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.

His last missive said, ‘If the best of my creations has come to pass, then for what do I live now?’ ”

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

idium—it divides us. It’s a guillotine. Those in power will always use it to exploit the rest.”

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.

War, I’d learned, sapped gentleness from the core.

“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.”

And wasn’t that the true evil of war? That it didn’t have the decency to strip the humanity of those we killed? “I can guess why you’re here,