Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles by Karina Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

accomplished enough on my own, but he was, and it galled that he would not wave his alchemical wand and make it all better.
    A fool’s dream, and one I recognized.
    I was feeling petulant.
    “I know all this,” I said, collapsing back into my chair like a child denied a toy she wanted. “No, I
do
know,” I repeated when he only stared at me. “I just wish there was something. I want this all to be mended.”
    “Do you wish to leave London?” A mild question.
    A weighty one.
    “Yes.” Leaving London, losing this feeling of overburdened responsibility in adventure, had become something of a dream. All of my life, I’d thought only to leave London, explore the world.
    I had the opportunity. Having been absent for all these months, would anyone care if I vanished for good?
    But then, when he raised his eyebrows, I capitulated to the reality of my intent. “No. I wish to save Hawke. Apologize to Zylphia. I want to know that Ishmael Communion is alive and well, and I hope to give Maddie Ruth a life she can be proud of.” I hid my face. “I want to see Fanny again, and Booth, and Mrs. Booth too. I even miss that brat of a house-boy.”
    The tears that came too easy since the surfeit of my laudanum habit now overflowed, and bless him, Ashmore did not breathe a word of judgment. As he so often did, he simply closed the gap between us and let me cry upon his shoulder.
    I knew that alchemy was not the simple solution it seemed, and that the smallest of the Trumps could still demand a great sacrifice. I was sworn to secrecy from those who claimed to study the mechanical aptitude but had not truly been initiated into the exoteric truth by a master such as Ashmore.
    I understood that what I possessed was a small edge in a very large conflict, and not a panacea for all ills.
    Yet I resented Ashmore’s unwillingness to present me with an alchemical solution. I resented myself for the selfishness that forced me to ask, and the limit of my own ability.
    When I had ceased my irritating bout of tears, I blotted at my eyes with Lord Piers’s handkerchief and said with a watery smile, “We’ll think of something new tomorrow.”
    “That we will, minx.” Ashmore smoothed back the springy tendrils that had escaped my carefully bound hair. It felt nice; affectionate, but no more. “At least we know more about the Menagerie than we did before.”
    “Yes.” A small victory, but one that needed doing. I shuddered. “I would never have imagined that Monsieur Marceaux would be in attendance.”
    “Are you certain ’tis him?”
    “Indubitably,” I replied, caught once more in grim recollection. The mind was such a fascinating thing. To think that I had not remembered Marceaux’s face, the cadence of his overly French manner of speaking, and yet, simply by looking at him, I knew.
    And yes, even more deeply, I was afraid. Yet another new circumstance that I could not mask behind a bit of Turkish tar.
    Ashmore stripped off his jacket, as he preferred to be in his shirtsleeves whenever possible. I no longer took note of it, though occasionally the light would catch his sleeves just so that the symbols staining his pale forearms were clearly visible through the fabric.
    I bore the same characteristics upon the soles of my feet.
    Alchemical formulae, personal to each practitioner. Mine was a fraction compared to his. Given that I was but two steps into a journey of twenty-two Trumps, and he claimed at least four centuries over my limited practicum, it was no surprise that his tattoos were much more intricate.
    Ashmore, like all brilliant minds, favored quality over quantity. The basic equation etched on our flesh allowed us to draw upon the alchemical Trumps with slightly less threat to our persons. In time, I would form my own equations, as he had, and build upon the basis already inked in place.
    Mine may yet be longer, depending all on the nature of my alchemical calculations.
    “We know that ’tis impossible for me to simply