Page 45 of The Deadliest Candidate (The Last Grand Archivist #1)
Chapter forty-five
The Alchemist
The week passed in a blur, and Fern was certain only of two things. One, that pyromancy was the most difficult magic she had ever tried to wield. Two, that whoever had made the ward, they had designed it to be as close to indestructible as possible.
But with every attempt she made at the spell, and every failed attempt at destroying the ward, Fern’s resolve grew. The day of the assignment was fast approaching now, and Fern would do everything she could to ensure she was one of the shortlisted candidates, and if possible, to boot Lautric out of the candidacy and as far away from her as she could keep him.
With him gone, she was certain, everything would be simpler. Everything would be safer .
She spent her days learning her incantations and preparing her presentation, and in the nights, practising her spells. The magic was taking its toll on her energy, and she was torn between the knowledge that she needed to practise, her desire to gain entry into the Astronomy Tower, and the instinct to exercise caution and withhold her energy.
But this was the final assignment; there would be plenty of time for caution later.
All she could do in the meantime was eat and rest as much as she could, to help her body build its reserves back up after each exhausting day of practice. The dining room was often deserted these days—most candidates seemed to keep different hours, and Fern had a feeling everyone was keen to avoid one another now that they were all drawing so close to the end of the assignments.
Two nights before the assignment, though, Fern walked into the dining room to find Dr Essouadi, Vasili Drei and Rapha?l Baudet all sitting at the long table.
It was a strange ensemble. Although Fern had seen Srivastav a handful of times since finding Lautric at his desk, the pyromancer seemed preoccupied, perhaps even unwell, and had been avoiding the dining room. In his absence, Dr Essouadi and Vasili Drei seemed to be engaged in a light conversation about the mix of spices in tonight’s stew. Baudet, in a suit of azure velvet bereft of its customary adornments, pushed food around his plate with the end of his fork, chin propped on one fist, eyes unfocused.
Fern watched him with a mixture of pity and curiosity. How much did he know? Vittoria’s disappearance had deeply affected him—but was it true emotion at the root of his despondency, or the dismay of having lost a valuable ally?
“Are you alright, Miss Sullivan? ”
Dr Essouadi’s voice interrupted Fern’s thoughts, and Fern turned with some surprise. “Ah, yes, I’m quite well.”
“You look tired,” said Dr Essouadi. And, with a sigh, “Everybody looks so tired these days.”
Fern thought of Dr Essouadi’s tumour and Srivastav’s absence and knew not what to say.
Vasili Drei, on the other hand, gave a shrug and a bleak smile. “None of us came to Carthane to rest, I suppose.”
“But none of us came to Carthane to suffer,” Baudet interjected from across the table.
He had not raised his voice. Fern opened her mouth but could find no words of comfort. Just as the channelling spell was beginning to fray her insides, leaving her hollowed out and weak, Vittoria’s absence seemed to be having the same effect on Baudet.
Though perhaps Baudet was also practising his spell, and Fern was underestimating him. It was hard to tell who her truest contenders were at this point.
“Ah, but suffering is a magic of its own,” Drei said. “Perhaps it is the first and the last of the Arcane Schools we are being tested on.”
“There’s no magic in pain,” said Baudet.
“We are stronger than Carthane,” Dr Essouadi said, “all of us, and you, Mr Baudet—”
The door slammed open, and Edmund Ferrow walked into the dining room. He wore a suit in deep navy, his skin was pallid, the veins around his eyes marbled blue. He strode to a chair and sat at the table.
He was alone.
Fern sat up, alarmed.
“Mr Ferrow,” she said, “are you alright? Where’s Emmeline? ”
Edmund ignored her. He lay a napkin across his lap and poured himself a cup of Earl Grey, doused it in cream and sugar.
“Slept well, Baudet?” he asked without looking at the cleric.
Baudet frowned. “What does that mean?”
Edmund shook his head. “You’re right. We’ve come too far to play games, have we not? All of us?” He looked around the room. Fern met his eyes. They were utterly devoid of expression. Her skin went cold.
“Edmund,” Vasili Drei said. “What’s the matter?”
Edmund ignored him, too. He turned to look back at Baudet, whom he faced.
“Where’s my sister?”
Baudet’s frown deepened. His mouth twisted in a grimace. “Look, Edmund, I don’t—”
Blood exploded out of his mouth.
Fern barely had time to throw up her arms to shield her face. Her sleeves became warm and wet, splattered crimson. Dr Essouadi let out a hoarse gasp, almost falling over her chair in her haste to stand. Vasili Drei sat frozen, his face blank with shock—the first true reaction Fern had ever seen from him.
“Where is my sister?” Edmund repeated.
He sat utterly still; he’d reiterated his question calmly. Baudet’s blood stained Edmund’s face; he wiped it away with his napkin and stood, resting both palms over the blood-streaked table to lean forward.
“Answer the question,” he said. “Or things will get much harder for you.”
Fern’s hand had found the dagger at her side, but Edmund did not spare her so much as a glance. He watched Baudet, who had lurched up onto his feet and stumbled back, hand clutched on his mouth, blood dribbling between his fingers. His cross was almost black with his blood.
“What—what are you—”
Baudet’s voice was a wheeze; he could barely speak. Dr Essouadi stepped forward with a hand raised, but Edmund turned poison-green eyes on her, stilling her mid-step.
“I don’t wish to hurt you, Doctor. But take one more step, and that tumour in your chest will be a flower compared to what I’ll do to your heart.”
This was no idle threat, everyone in the room knew it. Fern’s heart seized as Edmund advanced upon the wounded cleric.
“My sister, Baudet. Where is she? I won’t ask you again.”
“I don’t—” Blood spluttered blackly from Baudet’s tongue as he struggled to speak. “I don’t know—I don’t know what you mean, I—”
“Do not lie to me.”
Edmund’s voice was a vice; it seemed to hold everyone in the room by the throat. Fern hardly dared breathe. Her heart was beating fast, her skin crawled with shivers, her mind scrambling. If something had happened to Emmeline, then Edmund was capable of anything. He had been abundantly sincere about his utter disregard for the other candidates—he would probably slaughter them all right here without so much as the merest flicker of remorse to stir his heart.
His heart, after all, was absent from the room. It was with Emmeline, wherever she was .
“You threatened my sister in front of me. Now she’s gone. Who else, if not you?”
“She’s probably somewhere in the library, Mr Ferrow,” Dr Essouadi intervened. “Please, you must—”
“I may not have your great prestige, Doctor,” Edmund said, “but do not take me for a fool. Nothing in this Library, nothing in this whole wretched world, could keep Emmeline away from me.”
He turned back to Baudet, who was scratching at his throat and had half-fallen back upon the dining table, plates and glasses clattering away from him. Edmund raised his hand.
An alchemical symbol began to glow into shape across the table; Fern only had time to spot a few of the inner symbols—iron, aqua regia, saltpetre, the Caduceus, for control over vital forces, and an alchemical retort, meaning an extraction process—before they formed and merged into a complex pattern.
Edmund was an alchemist of extraordinary skill and speed, the symbols obeyed his will, shaped into perfect accuracy, burning bright with power. Fear, thick and sluggish, roiled in Fern’s stomach.
“This is your final chance, Baudet.” Edmund’s voice was calm and deadly, and below the level surface of his voice, a black and terrible power writhed like Sumbra. “ Where is my sister? ”
“Please,” Baudet rasped through a mouthful of blood.
Behind him, Vasili Drei had drawn back against a wall and was watching the scene unfold with grim fascination. Fern met his gaze, and Drei gave a strange bow of the head, as though he read her intention and encouraged it. Fern stepped forward .
“Mr Ferrow,” she said, voice clear and level. “ Stop . I’ll help you look for Emmeline.”
Edmund turned to her sharply. “You’ll help my sister and I? The same way you helped Josefa Novak?”
Fern flinched at the naked implication in his words. “I would never—”
“You’ll do what you must,” Edmund snarled, cutting her off. “Just as we all will. Just as Baudet did.” The alchemical circle, fully formed now, seared the table with an audible sizzle, filling the air with the smell of burning wood. Spellcraft of this power would have sent Fern crumpling upon attempt, but Edmund barely seemed to feel it.
The dagger handle was cold and solid in Fern’s palm. She squeezed it and thought, suddenly and with complete clarity, of Oscar. Oscar, who had cared for his library and never felt the need to harm a soul to do so, Oscar who had been one of her only friends.
Oscar—who would have done the right thing and would expect Fern to do the same.
“Edmund.” Fern took three slow steps towards Baudet, standing between the burning alchemical symbol and him. “You’ve already hurt Mr Baudet. More violence isn’t the answer. Murder isn’t the answer. If someone is targeting the candidates, we need to tighten our ranks, not turn on each other.”
“ If someone is targeting candidates?” Edmund’s anger was cold and haughty. “Open your eyes, Sullivan. We’re going missing one by one. If you think violence isn’t the answer, it’s because you haven’t tried it yet—but you will.”
Fern let him talk but kept moving closer to the table between them, the coruscating light of it filling her vision.
“Killing Baudet won’t help you find your sister,” she said.
Edmund took an angry step towards her so that nothing stood between them now but his spell.
“What will?” he snarled.
I will , thought Fern. Out loud, she said, “Housemistress Sarlet has Sentinels posted all over Carthane. If she mobilises them, they will search the grounds ten times faster than we will. If your sister is here, the Sentinels will find her.”
It was what Sarlet had once told Fern herself, though of course Josefa had never been found. But this time, Fern would not leave the matter in Sarlet’s hands. She needed only to give Edmund a direction in which to aim all his wrath and terror. She needed to buy time.
“And if Sarlet fails to find her?” Edmund said, eyes flicking to Baudet.
“Then you may seek justice.” Fern’s eyes settled over Edmund, not aggressively, but with the immovable calm of a librarian. “Until then, you won’t harm anyone. Not here. Not now.”
Edmund looked between Fern and Baudet, and for a moment, the alchemical circle in front of him, replete with power, shimmered. At Fern’s side, Dr Essouadi and Vasili Drei had drawn forward, flanking her, forming a shield between Baudet and the alchemist. Edmund watched them, too, coolly, but without moving.
Perhaps he was weighing risk against reward, or instinct against wisdom. The scales were the steely grey of Fern’s eyes, the adamant of her tone, Dr Essouadi’s and Vasili Drei’s silent support.
Edmund’s arms fell by his side. The circle glowed, flickered, faded into smouldering dust.
“Should anything happen to my sister,” he said, voice low and deadly, “I will bring the Poison Tower crashing down upon Carthane and every soul within it. Starting with you, Miss Sullivan.”
“Then I can only hope your sister lives a long and happy life,” said Fern.
She had failed to find Josefa and Vittoria. This time, she couldn’t fail. Edmund’s threat was sincere, and should Fern ever find herself in a position to defend her life against him, the odds would not be in her favour. But she was closer to accessing the Astronomy Tower than she had ever been, and she would not give up.
Edmund, perhaps reading the determination in Fern’s eyes, turned and left the room without another word, without so much as a backwards glance. By the time Fern and Dr Essouadi reached Baudet, he had slipped from the table and crumpled into a pool of his own blood.