A Forbidden Alchemy (The Artisan Trilogy)

by Stacey McEwan

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.

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

intimidating. “All right, then we’re villains,” he said darkly, eyes piercing. “And we burned down your castle, if that’s what you need to believe. But if we’re villains, then Lord Tanner is the fuckin’ devil.”

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.

“We need to teach you to fight properly, darlin’. Surely, they breed quicker hands in Scurry.”

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.”

“Goddamn,” he muttered. “You might be the death of me.”

smiled. For the first time, the thought of using my medium wasn’t tainted by quiet shame, not with him. Patrick knew it all. He knew exactly where I’d come from.

“I intend to put the rest of these boys to shame and spoil you for anyone else.” My breath stopped. Why should my breath stop? “Says the man who can’t dance.”

“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.” His fingers traced a very careful line then, slowly up my spine and back down, and in their wake, they left a trail of fire.

“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.

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.”

think I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said gruffly. “So you’d better fuckin’ come out, Nina. Promise me. Now.”