, the holiest of God’s ideals. This feeling is energy, and this hollow in me is just…” What had Thomil called it? “The valley,” Sciona whispered. “Vakul.”

“It’s what?”

“Waiting for the river.” Sciona smiled. “So, in the end, my dear cousin was onto something. The question isn’t: how do I stop feeling this way?

That’s stupid. I can’t. The question is: what can I do with this feeling?

That’s something I can work with—because I’m not bound like you are by your limitations of matter, or sex, or Ayerman’s Godforsaken model.

I can do anything I want. Anything! If I just find the right action spell. ”

“What does your affliction have to do with action spells?”

“God, you’re obtuse,” Sciona muttered under her breath.

“Excuse me?”

“I thought that, as another advanced magic user, you’d make a serviceable stand-in for my assistant, but God , it’s no wonder the baker’s son jumped to his death. You must be the dullest conversation partner I’ve ever met!”

Except that wasn’t true. Doctor Mellier was a very typical conversation partner for a mage of his standing, no different from the prescriptivist snobs who had attended the university with Sciona.

There was a reason that, before Thomil, she had rarely ever bounced her ideas off anyone.

Having spent a few months in the High Magistry, she had let herself forget that, outside the ranks of Tiran’s top innovators, a man could get to a very high level of magic without ever having an original thought.

“Highmage Freynan, I have never been spoken to this way in my life!” Doctor Mellier had started to rise, but Sciona held up a finger, and he faltered.

“Think about your career, Doctor. And don’t be upset. You’ve done good work here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this talk has been helpful. It’s made me realize something.

” Generic magical platitudes weren’t going to be any help where Sciona was going.

If she was going to move forward, she needed an incisive tongue to prick her on, to cut ruthlessly into her ideas until she knew all their weaknesses. She needed Thomil .

A little shudder ran through her.

“What’s the matter, Highmage Freynan?” Mellier asked, clearly worried that any shift in her demeanor meant she was about to drop backwards to her death. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

“You have a vial in there for transmuting a man’s hatred to some other sentiment?”

“That’s not how these treatments work.”

“See what I mean?” Sciona scrunched her nose. “Alchemy? Not the best model for treating emotional woes, is it?” She dragged a hand over her tired eyes and let out a low groan. “I guess I have to figure this one out on my own, too.”

“Figure what out?”

“You’re free to go, Doctor,” she said instead of wasting any more breath explaining herself. “And don’t worry. I won’t try to hurt myself again.” Not physically, anyway. Her next conversation with Thomil would surely not be painless.

“How can I be sure of that?”

“Because I have work to do.”

Thomil said that a woman was weighed at the gates of Heaven by her actions and their impact.

Well, Sciona was going to leave an impact.

Whatever happened next, whether it led to Hell or Heaven, she was going to have a hand in directing it.

Sick or sound, good or evil, she was still Sciona Freynan. And Sciona Freynan didn’t slow down.

Sciona Freynan would be remembered.