A Forbidden Alchemy (The Artisan Trilogy)

by Stacey McEwan

There were only two kinds of people in the world, and I’d known it before I could talk. There were the people like my father, who worked honestly. Craftsmen who were paid far too little for their long days in the mines, the factories, the farms. And then there were Artisans: the fortunate. The high-society swanks with their magic.

always the wealthy and the poor

A Scribbler’s cranny usually consisted of a writer’s desk with piles of waiting parchment. Artisan Scribblers were the source of all correspondence in Belavere Trench. A continent of Artisan magic had no need for boats and trains or birds to send messages, not when Scribblers could ink a page from many, many miles away with their mind alone.

Artisans must still require manual labor, and Crafters were gifted with what the Artisans were not—superior vigor, strength, endurance.

Ma used to say it was one thing to be down, and quite another to dig yourself a grave.

He shook himself from his reverie. “Well,” he said. “That fuckin’ showed me, didn’t it?” Patrick Colson liked to say fuck a lot.

But still, Nina didn’t seem to Patrick like a person vying for fame or glory. She seemed like a person who was running away.

She had blond curls spiraling in every direction, flushed skin, a thousand freckles, and widely spaced teeth. She had dancing fingers and dark brows that rose and fell with each word. Her hazel eyes seemed to see everything.

“There’s meanin’ in everythin’ if you look hard enough. There’s joy in it, too.

His eyes glinted. “You like me, don’t you?” Heat flooded my face. “What?” I blustered. “Ugh! You’re disgust—”

“There have always been those more fortunate than others, Thomas. It is the way of the world, however unkind. Not all can be trusted with power. It must be meted out carefully.”

the way the rich rationalize their shitty beliefs is always terrible

“They’re marked,” Nina said, her breaths shallow. “They’re marked for Artisans. For the ones… the ones they’ve already picked out.”

You’ve got a mind of your own, he reminded me. Don’t let those fuckers take it. Then he leaned down, pressed his lips briefly against my cheek, then walked through those double doors the way a man walks to the gallows.

it’s amazing how close kids become within a couple of hours

Later, it would be a litany. A lullaby. You were only twelve. You couldn’t have known.

“From this moment onward, you are Nina Clarke. Clarke. Nina Harrow has ceased to exist. You were born in Sommerland, not Scurry. Your mother was my sister, and she was an Artisan wood Mason. Her name was Greta Leisel. Your father was Frederick Clarke—a Craftsman from Sommerland. Both are dead.” Her words overlapped. She glanced over her shoulder repeatedly as she spoke. “Repeat it back to me, girl.”

Meanwhile, in a forgotten mining town far away in the North, rumors of fixed siphoning ceremonies would begin to spread.

I’d never thought of desire that way—that it was the wanting that consumed a person, not the object they sought.

“Well,” Theodore uttered. And from his pocket, he drew out two handkerchiefs. “Our headmaster is insane.”

That’s how it was from that moment onward: Theo leading me through runnels of apprentices, me basking in his glow. Hot drawing rooms and mad headmasters and the promise of passions big enough to consume. Big enough to kill you.

But I was an earth Charmer, and the title lent itself to higher praise than I was worth.

“I see his father often, you know. In the papers. Most believe he will be next in line if Lord Tanner ever relinquishes his position.”

ofc the first love has to have family ties to leadership lol

There was rarely a day where I didn’t. I’d taken to drawing his face obsessively, scared I would forget it. I remembered him slipping those vials into my pocket, kissing my cheek, whispering in my ear that I had a mind of my own.

I liked the way he packaged us together. But Theo was merely a sympathizer of the working class; he didn’t know what I knew.

i like that she is able to see the difference in their thinking patterns and how differently they see things based on how they grew up.

His lips were on mine, his fingers were in my hair, and I thought that he was right, and wonderful, and everything a person like me could hope for. And for a moment, I believed him. Together, we could tip the great scales of Belavere Trench.

“Good,” she uttered dryly. “Boys are fond of treating hearts like toys. Particularly the boys of Lords. I’ve told you this.”

aunt francis spitting facts

It never once occurred to me that I might try to stop the earth from breaking apart. There was only fear.

You’ve got a mind of your own. Don’t let those fuckers take it.

This is what it is to bury people alive. Then I thought, This is what they’ll ask of you. To bury the Union in return. Bury the Crafters. Bury the brink.

And I saw clearly the world divided in two: him on one side and me lost in the middle.

In my opinion, it was not so difficult to remain elusive in a country split apart. After all, I’d managed it for seven years.

In the days to come or perhaps in the days already past, I would be twenty-five. I felt both older and younger.

“You wouldn’t hurt me, Nina Harrow,” he said. “We know too much about each other. Don’t we?”

HA

“You know, for the first few days in that school, I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. I was terrified someone would figure me out, someone would talk. But I never worried it would be you.”

blond of my hair.

it’s so hard to imagine her with blond hair for some reason lol

All of it reminded Patrick of that courtyard girl—the one whose hand he’d held in Belavere City. The one whose cheek he’d kissed. The one he’d thought of every day since.

But you do know him, another voice hummed. It all began with him.

“It isn’t your business to know who I love.” But I said it to the ground, where there was no brilliant blue. Beneath my skin, blood raced. Silence. Sounds suffocated on the hot air. Patrick waited an interminable moment, until it was impossible not to look at him again. “If it’s all the same to you,” he said, low and exact, “I’m inclined to make it my business.”

Through a gap in the wreckage, Patrick held up a lantern and looked around. Then he stared at me like I was an earthquake, a specter of disaster.

“You and I have everything to fear. Do you truly believe that we won’t be put on the front lines?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nina, stop. Enough with this.” My voice was small. “Enough with what?” “With this… naivete! We aren’t children anymore.” I breathed, once. Twice. “What is that supposed to mean?” “Good God, Nina. It means we have responsibilities to uphold. Did you really think we could just hold hands forever and ignore what we are?”

oh dear i fear i hate him now

What seemed like the entire town chanted the Miners Union creed: From each what they can give, to each what they need. By dusk our work is done—at dawn we fight!

“I intend to put the rest of these boys to shame and spoil you for anyone else.”

“You’re too beautiful to be real,” he said suddenly, softly. With my ear pressed to his chest, I could feel the words, too. “There’s your compliment.”

“I drew pictures of you,” I told him, giving him this one small piece of myself. “In school.” He didn’t speak. Just pulled me round and round in a small orbit. I swallowed. “I was scared to forget you.” The sound of his heart beating made me think of caves under leagues of sea. “I never had a hope in the world of forgetting you, Scurry girl.”

“Well,” he muttered, eyes lowering to my mouth. “We don’t always get what we want.” And then he kissed me. Or perhaps I pressed my lips to his first. I was balanced on my toes after all, reaching, reaching, and then his mouth and mine touched, and it was whisper-soft and intoxicating. Unstoppable. I blazed to life.

“I’ll wake up tomorrow, and you’ll have been somethin’ I imagined, I’m sure of it.” And then his lips pressed to mine. Briefly, softly, and so heart-wrenchingly gentle.

Fresh tears slipped over my cheeks as I stared as this shadow of my mother. I felt the weight of every wall cave in on me. “What do you want me to do?” “Well, that’s where the complication lies, Nina. You see, we need you to find their headquarters, of course, in order for you to bury it. But you’re not to do so straightaway! You’ll need to bide your time. Earn their trust.”

i know she has an impossible choice to make but i still wish she wouldn’t make it

“You used to do that a lot.” He frowned. “Dance?” “Laugh,” she said. “Have fun. You were sunshine once.”

“You shouldn’t waste time hopin’ people will change, son. They never do.”

“Execution,” I said shakily. “For myself—and for my mother.”

I sank my face into the faded quilt and screamed myself hoarse, begging God to explain to me, just this once, why it had to be him, and why it had to be me. And the price of it all seemed insurmountable. All those men and women and children. All of it, for idium.

although i wish she could smart her way out of this, she really doesn’t have a choice if her mothers life is hanging over her head. she seems more human like this tho, so even tho it’s frustrating to know she will betray him, I get why she is making these choices

He heard her laughter, and he thought its sound could end a war.

😭😭💕